Thoughts needed please - feminism, appearance and guilt

[Seaside1234]

I’m fed up with being overweight and feeling frumpy, but I’m struggling to reconcile this with guilt. My mother brought me up to essentially believe that I shouldn’t care about how I look, that it’s shallow and incompatible with truly held feminist views. She was a 70s feminist, but also had other issues that might have affected her opinion about appearance (almost certainly an unhappy marriage, and almost certainly undiagnosed autism - I was diagnosed at 42). In particular, I feel very guilty for wanting to lose weight. I’ve had binge eating issues all my life, and now have borderline high blood pressure as well as feeling uncomfortable and limited in how my body works. I have lost weight in the past, and felt much better and happier for it, but also felt guilty. I’m now 48, and at least 3 stone overweight. I feel frumpy and unstylish, but also happy to stay in my safe zone. Additional background- marriage is a bit of shambles, and I am essentially responsible for holding us up financially and practically (husband has a worsening drink problem).

Thoughts pls. How does caring about your appearance, and weight loss in particular, intersect with feminism in your opinions? I know it’s what I believe that matters, and that’s not related to how I look, but this underlying belief is very hard to shift and is limiting my ability to make decisions that would be best for me. Thanks.

I started eating more healthily & going to the gym (weights & cardio) because I want to be fit, strong & healthy, which involves losing fat & building muscle.

Would that be an easier way for you to look at it?

Gosh with that update about the job feelings, it's more like you were raised in Maoism than feminism. Like your needs don't matter and it's all about the 'greater good'. This is obviously ingrained but needs addressing and dislodging so you can make the most of the rest of your life.

This.

My take on feminism is I have the freedom to do whatever I want.

Please yourself, OP. That's the first rule of feminism.

That’s actually not what feminism is about. But in the OP’s case she probably does need to please herself a little more. Just that that is not feminism. It’s being an adult.

Guilt about what? Rejecting your mother’s values and in effect saying “Mum, I think you’ve got this wrong.”

This isn’t about feminism it’s about your fear that your mother won’t love you if you don’t live up to her ideals. What would happen if you straight out asked her “Mum, I need to lose weight for my own health, but fearing you criticising or rejecting me stops me. Can you just tell me if you think you could still love me if I was slim and fit?”

This is wrong and your mum was wrong IMO. Women are allowed to do what they want. That’s the whole point. Some women want to wear no make up, for example, others enjoy wearing make up - both choices are fine.

Why on earth would you feel you had to be fat to be a feminist?? Your mum has unwittingly set your thinking wrong. Feminism is about equality for women, not walking around feeling shit to - what? - shove one to the men?? It’s a bizarrely old-fashioned version of feminism.

If you want to lose weight, then do it. You’re doing it for you and you’re very much allowed to make choices that improve your health, make you feel good about yourself, improve your comfort - and simply because you want to.

I am not sure how me getting diabetes or knee pain smashes the patriarchy.

No. But women keeping themselves fit, strong & healthy is a feminist act as far as I’m concerned.

Thanks again for all your thoughts and opinions, it's extremely useful and interesting to read. I'm trying to get a better handle on what exactly the voices in my head have to say about this, while at the same time trying not to give them too much credence! My mother died nearly 4 years ago, and she had Alzheimer's disease for a long time before that, so this is really old stuff from when I was a teenager, and has derailed me many times before. When I did lose weight I felt much better but also guilty - some serious cognitive dissonance. Now it just feels like something I'll never achieve again, and shouldn't want to.

Surely the feminist response would be that there is no such thing as "should"!
Yes, look after your health. That's a given.
But as for appearance, do what makes you feel good about yourself to nurture your mental health. The feminist distinction surely is about whether you are doing it for You or for a man?

Caring about your appearance and more importantly, your health is crucial. One of the points of feminism is to take back your body from others approval or disaproval.
Being leaner and stronger will effect all aspects of your psyche, your body is you, stretch your capabilities and feel your strength, it makes all the difference in the world.

What feminists react against is stereotypes of what women 'should' look like.
But may I point out that many feminists wore makeup , Gloria Steineman Germaine Greer.
Eitherway please dont feel an obligation to anyone else or an idea you have about feminism re what you wear or how you look, but consider your health, first and foremost.

I'm so interested that no-one has any problems with the idea of prioritising their health. It's made me realise that I think trying to be healthier is self-centred and selfish, and that I should stop thinking so much about myself and more about others and the real problems in the world. I thought it was just about my weight and appearance, but the same thoughts come up about looking after my health. (And I'm a doctor.) I wonder how much I focus on trying to solve my husband's problems/fix him because I don't feel allowed to look after myself properly.

This whole thread has given me a lot to think over, thank you.

Your patients are presumably prioritising their health by coming to see you when they have a problem. Do you think of them as selfish? I bet you don’t.

I don’t think being a feminist means you don’t want to feel sexually attractive? Or for that matter just want to feel good for you. And if that is losing a bit of weight to you that is fine. Not to mention the health and energy.

You could of course loose a lot of weight fast by ditching your husband, by your description he might not be helping you much.

Binge eating BTW is an eating disorder and usually gets worse if not treated, so do yourself the curtesy of addressing that.

Most of the patients I see regularly are children, which is a bit different. I also have low tolerance for patients who seem to me to be making a fuss; I'm ridiculously stoical, probably related to the don't-put-yourself-first-no-matter-what-it's-selfish-and-silly mentality. I do deeply admire patients who are making serious efforts to change their lifestyles, I don't think of them as selfish at all, and I see how hard it is. But I think of myself as one who does the looking after, and should focus on their patients, not themselves.

I mean, no it isn’t

Although I’d agree most women could do with a whole lot more of that attitude, long as they aren’t causing active harm to anyone

Ah well you know then that is a load of sexist shit, that you aren’t worth taking care of, and you should be taking care of others. You gotta out your oxygen mask on first.

Caitlin Moran wrote a great article called ‘I know why the fat lady sings’ on why binge eating is the addiction of choice for carers - so they can self destruct without causing anyone else any bother. Worth a read.

Thanks @theduchessofspork , that sounds very interesting, will seek it out!

I didn't realise until I started seeing some of the replies here how deep the belief that looking after myself in any way is self-centred and must come after looking after the whole rest of the world runs.

The weight thing is just health though right?
Healthy body, healthy mind etc. There’s not a life situation I can think of that I’d handle better being out of shape than being fit. Just imo.

This

I would second what @MoveToParis said. Like you I have suffered terribly, down the years, with binge-eating and a sense that looking pretty is "not for me". My mother brought me up to think that people who looked like she did (olive-skinned) were physically monstrous. Unlike my lighter-skinned sisters, however, I looked just like her. They got pretty clothes and compliments. When I tried to look attractive, all hell broke out.

Academic overachievement was the only way I knew to elicit any love from either parent, and so that is what I did, until finally in my mid-forties, after she died, I found that I could not live with that version of myself any more. Duty will take you a long way in life, it's true, but it will never take you to a place where you feel strong.

What I hear from you is an awareness that you are so much more than your mother thought that you were. And I also hear the awful pain of this awareness as it emerges.

Like you also, as I stepped away from the locked box of her outlook, I realised that I needed to be in a much better marriage than the one I was in. Luckily my husband and I were able to work on things and make them better, but it takes two to do that: I hope so much that your other half either steps up, or if he does not, does not take you down with him.

This poem brings tears to my eyes and helps a lot - I hope it helps you.

Do.

Your Ma really did a number on you. You may want to seek out some therapy

I’m about to go to sleep so haven’t read through everyone’s messages but thought really saddened me, so here’s my take for what it’s worth.
I would seriously question how anything that will enable you to live a long and fulfilling existence, can be wrong. Feeling guilty after all must mean that somehow you think you’re doing something wrong. No belief, no matter how strongly held should ever mean you jeopardise your health.

I consider myself a feminist and the most important thing about that for me, is that I decide what’s right for me. I try and keep myself in shape for me. I like wearing nice clothes it pleases me etc.

whose life are you living yours or your mums? Have you ever asked yourself is the guilt because you think it’s anti feminist or is it because your mum led you to believe that.

I’m not certain I’m reading anywhere your strongly held beliefs, more about how caring about yourself had previously made you happy.
You are allowed to be happy. If you’re denying yourself a healthy and full life experience aren’t you simply making another prison for yourself?

Time to take charge and live the life you want. ❤️

I really think this is much more than a simple struggle with guilt. It’s very easy for brains to develop habits and difficult to stop them, you were for want of a better word, indoctrinated by your mother's firmly held beliefs, before you had the opportunity to discover your own.

You’ve actually summed things up here by saying your:
“conscious thoughts are consistently undermined by my ingrained beliefs”.

I suppose what you need to sort out is what are your beliefs and what is simply your conditioning. To do that as others have said you’re likely to need someone to steer you in the right direction. It can definitely be done.

If you could think clearly you’d see that being healthy is in no way anti feminist. Being the strongest version of yourself would in my view be what feminism is all about.

Don't know what's going on in your head, OP, but self-care doesn't conflict with feminism. In fact looking after your lovely female body by eating well, exercising, maintaining a healthy weight and looking after your skin etc would be a core part of valuing yourself as a woman.

What your feminist mother was fighting, back in her day, was the message she'd received that you had to look beautiful and youthful to please a man. That's the trap she didn't want you to fall into. You know, tottering around in high heels because men like high heels. Wearing loads of make-up to attract and keep a man. Showing your breasts or legs or bum in order to catch the attention of a man. Having botox and fillers because...

Take away that desire to attract and please men and you'll be fine. Look after yourself for yourself, because you only get the one body and it's precious — not because you need to please a bloke. Wear lipstick or paint your toenails to please yourself. You just have to think a bit: am I doing this because it pleases me, or am I doing it because it's in fashion and men will like it? Good luck.