Women's critical body talk

[Echobelly]

Obviously, there's lots of talk about women's body image, but one aspect I don't see discussed as often is the way women seems socialised to talk critically about their bodies in front of one another.

I look at this as something of an outsider, as I've never really had a close female friendship group, but I have seen it often around me, from women having the 'I'm so fat!' 'No, you're not fat my arse is so big' conversation, to slyph-like 14-year-olds parroting those conversations, to slim celebrities being quoted about how they hate their 'fat calves' etc because we're supposed to think 'See, they're just like us'

It seems to me that the message is putting down your body is part of being a likable, relatable woman, with the subtext that only a conceited, arrogant woman would say 'Yeah, my body's fine actually' . It does make me so sad when I see these teenage girls having these conversations, as they want to be adult women, and one thing they know is that adult women have conversations about how dissatisfied they are with their bodies... and when they have that conversation enough, they start to believe it.

Women arent supposed to take up any space.

Not physically, not bodily, and not figuratively.

This shit sells oodles of clothes (with no fucking pockets) , products tailored to insecurity and a constant need to reduce the self.

It also keeps women preoccupied.

Yes, I've heard the idea about women not taking up space before, it's an interesting one and I can see why could have influenced how we feel about our bodies.

I am also interested in the sense that women seem to often feel they have to slag off their bodies in the company of other women, it's almost like a bonding ritual. I wish I knew what the damn antidote to it was - I really want to teach my daughter (she's 10 now) not to get drawn into those conversations and that way of thinking. I wish there was a script out there for 'drawing your friends away from negative body talk'.

I am also interested in the sense that women seem to often feel they have to slag off their bodies in the company of other women, it's almost like a bonding ritual. I wish I knew what the damn antidote to it was - I really want to teach my daughter (she's 10 now) not to get drawn into those conversations and that way of thinking. I wish there was a script out there for 'drawing your friends away from negative body talk'.

The flipside of that is the many, many posts I have seen on here by feminists saying how much they hated their female body when they were teenagers and indeed some who still do. It shocked me. I'd never seen such unhealthy self- loathing.

It seems to me that the message is putting down your body is part of being a likable, relatable woman, with the subtext that only a conceited, arrogant woman would say 'Yeah, my body's fine actually'

Yes. This was one of a number of things that contributed to me feeling when I was younger like I didn't fit in with other women. Relatives on one side of my family are the same in both respects.

(Later I got to know enough people who just didn't spend much time talking about that stuff.) Even the attitude that one would like to change one or two things but otherwise thinking one looks fine, can be subtly implied as rude or arrogant, or when another person has a lot of issues, hurtful.

That recent thread about sizing seemed to be full of it. If you grew up thinking about these things in terms of health and practicality, it's there are some ways in which it's impossible to communicate on the same level with people who have so much more emotionally invested in it, because they feel hurt. There isn't a vocabulary to communicate a sense of neutrality.

But it extends to appearance in general though, and maybe other things. To me it feels like the same thing as when people can't imagine going to the cinema on their own, or walking through Selfridges in scruffy clothes and no makeup, or coping with a bad haircut until it grows back again.

Men do this too if you agree when they shout out that you're beautiful. You're not allowed to think you look okay, even if men are literally screaming it at you on the street. They'll straight up call you a stuck up bitch, so it's definitely about being perceived as arrogant for... liking yourself.

I've seen girls do this to other girls too (not supposed to agree that you look nice today or your hair is great), I haven't seen grown women doing it to grown women's faces but I've heard them saying it about other women.

This is sold to us as a self esteem problem but I don't really think it is when so many other people are trying to enforce it on us directly, let alone the impact of women just constantly doing it to themselves around us. I mean yeah, if all women developed some self respect it would end, but it's not the whole thing at all. But I don't know what defence we have apart from self esteem, apart from trying to shut down whenever we hear it, but there's so much of it and I can't see a 10 year old being able to do that.

I don't know about an easy script for your daughter, apart from changing the subject or saying whatever feature or person is fine and then changing the subject. I think the most important thing to do will be to tell her it's not rightand to try to never ever do it yourself.

Indeed. I think a start would be to say 'Hey, let's not talk like this and make each other feel down.'

Ultimately I think a lot of this comes down from the fact that we're basically only just emerging, in the whole context of history, from millennia of women being chattel, and where your whole value was how marriageable you are, which basically came down to how attractive you are (so as to increase your husband's social status/cachet) and we are having a hard time breaking away from believing that is our only or primary value as women.

And seeing as 'thin is in' (and make no mistake, the Kardashian-style hourglass is just another unrealistic archetype) 'fat' is the battlefield on which we often fight this.

I agree there is this pressure that women are supposed to feel they are beautiful and it's some tragic low self-esteem thing if we don't feel we are. There's no room for the idea that we can think we aren't beautiful but actually be perfectly happy, which is how I feel.

Self deprecation appears to be mandatory for girls and women.
Part of the basic misogyny conditioning children experience in every culture.

It's curious, certainly.

For my kid, we talk about how fortunate I feel to be comfortable in my skin and not concerned with what others think of my appearance. It goes hand in hand with my not being concerned about what they think of other aspects of me, like my character too.

I talk to her about how much easier it has made my life to not be anxious about that, and how much pleasure is to be had from going your own way. Also about bodies that are broken or damaged being sometimes hard to live in, so being super happy with bodies or bits of bodies that work as well as they can.

It sounds smug when I write it down like that, but I don't care.

I do also tell her that lots of times I didn't have so many good friendships around me as I do now, and that people often judge you if you don't conform. To me that's always been a convenient way to learn that they probably aren't people I am going to be close friends with, and that's ok too.

I see it slightly differently. My girls post pictures of themselves, and their comment threads are chock full of affirming words and emojis from their friends. I see a lot of really positive words - beautiful inside and out, and the like.

I struggled with my body growing up, and one of my daughters in the same. My youngest has some insecurities, but my eldest has always been supremely body confident - she has a figure like Marilyn Monroe, cellulite, curves all over the place, but not remotely Kardashian-esque, happy to post happy dappy pics of herself with her eyes crossed and was prom queen which she thinks is an absolute pisstake.

The women I work with will merrily discuss our bodies, but not in a running ourselves down way, just in a realistic "I like my boobs now that they've fed four babies and I know what to ask a lover to do to them" kind of way.

I've seen girls do this to other girls too (not supposed to agree that you look nice today or your hair is great), I haven't seen grown women doing it to grown women's faces but I've heard them saying it about other women.

I read Rachel Simmons' Odd Girl Out recently and there's a whole chapter about girls not allowing other girls to talk about liking themselves - anyone who does is ostracized as "thinking she's all that" and "up herself". Not sure I agree with everything she writes, but she reckons shunning the "all that" girl is a threat response - a confident girl will steal attention (from boys, teachers, other girls) , and worse, she breaks the "girl code" of being nice, modest, and putting everyone else first. This is an American writer so high school culture is a little different, but it's an interesting read.

In terms of scripts, not sure I have anything helpful but I vividly remember chucking the scales out when I caught my then 7yo weighing herself every couple of days and asking if that was "right". I took a hard look at myself - I'd just gone back to doing sports and was physically changing quite a lot; weight loss seemed so important and I must have been talking about it too much. I stopped tracking it and only measured time and distance improvements, and made a very conscious effort to talk about being pleased at being stronger, faster, etc. I still carry a fair bit of fat 🤣 and even more so after an injury stopped me training as much, so it's REALLY hard not to grouse about it, but neither of my girls ever mention weight. I am waiting anxiously for the subject to come up through school, though, and hoping we do enough sport to make the "stronger, faster, more skilled" aim more desirable than "extremely thin".