I love Gabourey Sidibe. She's a great actress. She's one of the very few visible feisty fat ladies in Hollywood. And she always seems so hilarious and cool.
But there's a quote from a recent speech she made to the Ms. Foundation that's been going around and bugging me. Not because of what Sidibe said about herself or her experience, but because of its reflection of our society.
[Image text: Sidibe pictured with her quote, "If they hadn't told me I was ugly, I never would have searched for my beauty. And if they hadn't tried to break me down, I wouldn't know I'm unbreakable."]
In running FacebookSexism, this is a popular sentiment shared by misogynists:
[Image text, a comment from "BIG SARGE" which reads, "Chick looks beat up without makeup. Should be illegal to use it as a disguise, you don't look like that."]
That's right...wearing makeup is now a "disguise" that should be illegal. "BIG SARGE" is not alone in this opinion. There are tons of iterations of this idea out there. It's trickery. It's deceitful, etc. etc. In fact, in Googling to read more on this topic, here's what I immediately saw:
To people making mean comments about my GG pics, I mos def cried about it on that private jet on my way to my dream job last night. #JK
— Gabourey Sidibe (@GabbySidibe) January 13, 2014
Obviously, I was thrilled to see her shut down the critics like this. In fact, I'm not sure I could conceive of a better response if I had a think tank of 100 feisty fat ladies and 8 hours to brainstorm together. It is playful, as to not give their ridiculous comments any real merit. It's funny so that her personality shines through. It's delightfully snarky as to remind everyone that she is a successful actress. And it highlights that no matter what people might say about her clothes/body, she's living a happy life.
Like I said, perfection, so Sidibe doesn't need me to come to her defense or any such nonsense. But this is a very clear example of what fat ladies in the media face when they dare to be visible and fat, so I'd like to dig in a little.
As you've probably seen (everywhere) Miss Utah, Marissa Powell, offered a less than eloquent response to a question on the wage gap and female heads of households at the 2013 Miss USA pageant.
[Transcript of her answer below the cut]
Far be it from me to think that Miss USA contestants and the pageant world are beyond criticism. But when this type of response (nothing offensive or controversial, just a really garbled answer) goes viral after the pageant, I can't help but feel for the woman.
As Linda Holmes said in a "slight defense" of Powell, these questions aren't designed to get at really hard hitting thoughts or views. They're about looking calm under pressure.
...the last thing I'd use to guess at whether she's smart is whether she can answer this kind of question "correctly." Because "correctly" here just means smoothly, expertly, without hesitation or stammering. Had she said, "What it says is that we live in the greatest country in the world, and every day I get up and thank my lucky stars that I live in the United States of America," she would not be in the news, despite having given just as irrelevant a non-answer. Had she said, "What it says is that family is the most important thing in the world, and we need to figure out how to help all families be happy families because it's the most important thing in the world," she would not be in the news.
But beyond this, what is our collective fascination with watching pageant contestants crash and burn? Why do so many people take so much joy in laughing and ridiculing women like Powell when they can't produce a coherent answer to a really strange and ass backwards question?
I suspect that the short answer is: misogyny. I mean, if the Twittersphere is indicative of trends in public opinion, there's definitely a level of, "haha stupid pageant queen is only good for her looks!" It's classic bullying and people seem to be getting high on the idea that in some way they are better than Powell. (As if they've faced the same situation.)
I know that as a feminist this is where I'm supposed to stand firm in my principles against pageantry and make some statements about the dangers of reducing of women to their looks and the promotion of a very narrow, specific beauty ideal. And trust me, I do hold those feelings.
But ultimately, right now, I'm feeling more sympathy for this one particular woman than I am rage at pageants. I'm just perturbed that society has created these systems which put women on display, hold them up for public scrutiny/admiration/ogling, considers them frivolous, and then openly mocks them when they are frivolous. Where the hell is there a comparable system for men? Rather than scorn Powell and women like her for their participation in this; I scorn the patriarchy for creating it.
Marissa Powell isn't running for office or in charge of a fortune 500 company. She's the current reigning Miss Utah. Let her be.
It absolutely amazes me how demonized and hated fat women are. Take this piece by Michael Young, "Male Privilege and Transitioning from a Fat Woman to Fat Man." He writes,
When I was perceived to be a fat woman, there was a real sense of not just disgust, but a poisonous, malignant contempt. People (most commonly men) commented on my appearance like I somehow owed it to them to be, in their view, attractive. Like I was breaking some kind of cardinal rule because I was happy with my body without their approval. Now, in complete contrast, I am barely given a second glance.
The people who get angriest about fat girls looking good and feeling hot are the people who are the most strongly invested in the idea that a person has to be skinny in order to be happy, healthy, and loved.
Very often it’s people just projecting their own body-loathing onto someone else; if you’re truly comfortable and confident in your own skin, it shouldn’t make a difference to you what anyone else is wearing, or how they look. It only affects you if it’s making you question your assumptions, about both other people and about yourself.
A couple of things I encountered recently got my wheels turning.
First, I've been reading Cunt and one of the things that Inga Muscio discusses is how western cis women have been socialized to find their menstrual cycles disgusting, shameful, and unwanted. She learns about a different society that celebrates menstruation through menarche parties. She postulates about the change that could be made in how we feel about our cycles if we embraced such an outlook.
Yes,so many people have them. Fat people have them.Thin people have them. Models have them. Athletes have them. VS Angels have them. Men, women, and those who don’t fit the gender
binary. Young, old, and anywhere in between. Anyone can get them, and many do.
They appear when skin stretches due to various types of growth, andeverybody grows, so they’re more common than you might think.
And it's true. I don't think I know many people who don't have at least a few stretch marks. So I couldn't help but take Muscio's line of thinking and wonder, what if stretch marks were revered? What if they were badges of honor? After all, for many bodies, they symbolize growing up, the passing of time, maturing, and/or creating new life.
Unfortunately, our culture didn't take that path. We are deeply misogynistic, fatphobic, and youth obsessed, so stretch marks are seen as "imperfections." But when you really, really think about it--why should the natural way that the body reacts to change be seen as imperfect? In reality, it's a perfect adaptation to allow growth and change.
So, seriously...what if we all decided that things like wrinkles and stretch marks shouldn't be dreaded, fussed over, and covered? What if we decided they were awesome?
Can you even get your mind in that place? It's hard, I know. But I imagine that in that world, teen girls would say stuff like, "Oh my gosh, Beth, your skin is so beautifully striped!" instead of "I hate my nasty stretch marks!" The entire anti-aging and stretch mark lotion industries would collapse. Many more people would feel comfortable in their bodies. We'd be proud of the changes that time takes on us, instead of deeply ashamed. And I suspect we'd probably stop thinking about our bodies in terms of minimizing imperfections.
You have, no doubt, heard about Willow Smith's hair lately. It's been all over the feminist blogosphere because Jada Pinkett Smith wrote an amazing response to the criticism that she "let" Willow do her hair any way that she would like. Among the many amazing things she said, she wrote,
This is a world where women,girls are constantly reminded that they don’t belong to themselves; that their bodies are not their own, nor their power or self determination. I made a promise to endow my little girl with the power to always know that her body, spirit and her mind are HER domain.
Oy. I can certainly tell that my event is next week. I haven't had a chance to stop and write anything much lately. But I'm here now and that's what counts! Plus, I found out this week that I received a promotion and after the event, my work will change. I'm really excited about it.
Ah, but that is all neither here nor there. What is on my mind right now is the idea that a woman's worth in society is directly proportional to how much your average dude wants to have sex with her. In plain language like that, it might sound a bit odd, but when you think about it, it's clear. We all know that there is an expectation on all women to look a "certain" way. In turn, that certain way becomes the particular look that most men are socialized to find attractive. Women who look this way, whether they actively try to or not, are playing by the rules and are subsequently rewarded for their looks.
So really, at the end of the day, a woman's value is unfairly reduced to her fuckability. But let me back up. I started to think about this in reading Lesley's Kinzel's Two Whole Cakes last week. She says,
TW eating disorder; body talk
In my creation of my new Tumblr, I've been paying really close attention to the images that are shared on Facebook. I've found a ton of fodder for my project, but I've also noticed a few things which have caught my eye for other reasons. One such image is floating around and making me cringe. It's not necessarily sexist, but it is really triggering when it comes to eating disorders. I've included it under the cut.
Much like my MIB3 post, I've delayed and delayed writing on Snow White and the Huntsman. When I saw the movie, I didn't really feel compelled to add anything to the dialogue about it. (Or lack of dialogue about it, I'm not sure.) Plus, it just didn't really move me to write.
But now that it has simmered in my brain for a few weeks, I figured I'd take a stab at sorting out what exactly went down between the ladies in the film.
Sociological Images has up a story about "reverse photoshopping." It's really interesting and you should absolutely check it out. Apparently, reverse photoshopping "is the practice of photoshopping models to hide the health and aesthetic costs of extreme thinness." (For what it's worth, I think photoshopping is photoshopping and I think the "reverse" is a bit of a misnomer.)
Anyway, they site this image of Cameron Diaz:
While the image of Diaz is not extreme, the differences are noticeable, particularly through the filling out of her thighs and waist. Here's a quote from the article about the lengths this retouching goes to when non-celebrity models are extremely thin:
Thanks to retouching, our readers… never saw the horrible, hungry downside of skinny. That these underweight girls didn’t look glamorous in the flesh. Their skeletal bodies, dull, thinning hair, spots and dark circles under their eyes were magicked away by technology, leaving only the allure of coltish limbs and Bambi eyes.
This is pretty revealing. I don't want to shame anyone's body and suggest that the extremely thin models are disgusting, but I think we can all agree that these changes don't send a realistic message to society.
To me, this stands as further proof that as a woman, you just can't win. The issue here is two fold.
1) Stereotypical models' bodies which conform to the traditional beauty standard of thinness are still not good enough. So they are change. And, just like always, the images we are left with are, for all intents and purposes, fake.
2) It erases the toll that extreme thinness takes on a person and perpetuates the myth that being as thin as possible is healthy and best. It's the creation of a mythical "perfect" person whose body weight is extremely low, but doesn't look gaunt.
I read several women focused/feminist online forums, and on one recently, a woman shared that a man told her that she's be a lot prettier if she wasn't so heavily tattooed. I've heard this said about people before and I'm sure that many tattooed women have experienced this first hand.
Tattoos are an interesting thing. Long considered taboo, they are becoming a more and more commonplace form of self-expression. They are self histories. They pay homage. They are art. They are stories. They are conversation pieces.
As I only have two small ones myself, I don't experience any tattoo hate, but I am regularly asked what they mean. I like talking about them. They are a part of my body and adornments through which I have chosen to express myself. Several of my friends and coworkers have large, beautiful tattoos which they consider central to who they are. So I can only imagine how insulting it would be to have this very personal choice critiqued. In fact, it reminds me of another extremely common statement: "she'd be a lot prettier if she lost some weight."
All I'm saying is that I fail to see what we gain from our tendency to buy into a very narrow, limited notion of beauty. The more I think about it, the madder I get at just how many people it leaves out. And I think it's pretty obvious that reducing a woman's worth to her physical appearance is extremely problematic. Not only is it objectifying when it's done to you, but it can have a devastating effect on one's self esteem, when internalized. Especially given that even the "prettiest" models are so heavily photoshopped that they don't look like themselves.
Besides, things like self-expression and our bodies are deeply personal decisions. If you don't like the way a person looks--be it because she has too many tattoos or pounds for your taste--here's a novel thought: keep your opinions to yourself. Chances are she's not doing it for you anyway.
I'm a little late, but I would be remiss if I didn't give a huge shout out to an 8th grade girl making a big difference, Julia Bluhm. Julia started a petition at Change.org asking Seventeen Magazine to "give girls images of real girls." As her petition reads,
I’m in a ballet class with a bunch of high-school girls. On a daily basis I hear comments like: “It’s a fat day,” and “I ate well today, but I still feel fat.” Ballet dancers do get a lot of flack about their bodies, but it’s not just ballet dancers who feel the pressure to be “pretty”. It’s everyone. To girls today, the word “pretty” means skinny and blemish-free. Why is that, when so few girls actually fit into such a narrow category? It’s because the media tells us that “pretty” girls are impossibly thin with perfect skin.
Here’s what lots of girls don’t know. Those “pretty women” that we see in magazines are fake. They’re often photoshopped, air-brushed, edited to look thinner, and to appear like they have perfect skin. A girl you see in a magazine probably looks a lot different in real life.
I visited my little niece and she is perfect. I also helped my aunt through an eye surgery, which was successful. All around a trip well spent. And one which gave me a chance to get a little inspiration for blogging.
You see, I have XM radio in my personal car here in Austin. As such, I can pretty carefully listen to whatever I'd like on the radio. But in Indy, driving my aunt's car, I had to listen to normal radio (yes I'm a radio snob.) And I heard this song by One Direction.
It's called "What Makes You Beautiful" and it made me FUME.
If you haven't heard about Ashley Judd's smack down on the media for making a frenzy about her "puffy face" then you are missing out. Check it:
If this conversation about me is going to be had, I will do my part to insist that it is a feminist one, because it has been misogynistic from the start. Who makes the fantastic leap from being sick, or gaining some weight over the winter, to a conclusion of plastic surgery? Our culture, that’s who. The insanity has to stop, because as focused on me as it appears to have been, it is about all girls and women. In fact, it’s about boys and men, too, who are equally objectified and ridiculed, according to heteronormative definitions of masculinity that deny the full and dynamic range of their personhood. It affects each and every one of us, in multiple and nefarious ways: our self-image, how we show up in our relationships and at work, our sense of our worth, value, and potential as human beings. Join in—and help change—the Conversation.
Yes, yes, yes. Y'all a mainstream celebrity just wrote the words "feminist" and "heteronormative" and "misogynistic." And people are listening (I hope.)
I've written about Ashley Judd before. While her activism isn't always perfect, I have to applaud her for throwing this smack down at the way the media continuously hates on women's looks. I mean, this is the exact reason that I write curriculum for girls that asks them to take a critical look at the messages we are being sent. All too often, those messages are screaming over and over You're not good enough. You'll never be good enough. How can little girls focus on growing up healthy and strong, finding fulfilling career paths, and positive personal relationships when someone, at every turn is cutting down their looks and the looks of other women? It becomes all too much.
So how refreshing to have someone call this shit out. Directly. Using her own voice and feminist words. Unafraid, unapologetic. A big fuck you. A much needed fuck you, in deed.
I feel like I'm seeing more and more of this type of thing: articles/blogs which celebrate bigger women, but sorta miss the mark. The one here, which I randomly stumbled upon (I know literally nothing about the site I just linked) is called "10 Incredibly Hot Women who are a Size 12 or Larger" and it delivers exactly what it promised.
Except...there are a few other messages I get with this type of curvy-celebration, namely now ALL WOMEN can be sex objects. YAAAAY!
But don't be TOO big. Or TOO dark. Or non stereotypically feminine. Sigh.
I know, I know. I need to appreciate these efforts for what they are, but I can't help but wish it could be so much more. What can I say. I'm a dreamer.
This post is a part of my “Out of the Kitchen” weekly column at The Progressive Playbook in which various news and pop culture items will be examined through a feminist lens.
This morning, I saw this ad floating around which claims to depict what Levi jeans look like on "different" women's body types, with the headline "Hotness comes in all shapes and sizes." (Clearly the subtitle should be: if you wear a size 4 or less.) Seriously, not to snark on these women, because this is not about their bodies...but they're all fairly the same. With the exception of marginally different bust size and butt positioning, they look almost indistinguishable.
Well here's something you never thought you'd see around here: I'm going to stand up for Zooey Deschanel. And that's a particularly big feat seeing as how Mr. Nerdy Feminist has been playing She & Him's Christmas album lately--and above all things I find hard to tolerate about Ms. Deschanel, is her singing voice. And someone recently sent me this.
But anyhoo, here goes.
I was just reading through Shakesville and came across Melissa McEwan's coverage of a piece that Buzzfeed did called "10 Scary Celebrity Close Ups" which featured this picture of Zooey.
GUH.
Like McEwan, I'm pretty disgusted that this is considered "scary." As she wrote,
...I don't see something "scary." What I see is proof of Zooey Deschanel's humanity. (Not that I needed any.) What I see is a tear in the page of the fairy tale of the Impossibly Beautiful. What I see is permission for women to give themselves a fucking break.
I also, for the record, see a beautiful woman. But my opinion of Zooey Deschanel is irrelevant. What matters is that there's no such thing as an objective beauty standard.
And then there's this: It's incomprehensibly fucked up that evidence of a woman's humanity is considered "scary," by any means of observation. But this contempt for visible humanness in close-up reveals something extremely ugly about the nature of objectification: People who want to fuck Zooey Deschanel express repulsion at seeing her face up close. "Eww—you got intimacy all up in my remote objectification! Gross!"
Yes, yes, yes! I might have many a gripe about Deschanel, but not one of them is about her attractiveness...except maybe that's she's too cute.
But while I find labeling her as "scary" to be bull, I have to admit I'm not surprised. It is so very in keeping with the MPDG thing to discard someone when they become real, or as McEwan said, human. The function of MPDGs is, after all, to make life grand for a boy. They're not supposed to have their own shit going on, like aging, which might have, I don't know, left them with one or two wrinkles. NOPE! They're supposed to be perfect, doting, endlessly inspirational muses to the art of life.
This is so annoying. We live in a culture where everything is so highly Photoshopped that we actually now consider a woman--who is widely regarded as attractive--as scary when we get up close to her. You might think that someone who has written about Deschanel in the way I have to get some sick, secret pleasure from this situation. But trust me, I'm not. All it does is serves to remind me that we, as women, are never, ever, ever good enough. I'm so over it!
So yeah, Zooey doesn't deserve this and neither do the other celebrities on the list. (And for the record that list is 9/10 women. I think that pretty much puts a nail in the coffin of the argument that this isn't gendered.)
