As I have read all of the stories of rape, incest and abuse here over the last few days – I have had a really crazy kind of response: “Why didn’t it happen to me?” Now that just shows you how sick our society is, doesn’t it?
As I thought about it, I realized that my story has the same roots, but just played out differently. And I think its important to see that objectification of women comes in many forms. So here it is.
As I entered puberty around 1967, I had to start taking birth control pills – not because I was having sex, but in order to regulate my menstrual flow. Most of you will know by now, that dosage in those days was HUGE compared to what is usually prescribed now. And either the side effects were not known, or no one told me. The result was that I IMMEDIATELY gained 30 pounds and found myself no longer fitting into the idealized vision of femininity.
Can I even begin to tell you how many times people said to me “Oh, but you have such a pretty face.” And all of the messages behind a statement like that came rolling in. Once a young man even told me, “Nancy, if you would only loose weight, you could HAVE any boy you want.” All of the rejection around this one issue became the defining identity of my adolescence. I was not “fit” to be a sex object you see – and that is what girls are for.
I have thought so many times as I read these diaries about a dream I once had. I have a sister that did fit the idealized version of what men want women to look like – and she was always “in demand.” In my dream, my sister and I are walking together and a man comes along and rapes her. He leaves me alone because I am too unattractive. There is a part of me that has always been grateful for the “protection.” But it is truly a double-edged sword.
So, for 30 years of my life, I lived in cycles of loosing weight by almost any means necessary, then eventually gaining it back – and always more. The shame of having no will power, discipline, whatever and feeling totally useless as a woman and also as a human being. The radar I developed was to be able to detect men who were going to totally dismiss me simply because of my weight. That means socially and professionally as well as sexually. It happened all the time.
And about 10 years ago – I finally broke free. I realized that it was actually the dieting that was causing me to continue to gain weight – and I stopped. Since then, I haven’t gained a pound. But more importantly, I’ve never been healthier emotionally and physically (all those problems with blood pressure disappeared without the stress!!). And maybe I’m just finally old enough to not care what men do or do not see in me – sexually or otherwise. I’m happy with myself – and screw them if they can’t see it.
In no way do I compare my experience with the stories that have been told here. There are times that being ignored is better than being noticed. Most of the strength I have been able to find in myself has come from that. But I just wanted to show that the effects of this culture we live in impact ALL OF US – in so many different ways.
Thanks to all of you who have told your stories. Perhaps this is the groundwork for a new kind of revolution – as we see how we got here and can begin to address some of the root causes.
I completely relate. I bet a lot of women here will do the same.
Because rape is about power and control, it can and does happen to women of all sizes and shapes. But I know women who are smaller than average are at higher risk, because all other things being equal they are more easily-subdued “prey.” So being large is to some degree a useful defense mechanism. It’s worked pretty well for me — 5’10”, and always, at a minimum, “large-boned” or “cornfed” or whatever you want to call that category between HWP and obese.
When a woman doesn’t fit the beauty ideal of her era for some reason, she’s going to hear in a thousand ways that her “deviance” is holding her back from a happy social life complete with males who are attracted to her. And it is so, so easy to fall into envy of the beautiful, to wish you had their problems.
And on the other hand, I’ve found it also all too easy to rely on my size as the excuse for not being happy, not doing what I say I want to do in life. I have wrapped my fat around me like an iron curtain. Escaping from that mindset has been incredibly liberating, and has had oddly little connection to what the scale says in any given year of my life.
Thanks for your diary. I hope it generates discussion, but if it doesn’t, I suspect it will be because people are sort of spent right now, not because your story doesn’t resonate.
Because rape is about power and control, it can and does happen to women of all sizes and shapes.
Thanks songbh, I’m glad you said this right away. I was trying not to imply that fat women are not raped. I know that’s not true. And yet I also KNOW in my bones, that for an awful lot of men I met growing up, the minute their eyes saw my fat, they dismissed me immediately – on all levels.
You know I think you are on to something here. I am a very tiny female…5’2″ and weigh only 114lbs. (high metabolism runs in the fam.) After my abuse I didn’t realise it at the time…but my self image sucked big time. I wore lots of baggy clothes to give the illusion that I was fat and hopefully not wanted, also to hide my body. I didn’t want to be leered at or looked at. I didn’t have that “ideal body” either…no boobs to speak of..flat and straight all around. My sister was the one with the rocking bod. 😉
I am so sorry that you were dismissed like that. God, our society is so screwed up!
Excellent diary, and one so many many will relate to.
I think it is like the other side of the same dirty coin of objectification. Heavy women are not desirable sex "objects"; men who have slim beautiful women have more status..etc.
My heart breaks for all the lonely girls and women who do as you did with dieting and trying so hard to be accepted, or do even worse, via anorexia, bulimia, addiction, etc.
This culture is SO screwed.
That you have emerged the powerhouse of a woman you are, with a spirit so beautifl it literally glows, says volumes about who you are and have always been, and what the guys around all along you have missed out on. So far, anyway. 🙂
says everything I was getting ready to say, but in about 10% of the words.
In the east, a woman’s greatest value is as a producer of sons.
In the west, her greatest value is as an object of sexual desire.
Will either west or east, or maybe even both learn that the highest value of a woman is the content of her character, and her brain, and her heart?
Children, both sons and daughters can be adopted. And in a world where so many children do not have parents, that is, in my opinion, the best way to acquire them.
When one falls in love, that lady is the most beautiful and desirable creature that ever lived. Why is so much value put on such a superficial and fleeting thing as desire for an appearance only? I am not saying such a thing is evil, especially in youth, it is a normal part of growing up, but it does not compare in any way to love.
I hope you will cross-post this on Eat4Today. (katiebird’s site is outtasite) Yours is a that will be of great help to others.
Another view of what happened to you is that you were spared, and that your suffering has given you an advantage of compassion.
Good work, NLinStPaul, and nice to meet you !!
Thanks for posting this, NL. From a different perspective, I’d say you were either in the right places at the right times, or perhaps you used much more common sense than I did. (I’m speaking only for myself, and this is regarding one isolated incident)
You see, in spite of the fact that I was perceived as being overweight and more of a buddy type than one of the “dateable girls”, I had been drinking in a bar from noon until bar closing, and while the “dateable girls” are more likely to be at a bar with their boyfriend or receiving the attention of more refined men, girls like me were targeted by predators, because we weren’t accustomed to the flattery and the free drinks and all the attention. In retrospect, I’m very fortunate that it only happened once. I can’t count the number of times I’ve had male friends step in to ensure my safety after I had consumed too much alcohol in my teenage years. (In small town areas back in the 1970s, it seemed that bar owners allowed us in at any age, as long as we had cash in hand to purchase beverages)
(I have many, many more experiences that weren’t quite as traumatic, but I’ve always felt that I was targeted for being “less than”)
And damn, girl, do I understand the comments about the “pretty face”. Oh yeah, and the dieting. Because even my tenth grade history teacher openly mocked my weight in front of the class. . .and at the time I was a size 9. I gained weight from there, and let’s just say the following years consisted of dangerous starvation, diet pills and bulimia. And then one day, I started looking into nutrition and realized at the rate I was going I wouldn’t be around for long.
I too, am comfortable in my body and in myself. And it sure helps to have a fabulous husband reinforcing those thoughts every day.
I still don’t understand all of the reasons I have been spared the kinds criminal sexual conduct so many women have had to endure. Maybe never will, but I go could on forever about the kinds of crazy things that happened to me because I wasn’t perceived as attractive enough.
I can’t imagine the humiliation of having a teacher mock me in front of class. Bless your heart!
I do remember my mom taking me to see a doctor because of my “weight problem” when I was in 10th grade and he prescribed speed – what we so euphamistically called “diet pills” at the time. So from 10th grade to graduation, I had an ongoing supply of birth control pills and speed. Too bad I was such a “good girl” back then.
Another thing I recently remembered was that I was fired from my first professional job after college. My boss was really searching for reasons during a conversation and told me that I had recently gained a lot of weight so there much be something wrong. Of course never mind that I was just coming off of an insane diet where I ate 500 calories a day and lost 30 pounds in one month!
Enough already tho.
If I started writing in earnest about fat, maybe I would write a great American novel. It is the story of my life. I was always a chubby child, but I was very physically active compared to now (used to play baseball almost every day, even in snow). In my teens I got into good shape (in 11th grade was in the top 10 for physical fitness for my high school of 2000 students). In my 20s and 30s I was normal weight and thought the problem was solved. In my late 40s I suffered tremendous emotional hardships, and now in my early 50s I’m back to being so fat I don’t fit into most of my clothes. I’m talking 5’8″ and 265 pounds, a walking heart attack.
Admit it. Just hearing that makes you cringe and turn your head. Makes you start to reconsider whether my ideas sounded as reasonable as you thought before.
Fat is a metaphor. Really fat means you have mental problems. It means you’re full of fear and pain and anxiety and maybe almost want to kill yourself. Or at least that’s what it means for me.
For many years, starting about age 14, I observed that my weight seemed to fluctuate with my emotional state. I’m not sure whether it’s the degeneration of our country, or something else, that has laid me low recently. I’ve got a little hope, but not much.
Nancy, I’m sure your story is very different from this. I ducked responding several times. I hope you don’t mind me dropping this honest but terribly negative report. I liked your diary.
You KNOW your revelation doesn’t make me cringe at all or make your thoughts here any less profound than I already thought they were. And yes, my story is different – but the pain still feels the same.
Your courage to put those numbers out there blows me away – something I wouldn’t be able to do. I know that I have felt the invisibility of this kind of communication and have found comfort in the fact that no one here can see me – and therefore judge me based on my size. Just writing that makes me crazy angry. And yet you and I know, from years of experience the reality of judgement and dismissivness that comes with being a fat person in this apprearance based culture.
One of the things I’ve learned from my journey with this issue is that we are fed a line in this culture about fat – how it happens and what it means. When in reality – its a totally different story for every person. Just as an example, unlike your story, I STOP eating when I’m really depressed. Some medical people are just beginning to recognize that WHERE your fat is on your body has everything to do with what kind of health risk it poses. And finally, one of my biggest awarenesses in this area was to realize that I am NOT fat because I eat more than those who aren’t. Didn’t get that one til I was in my 40’s. I’m convinced that my years and years of dieting have completely messed up my metabolism and/or have worked with heredity to do so. And in order for me to maintain a cultrually acceptable weight, I would have to continually starve myself – and that’s not a life I’m willing to live.
So I would encourage you, if you haven’t already done so, to understand your own story. And don’t automatically buy into the narrative that is presented to us about what fat means and where it comes from.
And finally, if you want to read a book that will blow your mind – get “The Obesity Myth” by Paul Campos. And if you read it – email me with your reactions or write about it here. I’d love to hear what you think!!
Hi. Sorry to be slow to reply. Lots of good excuses. Plus the fact that the topic makes me cringe and I can’t believe I charged in so openly.
Thank you for the link to Campos’s book. I haven’t read it, but I’ve heard of it, and I just read all the summaries and comments on Amazon. (My largest stock holding is Amazon, such as it is, and I always worry there are too many people like me who read the comments and decide they don’t need the book!) I agree with him completely. The outrageous BMI charts I see at my doctor’s always say I should weigh some ridiculoutly low amount, like 160 or something. Good grief. I’m half Scottish and half German. I’m built like a tank. If I weighed 210 or 220, I’d feel perfect, even thought that is “obese.”
However, I have the problem that I’m way beyond that.
Thank you for your kind words and thoughtful diaries!
Hi. I just wanted to point out–I haven’t noticed this yet in the diary comments–that there are actually quite a few scientific studies over the past few years that suggest that a large component of a tendency toward obesity may be a persistent virus infection. I’m serious! Forgive me, I don’t have the links, but it’s something you might want to look for. I’ve thought for a long time that that was part of the problem. Fat people have to WORK at it a lot harder than others!
Arminius – allow me to echo Nancy’s comments. After being with my husband for 25 years he has yet to see even the “enhanced” weight as shown on my diver’s license (“enhanced” to a point where I’ve crossed legal boundaries)
From 30 years of personal experience, I can’t help but remark on the (somewhat preposterous) combinations of ego, testosterone and “alpha male” behavior in the legal industry. In light of that, I’m even more impressed that you would share your story and your “numbers”.
In all sincerity, I don’t know any woman who would think less of you for your weight. (I certainly understand that those women exist – just not in my circle of friends.) In contrast, I would think you’d feel more pressure from your male counterparts, the ones who conduct their business at the gym, and flex their muscles (both literally and figuratively) in the office. I’m not sure if that holds true for your specific line of legal work, but it’s certainly the case in large corporations and legal firms – where appearance seems to be even more important than knowledge – no matter your gender.
I very much related to your comments about fluctuating weight. In my instance, I started out as a 10 pound newborn – and let’s just say it wasn’t in proportion to my height. After years and years of battling weight problems, I finally reached a place where I was comfortable – at the upper-most end of the BMI charts for my height. But then, in a one-month period I got hit with a double whammy of the death of my brother, coupled with the loss of my father to dementia. They were the only two family members who ever truly “got” me, so it was pretty devastating to lose them simultaneously. Before I knew it, I had gained 40 pounds, and I became increasingly uncomfortable leaving my home – let alone socializing or attending business meetings. And there’s something so awful about that look of pity from some of my colleagues. You see it the second you walk in the room, and it’s not too hard to read people’s thoughts. (“Oh my, how could she have let her appearance go downhill like that – how terribly sad.”)
So again, I thank you for posting your comments. I never judged you before, and I don’t intend to do so in the future. I couldn’t care less about a person’s appearance – it’s what they have in their heart and mind that’s of interest to me. And you sir, are a very intelligent, thoughtful gentleman. Bless you!
Anomalous, Thank you for your warm and kind words. Sorry to be slow to respond. I deeply appreciate what you’ve said.
I’ve had some health issues going on and before my sons back surgery he required such hands on constant care that I didn’t get much exercise either. It is strange being chubby. Once I was trying to get out the door of a store with my arms loaded and I’m having trouble reaching the door handled to pull the door open. I see a man approaching and he is coming in the store so I’m thinking that when he pushes the door open from his side he’ll probably let me sneak through on my way out. There is no opportunity though to use his open door, he is in and away in a flash. I swear I was standing right there 12 inches from him and it was plate glass between us when he was approaching and he didn’t even see me. He didn’t have one of those long white canes that he was tapping the ground with either, I was invisible. It’s weird spending 35 years as a thin girl and the last 5 as a fat girl. I don’t know if I’ll remain invisible. My health issues are resolving and I’m just about to launch an exercise program to gain back my muscle tone and strength………I have decided to take advantage of this “invisibility cloak” while I have it. It kind of obnoxious, people around me in the flesh tend to throw everything out there to me whether they feel like they like me or trust me or not…….then sometimes for various reasons they decide they need to kick the fat girl – but this fat girl kicks back and she knows everything because ya’ll have been acting like she’s invisible and a crying towel all in one.
The idea of our own Militarytracy being invisible or dismissed is more than I can, with my feeble ability, imagine. LOL. I guess it was only your arms being loaded that kept you from giving this man a piece of your mind for his rude behavior. Hope he knows how lucky he was!
A fat girl that kicks back – now there is an image that I will treasure!!
by Marge Piercy
Last week a doctor told me
anemic after an operation
to eat: ordered to indulgence,
given a papal dispensation to run
amok in Zabar’s.
Yet I know that in
two weeks, a month I
will have in my nostrils
not the savor or roasting goose,
not the burnt sugar of caramel topping
the Saint-Honore cake, not the pumpernickel
bearing up the sweet butter, the sturgeon
but again the scorched wire,
burnt rubber smell
of willpower, living with the brakes on.
I want to pass into the boudoirs
of Rubens’ women. I want to dance
graceful in my tonnage like Poussin nymphs.
Those melon bellies, those vast ripening thighs,
Those featherbeds of forearms, those buttocks
placid and gross as hippopotami:
how I would bend myself
to that standard of beauty, how faithfully
I would consume waffles and sausage for breakfast
with croissants on the side, how dutifully
I would eat for supper the blackbean soup
with Madeira, followed by the fish course,
the meat course, and the Bavarian cream.
Even at intervals during the day I would
suffer an occasional eclair
for the sake of appearance.
I bolded the above lines because that phrase comes to my mind so many times as a descriptor of how I lived for 30 years. How can we possibly take on the world when so much of our energy is being put into “living with the brakes on?”
The ways in which a male dominated culture disempowers women, thus keeping us “controllable” are endless. Then use of overt physical violence via rape and physcial abuse is but one of the more obvious. The state ofconstant alert we must all live in as the result of the prevalance of rape is another.
Setting narrow sultural definitions of beauty and “desirability”, pounding it into both men and women via mass marketing with all its clear and subliminal messages, then shunning and/or exploiting women who don’t measure up to it, is just as effective, if less obvious. And all of this has been going on so long, it has become the “norm” that is just unquestioninly accepted by most. Witness the number of men and women who see nothing wrong with sexist advertising at all these days.
There is only one reason I can think of for any male dominated culture to continue to do all of this kind of thing: they know if women were fully empowered, we could not BE controlled, and they are terrified of the power of women. We are a terrible threat to thier system of control.
Think about the power of the women here, and think about what we all, together, might have accomoplished, had we NOT had to spend two thirds of our life energy protecting ourselves and our kids, trying to measure up to what men want, and healing ourselves from things like rape and abuse. Think of it.
I think of it a lot. If I had been born a man, and had worked as hard as I have ever since I was a kid, would I now be sitting here at age 65, totally invisible to most of mainstream society, with a body wrecked by overwork, and no financial security at all? If all the energy and brains and creativity I/women possess could have been channelled into business or..say…POLITICS, do you think we’d be in the friggen mess we are in now, with our own brand of religious terrorists running half the government, and warmongers the other half? No fuckin way.
It is my honor to know you Nancy, in face to face life and to see how you are using your life force in the world. I am astounded to hear this story from you, because not for one second have I noticed you were not a size 6. I was too busy trying to absorb the scope of your spirit, your power and drive and your beauty.
And I am not coming back here for my next life. I’m looking for a place (another planet?) that is not a patriarchy, because I want to find out once and for all, what I am really capablle of.
Psst…Booman. Could you please rethink that rating system? I keep looking for the 10 and I can’t find it. TIA 😉
This has to be the best comment I have ever seen here in the pond. I will admit to being one of those that didn’t see how bad the “male dominated culture” was even though I was smack dab in it. I think that I finally became aware of it just before the “pie wars” and when that went down, Oy.
{{{nancy}}}
{{{scribe}}}
oh what the hell…
{{{the whole damn pond!}}}
{{{Cake or Death}}}
if women were fully empowered, we could not BE controlled
Yep, you got it girl!!
But if you want me to get really radical about this – I’d say that even many of us “liberated women” have been duped by the collaboration between the corporate/medical community with this patriarchy to convince us that this vision of the idealized beauty is also necessary for our health. The amount of money they make off of convincing us of this is astounding – all while keeping us distracted to boot. Game/set/match.
Damned right we’ve been duped. Not only about beauty, but about age. Why do so many of us view aging now as if was some kind of horrible cancer, to be avoided at all costs, literally? Have you younger folks ever looked around to see where most of the not-rich elderly women are these day?
Right here, with me, stacked up top of each other in little boxes, the only kind of housing we can afford, and segragated away from the mainstream, where we can’t remind anyone that they too will age, we can’t slow them down and most inmportant of ALL, we can be ignored and not heard. Because let me tell you, if there’s one thing evebn more powerful that fully empowered younger womens voices, its us old women who KNOW how much we’ve were duped and are ready to fight back bigtime, because we’ve no more to lose and everything to gain. We’ve had enough of internalizing this rage and have learn well how to channel it.
tell this story again. One of the duties of old people is to re-tell stories. We do this for your own good:
Not too long ago, I attended a Function. Among the female guests was a young lady, a blond, mainstream long legged fresh-faced sylph, she could easily get work as a fashion model. For all I know she may be one.
Yet all the attention was focused on a plump, you could say dumpy lady comfortably past the half century mark who was neither blond nor long legged nor fresh-faced, but something about her made every person there, male and female, want to talk to her. For one thing, she was very funny. Her conversation was brilliant, she could, and did, hold forth on a variety of subjects, but her charm was some indefinable magic thing that I neither can nor will try to explain, except that she radiated something, and that something had the young men wishing they were twenty years older and that she was single, and the older men trying to be subtle about vying with each other to be the next recipient of her twinkling smile and casting “you lucky bastard” looks at her husband.
Meanwhile, the blond goddess moved awkwardly through the crowd, trying vainly to find someone there who would not require of her more personality than she had lived enough years to develop, you could almost hear her wondering what went wrong, she had the “right” clothes, the perfect makeup, her blondness was enhanced with elegant precision, happily, she finally found companionship in the person of a young man similarly afflicted, and they mumbled self-consciously to each other the names of popular musical groups, but I was struck by the illustration of the old saying that a woman is as beautiful and alluring as she sincerely believes herself to be – for what she is, as opposed to how she looks.
Thanks for telling it again DTF! I missed it the first time.
Now, if we could only bottle that particular wisdom of yours and mainline it to all the young ones who are heading down the path of wasting so much of their precious time and energy (all while feeding the trough of the corporatists) in what will only be – at best – temporary beauty. (Oh my god, I think I’m starting to sound like you! Pretty soon, people will be saying – “I THINK I know what she just said.”)
but the wisdom of that plump matron, which is really nothing but self-love, which is everything.
In the words of America’s most underrated philosopher and unwitting theologian, Mr. Ru Paul Charles:
“Love yourself, love yourself baby, cause if you don’t love yourself, there ain’t no way you’re gon’ love nobody damn else.”
Ductape, you absolutely crack me up!!
Thank you so much for posting that verse, Nancy.
The first (and only) time my husband referred to me as “Rubenesque”, he was really taken aback when I started to cry. From his perspective, that was one of the greatest compliments a woman could receive. (Apparently, our beauty is in the eye of the beholder – and my husband would have been in 7th heaven had he lived during the Renaissance period. :^)
I am so happy for you that you found him!! Sounds like a really wonderful man.
I must say that years ago I pretty much gave up on that persuit. But if someone were to come along for me – who knows?? In the meantime, my life is as full as I can manage, and maybe I’ll take that one on in the next life – hopefully minus the patriarchy (Scribe and I are going to have SOME FUN next time around!!).
Forgive me for straying, but I felt the need to clarify something. In no way am I trying to deify my husband – or even the concept of “couplehood”. It’s just that I’d never mention him in anything but the best light. (To put things in better perspective, on our 8th anniversary he bought me long stemmed calla lilies for each year of our marriage, but the arrangements seemed peculiar because he had placed three flowers in one vase and five in another. When I asked him why, he said that the vase with the five lilies represented the good years and the vase with three represented the crappy ones. ;^)
We both really appreciate how lucky we are to have each other, but equally important to us is how lucky we are to have each of our friends – and we don’t forget that for one moment. Without the Nancys and the Scribes in our lives, things would be terribly incomplete, and life would be anything but fulfilling.
Good day, m’dear.
I could write tirade after tirade on this one. And my weight was the opposite in H.S. I would stop eating under stress. Not anorexia or bulimia – just not eating. My best friend was always on a diet and I would live on cokes and cigarettes.
The turning point on eating for me was in my senior year in high school. I sat next to the head cheerleader in a lit class (alpha last name seating is interesting!). Perfect hair, perfect body. She was the sweetest, quietest girl you would ever meet. She was terrified of being in public and was a cheerleader because her mother wanted her to be one. She wanted the guys to understand how smart she was and not just look at her body. I was jealous of her perfect persona and she was jealous of my being so smart. Interesting that the nerd and cheerleader became friends – just by talking.
This was at the time of the feminist movement of the 70’s. It changed my entire perspective on beauty. When we are comfortable with ourselves everything else is secondary.
Hugs to you NL…thanks for reminding us that being comfortable in our skins is first and foremost.
SallyCat, your story about the cheerleader reminded me of something my sister said to me once. This is the sister that is the idealized version of beauty. She told me that she felt like she had to work so hard to do things for people – so that maybe they would like her for something other than her looks. She and I are pretty much mirror opposites of each other – just like you and the cheerleader – and this was the first time I recognized that the grass might not be greener on the other side of this crazy culture we have going.
Well put – have to be comfortable in our own skins.