maybe a small sandwich

You ever have one of those days where it hits you like brand new that there is no way out of this? I can't think of one, and I have tried and tried.

This is human nature at it's most fundamental, I get that, and I get the rage on body shaming. I get that, it sucks when a woman doesn't conform to teh ideal and even more when she really doesn't, especially when it comes to weight. It's a nightmare, more of one that's in progress since birth for a woman, because the closer you get to the ideal the less nightmarish it gets, much like an improvement from being boiled in oil and now enjoy the Elysian Fields of slow strangulation: I myself aspire to an upgrade to dropping my oil temperature ten entire degrees and fuck the bitches who are gasping for air over there and tell my torturer how awesome the temperature is and those sluts over there created their own deep fryer life, turn it up by five degrees on them, right? and maybe I get another five degree drop because I am a fine daughter of the patriarchy and women's body's are public property because that's what they told me and they like me better now, five fucking degrees lower, fuck yeah, I'm almost in. To potential slow strangulation, one day, if I'm very, very good.

Or I might say "...this room has no door. Why doesn't it have a door?"

Context and original post: Maybe a 'Small' Sandwich

On an emotional level, I do get this; this is women's bodies and my God welcome to Hell there. On a vital self-awareness level, however, the gut-punch is the punchline at the same time: you will never, ever be good enough, and in case anyone, anywhere, thinks that even for a second, we as women have a duty to stop that shit.



Yeah, no, I'm okay with eliminating 'body shaming' from the list of insults I use toward other women. I'm crazy like this--literally--but perhaps instead of inflicting damage on any woman using the go-to weapons of the patriarchal model that requires an impossible beauty standard and enforcing or denying that model in a hilarious catfight that no one will ever fucking win (but is so good to watch; what men do to us we punish each other for, well done), we could go with dismantling that shit altogether.

It's much worse for overweight women, no lie; it's gross and stupid and highly misogynistic and it reinforces the idea that a woman's body is public property whose appearance must fulfill a specific standard or it's worthless. It's reinforced by media, by men, by loved ones, by everyone, and even better, even more awesome, we do it to not only ourselves but each other. If a woman manages--against all odds--to hit the sweet spot of female almost-perfection, it's like a drug of "finally, I'm getting this woman thing right" and for reasons (patriarchal) women who don't, can't, won't are totally fair game forever. So sayeth the patriarchy, and once you think you may be in, you'll do anything to stay there. Well fucking played.

Now, I've been both ultra skinny--due to genetics and suicidal depression but whatever, still fulfilled the model so 'eat a sandwich bitch' on one side and 'frigid bitch' when I wasn't drunk enough to not get away from a guy who found that hot shoving his hand down my panties from the other, yeah, the sandwich thing wasn't that a big deal in the greater scheme of mental illness and my life, I was way more worried about accidentally cutting too deeply into my wrists 'by accident' but I'm gonna admit it didn't help--and overweight due to medical conditions which why does that matter, it's my body, but that's the disclaimer I have to use for my weight 'why it's like this' in case its' not quite right because this is a thing that people are entitled to know, right?--'ever think of losing some weight' holy shit variety in sexism is magic this is hilarious but now at least I have the full woman experience, truly I have grown as a person--and I can tell you either way, this is how it works: being a woman, you're (painfully, constantly, always) fucked over, there's no way you can get your body right, and so now, I'm not willing to tell any woman, ever, "stop complaining, at least you get it with lube".

Generally, the goal should be to not reinforce the line of thinking that a woman's body is public property and therefore you are entitled to commentary on it or its lack.

But what do I know: I'm just a woman.

Please, go tell that skinny bitch to eat a fucking sandwich (you think you got it right? You don't. You never will.) while on the TV behind her the six foot supermodel with a major eating disorder and weighing 115lbs is lauded as the most fucking perfect thing ever, and the skinny bitch can call you a fat bitch who will never get a man (At least a man somewhere will maybe for a few short hours let me feel I'm doing this right, please God am I doing this right, what am I supposed to be how do I get this right but I know it's not you, I know that much, it's literally the only thing here I have to work with), glance at Vogue on the table beside her and the hil-larious website with pics of Wal-Mart shoppers and for fuck's sake don't have a single moment of self-awareness because that shit? That's funny. Send me a ticket: are we having fun yet? We've only been doing this forever; it'll never, ever, ever get old and will never, ever change. We're not going to let it.

She's the problem. Whoever she is. She will always be the real problem here.

Comments

[out_there]

*nodnodnod*

it's like a drug of "finally, I'm getting this woman thing right"

And that's it, isn't it? The idea of getting it right is incredibly appealing. I was just joking the other day about the three skills needed to be a "pretty girl" (hair, clothes, make-up) and my laziness/lack of devotion to managing to master those arts on a daily basis. Scoring myself as 1 third of a successful woman based entirely on my appearance to the outside world -- it's a joke but it's also how we commonly think about women and women's bodies.

[(Anonymous)]

'Gross' is the...entirely appropriate word, given its etymology.

Your analogy is my jam; body shaming ≠ navigating body image and fat in spite of a patriarchal world ≠ bloody punching up, Jesus Christ.

Please could you put some content notes or tags on your tumblr post? I went from casual morning scrolling to a panic attack in like, two lines.

[seperis]

I'm calmer than last night--being reminded of less merry times in my life didn't do much for me--so I'll take suggestions if I can't think of any.

[genarti]

I love your response. I hate that original post.

Yes, fat women have it harder, and more constantly. But it's still a horrible system that sucks for everybody, and striking out verbally at the people who get it a little easier is still lashing out at other women about their bodies.

[seperis]

I really wanted deeply to add "YELL AT THE LIVING ROOM TV TO GET IT OUT" because seriously, it's poison and getting it out somewhere is sometimes something you gotta do or go insane. TV's don't bleed; that's a feature, not a bug.

[nagasvoice]

Beyond a certain point of largeness and sheer height, not just width, it's obvious you will never, ever belong to the thin white princess club and you might as well give up ever getting that kind of respect--which is rather freeing, really. Eventually I realized I'd never be interested in it if I did qualify. It's boring, always tippytoeing around at other people's erratic command. Most of this anorexia crap is due to the peculiar tastes of one particular (male of course) fashion editor who's very proud of imposing his fetishes on the entire industry, and he's done it for long enough that now it's ingrained among the fashionistas and self-generating.
It'd be nice if somebody took over that position for awhile who liked models who belong in Titian's or Ruben's paintings, wouldn't it? OR how about variety? That'd be even better for business, really.
There's also a big difference in various subcultures. There's places where it's expected that you'll make some clever catty remarks to show wit, but there's other places where it seriously isn't a good idea. I never got in the habit, it would be inappropriate in my work environment. But then, the level of catty I've heard from folks in other places has been of the lawsuit level. We're talking, "I'm documenting this and reporting you to HR for repeatedly offensive behavior," level of not-okay.
And yeah, easy for me to say when my job isn't totally dependent on how I look. It's not true that smarts last better--particular skillsets can get outdated at the same rate as aging appearance can reduce your job choices.
Nevertheless, when somebody tries to tell me about colonic irrigation and purging diets, I just might mention reading some of the recent Scientific American articles on the self-serving lies of the diet and fitness industries.

[boxofdelights]

Relevant to your interests?
http://feministing.com/2014/08/06/why-meghan-trainors-body-acceptance-anthem-all-about-that-bass-is-disappointing/

[fyrdrakken]

So years ago I was on a feminist website reading the comments on a post -- I forget what exactly the post was about, but the comments were discussing the different reasons why men and women police women's appearance. One of the comments that really stuck with me was the woman talking about how she was built like a supermodel in her 20s, and what she noticed was other women telling her how much they envied her figure/wished they looked like her, while random men (total strangers, even) felt free to tell her how she needed to make little tweaks to reach total perfection. And then she hit her 30s, quit smoking, had a kid, and added some weight, after which point she had other women giving her weight-loss advice and became pretty much invisible to the men. She was actually pretty pleased with what she'd gained along with the weight -- strength, energy, endurance -- but found it interesting that when she neared "perfection" she was hearing from men who didn't want her to get too comfortable in her own skin or some other damned thing.

There was another commenter in the same discussion talking about how her father and brothers were the worst about constantly watching what she ate and pushing her to diet, as though she were some sort of status symbol for the whole family. (A trend in the discussion was towards the consensus that some of the pressure from women towards other women was about helping one's friends and family stay within the standards of the patriarchy (especially older women towards younger relatives), because the consequences for noncompliance could be dire. See also the form of female bonding that runs along the lines of complimenting each other while insulting one's own appearance -- reassuring each other of attractiveness while displaying an appropriate level of "modesty" about one's own body.)