Is fat a feminist issue? There’s quite an interesting discussion about it going on at Big Fat Deal. In one of many responses, Superblondgirl pointed out that “too thin” has its critics too. Does that make anorexia/bulimia a feminist issue as well? If so, we’d like to add breast implants to the list: These defective medical devices – profiting a billion-dollar industry run by men and regulated by a misogynistic FDA – are scud missiles directed at women, honing in on our most vulnerable insecurities and then, on contact, detonating health issues that, for so many women, have lead to life-destroying chronic illness and disfigurement.

But we digress. We could join the fray about which body-image issues should be labeled “feminist,” but the fact is, “Body Image, Period” is the feminist issue.

The root cause of all body image issues is the cookie-cutter ideal of feminine perfection perpetuated by a mainstream media that has found this fantasy to be the most efficient route to higher ratings, greater tickets sales or bigger circulation numbers. Media is saturated with images of young, slim, big-chested women, and for better or worse, we live in a media-saturated society. No wonder women feel inadequate – not thin enough, not tall enough, not young enough, not chesty enough… Face it, ladies, we, the vast majority of American women, are just not enough! But of course, with more women than ever in the workforce (about half of the total), more women than men enrolled in our institutes of higher learning, a new female Speaker of the House, and possibly a woman president in 2008, this must be, has to be, a ridiculous notion.

Which brings us to what feminism is about in the first place: It’s not about women being “enough,” but being respected for what we are in all our diversity so we can work, live and love on an equal footing with men. But this will never be possible as long as mainstream media’s narrowly defined version of feminine beauty and worth is entrenched in our popular culture and is taken to be an accurate reflection of that culture, which it most emphatically is NOT.

Witness American Idol, the weekly “cast” of which is selected by audience vote, and every year that vote has rewarded physical beauty to only a point and given the ultimate title of American Idol to varying combinations of talent and charisma. Of all the American Idol winners, arguably only Carrie Underwood could have passed muster with actual casting agents. The lesson here is that what the American public wants and values and what mainstream media gives us are very different indeed.

We largely experience American culture and public life through media, and it used to be that we were forced to accept what we got because we had very few ways to respond to or try to shape what appeared on movie screens, on TVs and in magazines. But times have changed. With the rise of the Internet, everyone has the power to challenge:

1) Through websites, discussion lists, blogs and all other electronic channels of communications, we can, like the blog Body Impolitic, promote many conceptions of beauty and other standards of worth.

2) Of mainstream media, we can demand more programming like Ugly Betty and more stereotype-busting casting like High School Musical and HBO’s As You Like It. And how about just plain more stories about real life (such as the Alzheimer’s love story, Away from Her, and Little Miss Sunshine) with actors who are no younger, no thinner and no more beautiful than people we see everyday in our own lives?

3) Finally, we can and should speak up as often and as loudly as possible to question commonly accepted beliefs in order to get nearer to the truth, beliefs such as “Only thin is healthy,” that “Breast implants are perfectly safe,” or that only young, tall, white, thin girls with big breasts are what people want to look at.

Body image is just one of the many issues women deal with every day, but it’s one that is intensely personal, can be intensely painful, and largely shared by all of us to varying degrees. Whether it’s weight or chest size or the shape of our eyes or the color of our skin, we need to recognize that no matter what the body image ghetto, the fount of this particular feminine evil is the mainstream media. Then, in a conscious, concerted way, women need to get online and use the blogosphere, use MySpace and Facebook, use all the Internet tools available to us to begin building a more truthful cultural reality as an alternative to what’s offered by Big Media, one that is more respectful of women, one that better reflects and serves our interests and needs, and one that will help us all cut through the bullshit of looks to focus on what we’re really worth.

~ Sybil and Mary

TAGS: society, body image, health and wellness, media