It would be inappropriate to say, "This makes me want to vomit."

[hermionesviolin]

At Shad (my work gym) yesterday, I saw a flyer for "Bridal Boot Camp." Do. Not. Want.

This morning, Scott stopped by my desk before class. He saw the "Shad March Events" flyer on my desk and asked me what I thought of Bridal Boot Camp (which was one of the ones listed there). He read me the description (which I hadn't looked at before).

Bridal Boot Camp will help you get into tip-top shape for your wedding day. It works because there's a deadline and no room for mistakes! This will be a total immersion style of training, with twice a week sessions and access to your trainer, ensuring accountability and success. Your trainer will motivate and train you the way you want to be trained. Get slim, strong, and sexy with emphasis on building symmetry and balance.

I said I understood the desire to look your best for this really important event which will be immortalized in photos but I'm uncomfortable with the idea of weight as a measure of health, and the idea that you have to be a certain shape to be attractive -- "get skinny and fit because no one will love you otherwise; oh wait, you're getting married, so someone already loves you!" I said my feelings on this are strong and probably unsurprising. He was in agreement with my feelings, which I appreciated.

I told him a little about an article I read yesterday -- about "fat talk" and how women "race each other to the bottom." (I told him I felt like this was one of the ways I failed at being a girl and that I was really okay with that. Though yes I'm sure I've absorbed some of that acculturation.)

Here's the excerpt I was gonna post to LJ yesterday but didn't have the brainpower for:

One of the things that I am really into studying, lately, is adolescent female friendship. It is this hugely complicated and fascinating thing, wherein girls create immensely powerful spaces of resistance, but also put each other through Patriarchy Boot Camp, and I am starting to hold the opinion that studying it extensively will reveal to you the Secrets of Life. I won’t go into all of that right now! But I will say that I have, recently, been reading a book called Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls, by Rachel Simmons. One passage in this, which grabbed me and blew my mind and suddenly made about a thousand troubling incidents way more easy to understand, was about how female bullies pick their victims. The author interviewed a whole bunch of girls about this, and she came up with a really good, really obvious answer. So, do you want to know how they pick their victims?

They pick the girl who seems the most confident.

Yes, that’s really it! In the particular seething cauldron of insecurity, unhappiness, and fear that is female adolescence, girls tend to feel shitty about themselves for about a million reasons, and to think that they need outside approval – from friends, from boys, from the culture at large – in order to be worthwhile. But if a girl seems not reliant enough on outside approval – if she doesn’t hate her body enough, if she’s too successful at getting guys to like her, if she’s not interested enough in getting guys to like her, if she thinks she’s smart or cool or worthwhile or pretty (or if she just is smart or cool or worthwhile or pretty, and it’s pronounced enough for the people around her to take notice) – then the wolves start circling. Because they’ve all been bullied, too; they’ve all been undermined; they’ve all made the mistake of standing out, at one point or another, and they’ve been punished for it. And now, because they feel like shit about themselves, you have to feel like shit, too. A girl who doesn’t feel like shit is a threat to the entire social order, the extensively complicated and crappy system whereby women have to earn their way into a pretense of self-esteem by getting enough approval from other girls or from other outside sources in general.

What girls learn to do, in order to survive in this particular dynamic, is to race each other to the bottom. It lasts for a lifetime. They maneuver, hiding the urge to matter and succeed under an appropriately self-loathing demeanor, so that they can get ahead and climb up without ever appearing to do it.

For example: have you ever gotten the Complinsult? It is a wondrous and immensely complicated thing, the Complinsult. Here’s one of the best I have ever received, which I keep close to my heart: “Your outfit is amazing! I think it’s so great that you can wear that out in public. I’d never have the nerve.” The words are saying “I suck and you are awesome,” and yet? That is EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE of what it means. Guys do this, too, sometimes, but typically only guys who are really adept at social maneuvering; girls tend to learn it earlier, and to have it down better, and to use it more, if my own personal experience is any indicator.

Or: the Fat Talk. You know about the Fat Talk, right? Lots of people have written about the Fat Talk already. For years, I thought this was some grody stereotype that you only found in male stand-up comedians’ routines about how women are awful. But then I met women who actually did it: the thing where, before ordering dinner at a restaurant, you all talk about how you should order this and you absolutely cannot order that, because you are so disgusting and you cannot stick to your diet and eating a cheeseburger will literally send you right straight to hell, and if you are the girl who straight-up says she wants some nachos so covered in cheese and guacamole and various meats that they might as well not even have any chips involved – just a big mess of meats and milk fat and squished-up avocados, that is the experience for which you are aiming, and also it would help if the entire thing had sour cream all over it – well, you just might have earned yourself a Complinsult about how brave you are with your dietary habits, young lady.

The weird thing is that, in this scenario, it seems not to ultimately matter whether you get the cheeseburger or the nachos or whatever: what matters is the extensive ritual of saying bad things about yourself, and contradicting other ladies about the bad things they have said about themselves, and giving each other permission to order the nachos, before they’re ordered. And if you don’t get permission to order the nachos, if you’re the one girl at the table who doesn’t get contradicted when she says she’s fat and shouldn’t be allowed to eat what she wants, then you know something is up. You know someone at the table, or maybe everyone at the table, has a problem with you. Which is why you don’t place your order without doing it: for a long time, I thought I was just demonstrating my good body image by ordering a cheeseburger and not participating in the Fat Talk, and then I sort of figured out that I was straight-up declaring that I was so hot I got to do whatever I wanted and was too insensitive to appease the body insecurities of my friends, who were (my actions declared) less hot than myself. I still think the Fat Talk is destructive and body-hating and stupid, and I don’t want to do it, but the way I get around it is to talk with the girls I have lunch with about why I think it’s destructive and body-hating. Not to just bypass it. Because that’s how self-esteem, and self-promotion, and social status, tend to work with girls: it’s a series of very subtle interactions in which you say you’re not good enough so that other girls can tell you that you are.

Comments

That's not the point

[shalanna.livejournal.com]

These types of conversations are not typically taking place between someone who is fat/obese and people who aren't, though. The girls who are size 0 and size 2 put on these acts about how they have to "be good"--meaning they have to eat only one piece of celery to show off how self-controlled they are--and they can't possibly "be bad" and eat an actual nutritious meal, even if small. These conversations are meant to keep everyone in line. IT really has NOTHING to do with "health" and all the excuses in the world make no difference at all.

Besides, if person X wants to order Y, what business is it of anyone's? Do they think she doesn't know she's fat?

If shame could make people thin, no one in this country would be fat. It is the final frontier of bigotry and putdowns. All this health talk is simply a new facade and disguise for the usual "fatty fatty 2x4" stuff. It's a "concerned and sooo niceypoo" way of poking and prodding someone so that others will feel superior to the "fattypoo." It's really a control issue.

I would like to lose more weight for various health reasons, and also because I'm tired of being hassled (I'm not hassled that much now that I am an old fossil and considered "Auntie Gramma" and so forth, but it hasn't disappeared). But all my efforts will be sabotaged if people carry on about Weight Watchers points and how awful it is of them to eat a piece of this or that, because that stuff is SO TRANSPARENTLY fishing for compliments and it makes me want to rebel. I am a born rebel and nonconformist in the true sense, and I have to struggle when I need to "conform" and do stuff just because people say I should or have to. "Teasing" as well as the Big Deal stuff is counterproductive for most of us.

And, again, most of this talk takes place among skinny girls who are somewhat malnourished, and mostly is aimed at girls who are just as thin or pretty much as thin. It's an attack to "subdue" those who might not be doing exactly what the crowd wants them to do. That's what it REALLY IS. Whatever you're doing for your own health, you're probably not enforcing on everyone--"DON'T DRINK THAT MILK! I'm lactose intolerant!" or whatever--and not being obnoxious. That's how you can tell if a person is actually dieting for health reasons OR is just playing this transactional analysis game with other women.

Duh! I thought people already knew all this.

Re: That's not the point

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

No, dude, you're right. And all I have to say about that is fuck that noise, you know? I'm not gonna play crouton count with anybody and I'm grateful that I don't have friends who do that shit. Like ever. And I am freaking grateful for it because I have observed the phenomenon from afar. My house is known as the place where Josh and Lorraine make some wicked gourmet eats in exchange for drinkables and I wouldn't change that for the world.

My main point here is that I believe that what I read as Elizabeth's reluctance to link weight and health at all is wrong. With love.

Re: That's not the point

[shalanna.livejournal.com]

No, people mustn't refuse to link weight and health. If only I could lose thirty more pounds, my endocrinologist says, I would not have active type II diabetes, in his opinion. He says I could stop worrying so much if I could lost FIFTY more pounds. So why don't I "just do it"? AM I trying to prove something? Am I just a weak, spineless lazy worthless self-indulgent jellyfish? Are there other issues at work here? Is it partly because of the steroids I occasionally take for other conditions, or the endocrine issues I have, or what? I don't know. All I know is that YES, my health would improve if I could lose weight. If I had one wish, I am ashamed to say, I would not use it to end world wars and conflict or make everyone happy or give everyone else in the world his/her heart's desire (which would probably backfire, as it does in all the fairy tales), but I would wish to be a size eight with no fat rolls or abnormal loose skin or whatnot. That is how important not being fat is in this society. And yet . . . and yet. I guess I *am* just a worthless etc., but at least I'm funny.

And I can play the piano pretty well. My teacher just said I'm advanced level. Not that the world gives a flip! But perhaps some fat people are worthy to live, after all. . . .

Re: That's not the point

[shalanna.livejournal.com]

Or perhaps it's because of poor reading comprehension . . . people see the word "fat" and they instantly can't read what is actually on the page and being discussed, but jump to talking about how awful they themselves are and how they realllly are baaad and all the reasons they themselves should lose weight and how this is all health-related and oh dear, they're doing to themselves exactly what was described in the article. . . .