You're looking good - have you lost weight?
Foreword, Robert Weetman, December 2006:
This article has been re-written numerous times, and I'm still not sure it says what I intend – but I'm frustrated that I can't find other texts on the internet that address the specific issues it covers. I've also been encouraged to persist by people who have found the point of view it describes to be helpful when thinking about their own body image. I'm very happy to receive feedback (some of which is available here) - and who knows, I might re-write it all over again.
Some of the people who have commented on earlier versions of this article have been concerned that I may be ignoring the relationship between weight and health. To begin with, I am interested to find that there is evidence that weight and health aren't related in the way that most people believe (see http://www.msu.edu/user/burkejoy). However, I think the argument made by this article makes sense in either case.
"You're looking good – have you lost weight?
"Ironically, the [beauty] myth that drives women apart also binds them together.
Commiserating about the myth is as good as a baby to bring strange women into
pleasant contact, and break down the line of Other Woman wariness. A wry smile
about calories, a complaint about one's hair, can evaporate the sullen examination
of a rival in the fluorescent light of a ladies' room."
- Naomi Wolf
"I really pigged out at the weekend so I’ll not have a biscuit thanks"
"Better not - thanks"
"Gosh I’d love to look like that"
"I'm on a diet I'm going on holiday soon"
"I used to be able to fit into…"
"How can she eat like that and remain so thin?"
Phrases like these are easy to hear in a great many homes and workplaces. In fact people say these things so often that such comments form part of the lifeblood of conversation – particularly among women. We've all heard them over and over again and in all social contexts. They fit into the same part of conversation as "nice day isn't it?" "have a nice day" "good morning" "how you doing?" "nice weather we're having".
"I have talked with women in surgical centers in Beverly Hills; on the sensual
beaches of Rio de Janeiro; in the gyms of Mumbai, New York, Moscow; in the
hectic and crowded beauty salons of Istanbul, South Africa, and Rome. Except
for a rare few, the women I met loathed at least one part of their body. ... Just about every woman believed that if she could
just get that part right, everything else would work out. Of course, it is
an endless heartbreaking campaign."
- Eve Ensler
It might be argued that these conversations are healthy and useful. Perhaps they provide people – particularly women – with a status and class free subject for discussion. One which anyone can participate in on an equal level. And surely there's nothing wrong with positive comments like "you're looking good, have you lost weight?"
I'm much more cynical about how power works between groups of people in society. If we look at human societies and groupings across the world, we can see that the most successful oppression takes place when those who are oppressed can be persuaded to participate.
I can't see "you're looking good, have you lost weight?" as a compliment. And I can't see the other statements as just conversation without any deeper meaning. For me the "you're looking good" statement carries with it a whole host of hidden messages to the person it is directed at which include:
"The Rites of Beauty are able to isolate women so well because it is not yet publicly
recognised that devotees are trapped in something more serious then a fashion
and more socially pervasive than a private distortion of self-mage."
"
Society doesn't care about women's appearance per se. What genuinely matters
is that women remain willing to let others tell them what they can and cannot
have."
- Naomi Wolf
"you didn't look so good before"
"if you gain weight again you'll look worse"
"if you lost more weight you'd look better"
"if you haven't actually lost weight you should"
"your weight and how good you look are linked"
"how 'good' you look is of interest and is important"
"you might be looking better, but you don't look as good as thinner women"
And the statement carries meaning to those overhearing it too, such as:
"if you are heavier than this person you don't look as good as them"
Each of the other statements carry similar hidden messages. For instance, "I need to lose weight before I go sunbathing" implies "if you are the same weight as me you shouldn't show your body in public."
"I am being brainwashed to believe that my appearance is the most important
thing in my life and that being thin and beautiful will influence all and
every area of my life. ... I feel furious because I cannot escape
these messages. They crawl into my mind when I am tired and worn out, when
I am half awake, when I am not ready to defend myself."
- Irina Diyankova
We are in a world (at least where I've lived) where every woman is continually reminded about how far she falls short of a set of unattainable, arbitrary, and contradictory ideals. Television, radio, newspapers, magazines, books, billboards, and even the fairy stories told to our youngest children offer reminders, (or statements) that the appearance of a woman is of fundamental importance – of more importance in fact than any other feature. Of course really deep down we know that this is just a myth. Really the relationships we have with those around us depend on a great many things – such as their friendship, loyalty, compassion, friendliness, competence, shared history, shared values or even just their politeness.
"There is
another solution, but it is more painful. And that is to let go of the power
over food in exchange for new forms of power. This means no more dieting or
putting others on diets, no more using or abusing self or others with food.
Letting go of our compulsive relationship to food and our obsessive relationships
to our bodies just might free us up do make an impact on the world."
Judy Lightstone
Unfortunately we are continually and incessantly being told that this myth is fact. Very many people come to believe that their worth and attractiveness will be judged very much by their body shape and their comparison against other ideals of beauty. They believe this even though they don't themselves build relationships on this basis (or at least stereotypes of beauty have only a minor influence at the initial stages of building a relationship with another person). They may feel like their beauty is worth a good deal of work and money, or they fall so far short of the ideals that there is little point trying (and their self-image does judging).
It seems to me that conversations about weight and size, and about diet and calories, carry this myth into almost every home and workplace. It becomes impossible to find an environment that is free of this myth.
Debora Burgard suggests that women might choose to ask those around them to observe a "body disparagement free zone" perhaps in a workplace. She imagines a space where women have permission not to put themselves down in relation to their appearance. This seems to me to be something worth considering.
(Part 2: A reply to a letter received in response to the article above)
Dear 'Joan'
Thank you for sending your comments. I'm glad that you found the "You're looking good" article helpful and thought provoking in regard to your relationship with your sister (and how she feels about herself). In reply to some of the points you make, I wonder if I might be able to add a little to what I've already written:
I suppose I'm thinking that there are two things going on in the situation you describe - and others like it.
Firstly, almost everyone can find themselves colluding with someone who is caught in the trap of valuing themselves according to body shape. If a friend or colleague asks "does this make me look fat" we can't easily give a helpful answer. Even if we think hard and say "fat isn't the issue - whether you look fat or not isn't important - what you are wearing fits you really well" we're not going to make the person happy. And if they say "I'm feeling blobby today, look at my tummy", how do we reply? "Don't be silly, you look great" or "yes it is what you call blobby, because that's what women look like." No - this won't do either. Some people resolve the problem by commenting favourably when someone seems thinner ( "you're looking good today" or "you've lost weight I think" or "no it really suits you" ), and by avoiding a direct reply or comment when the person is clearly bigger. Of course this just reinforces the person's idea that their body shape is important.
The second part of the problem is that a person thinking of themselves in this way cannot get away from the general social conversation about weight and body size. Even supposedly critical comments such as "it's really bad that the media is driving the current image of thinness being beautiful" actually cause damage - reinforcing the 'fact' that thinness is seen as positive. And the more common conversations about weight ( "she looks good doesn't she" or "I'm on a diet" ) are an even more direct reinforcement of the idea that thinness equals beauty.
I think it's worth really trying to understand what is going on here – because if we are going to fight back we'll need to do so intelligently. What I know about social and system change warns me that our efforts might actually make things worse not better. So I'd like to try to analyse what's going on a little more deeply.
Many women feel that their body shape is of huge consequence in their daily life – that they will regularly be judged by it. It is undeniable that pressure is brought on individuals by society in regard to their body shape, and that women are (generally speaking) disempowered by the social set-up. And few would deny that ideas about body shape are used by those who want to bully or disempower a particular individual, or that the effects of the social pressure on a woman's self-confidence can have far-reaching consequences. But on a daily basis, in terms of human-to-human interactions, I'm not sure that body shape is particularly relevant.
What makes one person like or dislike, value or disregard another is much more complicated and much more powerful. Individually, people respond to each other because of how they speak, their smiles or frowns, their clothes, their roles, their confidence and many many more subtle and powerful factors. Stereotypes feature just a little in that mix - only a very little. I value my friends just because I get on with them. I'm attracted to someone just because I am. I like working with certain people because we've created a good relationship. My friends, people I'm attracted to, and those I like working with aren't somehow more likeable, more attractive, or better workers on an absolute scale - it's just personal between me and them.
So my conclusion is that we're being sold a myth – and one that serves the disempowerment of women very well. The more we persuade women that they will continually be judged by their body shape, the more disempowering women find the myth of beauty.
What we must remember is that to look at only part of the truth is dangerous. In this case the fact that women are judged according to their shape by society is only a tiny part of the truth – and if we don't look at the rest we get a distorted picture. We also need to add that society disempowers women generally and, as a result, women are judged negatively on the basis of all sorts of irrelevant features.
What this means is that a woman won't necessarily escape devaluation (by society) if she changes her body shape – the devaluation will simply focus on something else. This is the same for any devalued group. The pressure of devaluation, can't be removed by individuals changing themselves; the problem is the devaluation of the group, not individual characteristics. For example, an individual in a racist society will never escape the pressure of that racism by operations to lighten their skin, since the devaluation isn't actually about skin tone. And if we agree that one to one interactions between individuals are little influenced by stereotype, then an individual person gains very little by changing their physical characteristics.
I find it helpful to think about what might be different for men. Speaking very generally, I think that men are taught to understand that there will be lots of people who won't like them, but what matters is that some do (and how we handle those who don't). There's little suggestion that men are judged according to one scale - going from 'bad' at one end to 'good' at the other. Most would understand that the whole thing is multidimensional – 'intelligent' is good in some ways but 'down to earth' is good in others; 'strong-willed' is good and so is 'takes instruction well'; 'wiry' is good, but so is 'well built'. In general, no matter how a man is, there are more positive than negative stereotypes for an individual to associate themselves with. So long as a man has self-confidence, he can easily build a positive self-image.
On the other hand (and again speaking very generally), I think that women are taught that the way society works for them is that there is a single scale. I even catch myself speaking about 'women who fit the stereotype', implying that there is some set of characteristics that would be seen to be 'good' – that the closer a woman is to this the better they will be judged. This is part of the myth. The truth is that a woman can't win. The whole thing is multidimensional – and 'improving' one thing always makes another 'worse'. A woman dressing to be more 'sexy' will be seen as less intelligent. More 'homely' is seen as less sexy. 'Rich' is assumed to imply 'spoiled' and so on. What is different between men and women isn't how this works, but how it is perceived to work. And generally I think that women are encouraged to judge themselves more by the negative images than the positive. So long as a woman has poor self–confidence, she can easily build a negative self–image.
Of course this leads us to the conclusion that self-confidence is of immense importance. If we, as individuals, build our image on the fact that some people like and value us, we can feel good. If on the other hand, we build our image on the fact that some people don't like us, we can feel bad. Self-confidence won't necessarily remove the many barriers that exist in a society where the balance of power is unequal, but it will encourage individual women to recognise that their personal physical characteristics aren't the issue.
If we come to see that it is the existence of the myth of 'beauty' that is the problem, we can start to see that its effects are all pervasive. Almost everything that is written about women, and almost every image, builds this myth. Conversations that reinforce the idea that the world works this way take place in almost every office and home. Even campaigns about body image can find themselves unintentionally reinforcing the idea that women are judged mostly according to their bodies.
So what does any of this mean for you and your sister? Of course I wouldn't ever dare to suggest I have any answers for you - but my instinct would be to agree with you when you say "I think what she needs from me is probably more holistic attention to her sense of self, approached through just spending time with her, listening and having moments that make her feel good." And although again I'm not sure I have the right to say it, your own opinion of yourself, and your mum's opinion of herself, will have a significance too. Are you - above all - proud of being yourselves? Do you judge yourselves by what people like about you? Do you collect positive comments (about you as a person) as and when they come your way, and understand that being valued by your friends and colleagues is the same thing as 'being valuable'? Do you disregard those negative comments and opinions you encounter as being an inevitable consequence of existing? Or on the other hand do you continually remind yourselves not to get ideas above your station? We all have moments of weakness (I occasionally flirt with the idea that having big muscles would be a 'good thing') but do you generally live and converse without reinforcing the beauty myth with little comments like "I feel like I put on so much weight over Christmas!" or "Why can't I fit my favourite jeans any more?"
Once again, thank you for your kind comments about the article.
My best wishes
Robert Weetman