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A review by bill369
Beauty Sick: How the Cultural Obsession with Appearance Hurts Girls and Women by Renee Engeln
Some quotes:
Around 90 percent of young women have no problem naming a body part with which they’re unhappy. About 50 percent express what researchers call a “global negative evaluation” of their body. The sense so many teen girls have of not being “good enough” is intimately tied up with the disappointment they feel when they look in the mirror.
Artemis even said she couldn’t really start “working on her brain” until she got her body where she wanted it. She laughed as she told me this.
I suggested that when she was older, she might have things on her mind besides the shape of her body. She found that possibility unlikely. “I try not to think about when I’m old, because I feel like when I’m old I’m inevitably going to be fat and I won’t be able to do anything about it. I’m still gonna be sad. I’ll be fat and I’ll be old. A horrible combination.
She feared that “nobody would ever like her” if she gained weight, and she was willing to do whatever she could to avoid that fate.
How can you have respect for yourself as a human being if you’re disgusted by such an important part of your own humanity? How you feel about your body’s appearance is inextricably linked to how you feel about yourself, and this link between self-esteem and body esteem is stronger in women than men. This is why, when people want to inflict emotional damage on a woman, they so often make a strike at physical appearance.
Today’s young women were raised to believe they could be anything, yet they are still haunted by the need to be pretty above all else. It has been over three decades since young women passed young men in college degrees earned. As confident as today’s young women may seem in the classroom or the office, too many are made anxious or depressed by the feeling that their appearance is under constant examination, because in this beauty-sick culture, it probably is.
Having the experience of being treated like nothing more than your body is unavoidable for most women. It’s a shared social experience all women know. No matter how different we are, no matter what our backgrounds, we know what it’s like to be objectified.
Then Ana hits the nail on the head. She tilts her head to the side, sets down her drink, and looks me in the eyes. “I’m concerned a lot. I worry, what if I view me as more about my looks than what I’m saying?”
It’s a strange world we live in, when a couple of inches of hair growth can fundamentally alter a woman’s experience of moving around in the world. But it’s consistent with everything we know about objectification. The more easily identifiable you are as a woman, the more you will be objectified.
He stood up and gave a slow clap, while reenacting the way he leers at attractive women he sees on the street. Aidala clearly saw nothing problematic about his behavior, viewing it as a sweet compliment at best, harmless at worst. Jessica Williams, a correspondent on The Daily Show at the time, did a fantastic takedown of Aidala’s arguments. After explaining that the sidewalk isn’t a fashion runway or a red carpet, she noted, “Since going to work isn’t a performance, we’re not looking for applause.” Williams was spot-on with her use of the word performance. When objectification becomes a routine fact of life, girls and women do learn that to some extent, anything they do in public may feel like a performance. They learn to preemptively smile so that strangers won’t demand they do so. They struggle to find that slippery boundary between being attractive enough to be accepted, but not so attractive as to draw dangerous and unwanted attention.
Here’s what I have to say to everyone who seems to believe that we should encourage women to feel body shame in order to promote weight loss. Even if you’re not convinced by all the empirical data reviewed above, why would you ever want to employ a health intervention focused not on caring for one’s body and treating it well, but rather based on loathing your body? Why would you want women to hate such an intimate and important part of themselves? What we need instead is to feel so at home and comfortable in our bodies that taking care of them feels natural and automatic. You don’t take care of things you hate.
I ask M.K. to imagine how her life might have been altered if she hadn’t sacrificed 90 percent of her brain space to body monitoring for so many years. “How would your life have been different if you had that brain space back?” I asked. “What would you have done?” I could see it in M.K.’s body language and hear it in her voice. It was excruciating for her to think of this road not traveled. “I would have had self-esteem, which would have changed everything in my entire life.” She continued, “I would actually have thought something of myself instead of nothing of myself. I think that I would have been very different in relationships with men.” “How do you think you would have been different in your relationships with men?” I asked. M.K. sounds disgusted. “I used to sleep with people just because I wanted them to like me. I didn’t value my body, so I just gave it away. I never thought anyone would like me enough to wait. And that’s the saddest thing in the world, thinking no one would ever like me enough to wait to have sex with me, to wait to get to know me. So I just gave it away, you know?” M.K winced as she finished. “If I thought more of myself, I think, I just can’t tell you how much I wish I could be me now and go back. Just to be able to go back.”
As the average woman’s weight has increased over the past few decades, female beauty icons like models, Miss America contestants, and Playboy centerfolds have actually gotten thinner. The scene on television is no different: One analysis of central female characters in eighteen primetime sitcoms found that 76 percent of the actresses playing these characters were of below-average weight. A different study of top network television shows (including over 1,000 major characters, 56 programs, and 275 episodes) found that 1 in 3 central women characters were underweight. As a point of reference, less than 3 percent of U.S. adult women are underweight. Magazine images follow the same pattern. Two researchers from Arizona State University once designed a study to test how viewing images of average-weight models would influence women. Struggling to find such images in mainstream beauty magazines, they were forced to turn to specific “plus size” sources to find pictures of models who were simply average-sized.
One woman wrote, “This woman looks sickeningly thin. You can see her ribs.” She followed those statements with “I wish I looked like this” and “How can I get this look?”
It can take some practice, but you really don’t need to give voice to every negative thought about your body that comes into your mind. Imagine if you’re talking to a friend and a critical comment about that friend pops into your head. You don’t have to say it. In fact, I imagine you usually don’t. Be as kind to yourself as you would be to that friend.
Over the years, as I gave talks to groups of young women, the questions I got asked most were “What do we do about this?” and “How do we make it better?” These young women wanted to know how to fight back against beauty sickness in their own lives. They wanted to protect the girls and women they saw suffering. I realized I didn’t have much to offer beyond a list of things not to do. Our list of don’ts was long. Don’t seek out media that features idealized, objectified images of women. If you must encounter these images, give them as little of your attention as possible. Don’t compare yourself to media images of women. Don’t fat talk, or even be around it if possible. Don’t encourage other women’s negative body talk. Don’t talk about other women’s appearance. Don’t choose clothing that requires so much body monitoring it distracts you from what’s going on around you. Don’t get sucked into appearance-fixated social media. Don’t pressure your daughters about their weight. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t.
It’s hard to appreciate our bodies when we live in a culture that tells us they are never good enough. But remembering what our bodies do for us is an essential first step in finding the ability to feel at home in our own skin. Though I’ve focused a lot on physical activity, remember that thinking about your body in terms of what it can do is not just about working out. You don’t have to be fully able-bodied to feel gratitude for what your body can do. You don’t have to run a marathon or complete CrossFit challenges to be worthy. That’s not all there is to your body’s function. Your body is home to all of the skills you’ve developed over your lifetime. It facilitates your important social interactions. The movements of your face express your deepest emotions. And the internal functions of your body, those you can’t readily see, are just as inspiring. Your body takes nutrients from your food and uses those nutrients to power you as you make your way around the world. How can a body that does all those things be disgusting or shameful? It’s the chorus of objectifying voices in our culture that blinds us to these wonders.
Colleen and I both agree that this is one of many reasons to tamp down appearance commentary directed at women. You never know what it means to a woman when you compliment her body. Praise that might seem simple on the surface can be loaded. When you praise her for losing weight, does that mean she was unacceptable before she lost weight? Does it mean that other women who are heavier than she is are not attractive? When you tell a woman you envy what you see as her ability to stay thin with little effort, do you have any idea whether that woman may be like Nique from chapter 12, exhausted from hearing others tell her she needs to gain weight? Or whether she might be struggling with an eating disorder? Or whether another woman who’s listening to you is?
Around 90 percent of young women have no problem naming a body part with which they’re unhappy. About 50 percent express what researchers call a “global negative evaluation” of their body. The sense so many teen girls have of not being “good enough” is intimately tied up with the disappointment they feel when they look in the mirror.
Artemis even said she couldn’t really start “working on her brain” until she got her body where she wanted it. She laughed as she told me this.
I suggested that when she was older, she might have things on her mind besides the shape of her body. She found that possibility unlikely. “I try not to think about when I’m old, because I feel like when I’m old I’m inevitably going to be fat and I won’t be able to do anything about it. I’m still gonna be sad. I’ll be fat and I’ll be old. A horrible combination.
She feared that “nobody would ever like her” if she gained weight, and she was willing to do whatever she could to avoid that fate.
How can you have respect for yourself as a human being if you’re disgusted by such an important part of your own humanity? How you feel about your body’s appearance is inextricably linked to how you feel about yourself, and this link between self-esteem and body esteem is stronger in women than men. This is why, when people want to inflict emotional damage on a woman, they so often make a strike at physical appearance.
Today’s young women were raised to believe they could be anything, yet they are still haunted by the need to be pretty above all else. It has been over three decades since young women passed young men in college degrees earned. As confident as today’s young women may seem in the classroom or the office, too many are made anxious or depressed by the feeling that their appearance is under constant examination, because in this beauty-sick culture, it probably is.
Having the experience of being treated like nothing more than your body is unavoidable for most women. It’s a shared social experience all women know. No matter how different we are, no matter what our backgrounds, we know what it’s like to be objectified.
Then Ana hits the nail on the head. She tilts her head to the side, sets down her drink, and looks me in the eyes. “I’m concerned a lot. I worry, what if I view me as more about my looks than what I’m saying?”
It’s a strange world we live in, when a couple of inches of hair growth can fundamentally alter a woman’s experience of moving around in the world. But it’s consistent with everything we know about objectification. The more easily identifiable you are as a woman, the more you will be objectified.
He stood up and gave a slow clap, while reenacting the way he leers at attractive women he sees on the street. Aidala clearly saw nothing problematic about his behavior, viewing it as a sweet compliment at best, harmless at worst. Jessica Williams, a correspondent on The Daily Show at the time, did a fantastic takedown of Aidala’s arguments. After explaining that the sidewalk isn’t a fashion runway or a red carpet, she noted, “Since going to work isn’t a performance, we’re not looking for applause.” Williams was spot-on with her use of the word performance. When objectification becomes a routine fact of life, girls and women do learn that to some extent, anything they do in public may feel like a performance. They learn to preemptively smile so that strangers won’t demand they do so. They struggle to find that slippery boundary between being attractive enough to be accepted, but not so attractive as to draw dangerous and unwanted attention.
Here’s what I have to say to everyone who seems to believe that we should encourage women to feel body shame in order to promote weight loss. Even if you’re not convinced by all the empirical data reviewed above, why would you ever want to employ a health intervention focused not on caring for one’s body and treating it well, but rather based on loathing your body? Why would you want women to hate such an intimate and important part of themselves? What we need instead is to feel so at home and comfortable in our bodies that taking care of them feels natural and automatic. You don’t take care of things you hate.
I ask M.K. to imagine how her life might have been altered if she hadn’t sacrificed 90 percent of her brain space to body monitoring for so many years. “How would your life have been different if you had that brain space back?” I asked. “What would you have done?” I could see it in M.K.’s body language and hear it in her voice. It was excruciating for her to think of this road not traveled. “I would have had self-esteem, which would have changed everything in my entire life.” She continued, “I would actually have thought something of myself instead of nothing of myself. I think that I would have been very different in relationships with men.” “How do you think you would have been different in your relationships with men?” I asked. M.K. sounds disgusted. “I used to sleep with people just because I wanted them to like me. I didn’t value my body, so I just gave it away. I never thought anyone would like me enough to wait. And that’s the saddest thing in the world, thinking no one would ever like me enough to wait to have sex with me, to wait to get to know me. So I just gave it away, you know?” M.K winced as she finished. “If I thought more of myself, I think, I just can’t tell you how much I wish I could be me now and go back. Just to be able to go back.”
As the average woman’s weight has increased over the past few decades, female beauty icons like models, Miss America contestants, and Playboy centerfolds have actually gotten thinner. The scene on television is no different: One analysis of central female characters in eighteen primetime sitcoms found that 76 percent of the actresses playing these characters were of below-average weight. A different study of top network television shows (including over 1,000 major characters, 56 programs, and 275 episodes) found that 1 in 3 central women characters were underweight. As a point of reference, less than 3 percent of U.S. adult women are underweight. Magazine images follow the same pattern. Two researchers from Arizona State University once designed a study to test how viewing images of average-weight models would influence women. Struggling to find such images in mainstream beauty magazines, they were forced to turn to specific “plus size” sources to find pictures of models who were simply average-sized.
One woman wrote, “This woman looks sickeningly thin. You can see her ribs.” She followed those statements with “I wish I looked like this” and “How can I get this look?”
It can take some practice, but you really don’t need to give voice to every negative thought about your body that comes into your mind. Imagine if you’re talking to a friend and a critical comment about that friend pops into your head. You don’t have to say it. In fact, I imagine you usually don’t. Be as kind to yourself as you would be to that friend.
Over the years, as I gave talks to groups of young women, the questions I got asked most were “What do we do about this?” and “How do we make it better?” These young women wanted to know how to fight back against beauty sickness in their own lives. They wanted to protect the girls and women they saw suffering. I realized I didn’t have much to offer beyond a list of things not to do. Our list of don’ts was long. Don’t seek out media that features idealized, objectified images of women. If you must encounter these images, give them as little of your attention as possible. Don’t compare yourself to media images of women. Don’t fat talk, or even be around it if possible. Don’t encourage other women’s negative body talk. Don’t talk about other women’s appearance. Don’t choose clothing that requires so much body monitoring it distracts you from what’s going on around you. Don’t get sucked into appearance-fixated social media. Don’t pressure your daughters about their weight. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t.
It’s hard to appreciate our bodies when we live in a culture that tells us they are never good enough. But remembering what our bodies do for us is an essential first step in finding the ability to feel at home in our own skin. Though I’ve focused a lot on physical activity, remember that thinking about your body in terms of what it can do is not just about working out. You don’t have to be fully able-bodied to feel gratitude for what your body can do. You don’t have to run a marathon or complete CrossFit challenges to be worthy. That’s not all there is to your body’s function. Your body is home to all of the skills you’ve developed over your lifetime. It facilitates your important social interactions. The movements of your face express your deepest emotions. And the internal functions of your body, those you can’t readily see, are just as inspiring. Your body takes nutrients from your food and uses those nutrients to power you as you make your way around the world. How can a body that does all those things be disgusting or shameful? It’s the chorus of objectifying voices in our culture that blinds us to these wonders.
Colleen and I both agree that this is one of many reasons to tamp down appearance commentary directed at women. You never know what it means to a woman when you compliment her body. Praise that might seem simple on the surface can be loaded. When you praise her for losing weight, does that mean she was unacceptable before she lost weight? Does it mean that other women who are heavier than she is are not attractive? When you tell a woman you envy what you see as her ability to stay thin with little effort, do you have any idea whether that woman may be like Nique from chapter 12, exhausted from hearing others tell her she needs to gain weight? Or whether she might be struggling with an eating disorder? Or whether another woman who’s listening to you is?