A Starting Over at 60 Blog
The other day I watched an Insta reel from a woman noting the return of skinny culture. Look at Sharon and Kelly Osborne, and their star-sought GLP-1-induced emaciation and you’ll see what she means. In numerous glamour shots, Sharon and Kelly pose, their gaunt cheeks and eyes betraying a misery a size 0 cannot remedy.
GLP-1’s and Tirzepitides have revolutionized weight loss, enabling those who can afford it or those whose insurance covers it (not very common) to achieve weight loss goals once only dreamed of. They have other benefits as well: reduced heart disease and stroke risk, decreased fatty liver disease, slowed kidney disease progress, improved fertility for women with PCOS (now called PMOS) and even potential anti-addiction properties, among other benefits. So these medications work, saving health care costs and expanding lives.
How have these medications shaped our views on female health, beauty and fitness, however? This is more complex and fraught with patriarchal implications. The male gaze has long defined women’s beauty, from the Medieval sexual connotations of gapped front teeth to the snatched waist and overly accentuated hourglass of the Victorian era. In many ways, social media has accelerated and exaggerated beauty standards, becoming more unrealistic with each duck-lipped selfie. No woman can keep up: thin, with curves, plump lips, gloriously flowing hair… these are the features of fantasy rather than female acceptance.
In the 1990s, body positivity gained momentum, largely because women were— and still are— tired of trying to fit unrealistic expectations. Brands began featuring so-called “large” models, sized 10 rather than 0. I remember laughing at the assertion that a 6’ woman wearing a size 12 was large. She looked better than “normal” to me. She was on the beauty spectrum rather than falling off the end.
As a woman who has inhabited a body that has both met and wholly rejected (not at the same time) the beauty standards of the moment, I get the battle. Chasing the standard results in never-ending treatments, refinements and fixations. Rejecting the standard, intentionally or not, leads to shame and self-loathing. Meeting the standard leads to oversexualization and objectification. Rejecting it leads to invisibility and rejection.
I know. I went through a crunchy grad school period eschewing all beauty standards. I stopped wearing make up, grew my hair out, stopped shaving (I did bathe, thankfully) and wore muumuus over my fat, misshapen body. I’ve written about the pain of this life period and other times I’ve struggled with obesity. I never want to be in this place again, even if it were an active resistance statement against the patriarchy.
I also was once the tiny, blonde-haired ballerina. I’ve never had my personal space more violated by men than when I was extremely petite. I’ve written about this before as well. Men, for possibly unconscious he-man reasons, feel completely permitted to lift small women in the air without warning or purpose. It remains one of the most inexplicable and bizarre experiences of my life. Many men view small women as having zero personal space. We are all Olive Oyle to Brutus’s flex.
Having lived both sides, I have struggled with beauty standards. Today, I am a healthy weight, petite but muscled. I’m also a lot older. Even still, I don’t want to gain weight. For health reasons? Yes. I feel better this size. For personal appearance? Yes. I like the way clothes fit my body better. I like the way I look in pictures better— though being short and unphotogenic mean I rarely like any pictures (I do understand why height is preferred for photography). I just like myself better the size I am.
But. Are these reasons to like myself really because I have consciously and unconsciously absorbed “acceptable” standards. In an opposite world, where skinny is not the “thing,” would I feel the same way? Would I say, “yeah, I know big is in, but I feel better this way?” I never learned to love my large physical self, though I came to appreciate my intelligence, creativity, courage and commitment to personal growth, though I never bought “I can love myself as I am” when I was large. So far outside conventional beauty boundaries, I never felt truly myself.
Does this mean, then, that I accept and have accepted the beauty standards derived from a patriarchal culture with patriarchal roles for women and a patriarchal gaze? Can I truly be a feminist if I’ve bought the perspective? Have I bought it?
I’ve known plenty of self-proclaimed feminists who’ve worked hard to follow the standards. Moreover, these feminists have judged my large self just as harshly as men and non-feminists. At times, when I expected understanding and support, women turned against me, even, for example, claiming I should not advance at work because I was overweight at the time (I’ve written about this too).
This leads me to believe that patriarchal beauty standards have become so embedded into the American collective unconscious, a Jungian term, that unraveling the standard from the patriarchal system is no longer possible. Jung believed the collective unconscious formed a blueprint for human behavior patterns and instincts. An instinct is bred into, something so fundamental it cannot be extrapolated from the being itself. It is the essence of being.
Which leads me to believe that the patriarchy has transmuted and perverted the human psyche and spirit. A big claim. But I believe it. As I’ve educated myself more deeply on the systemic damages of the patriarchy, I have come to believe even more deeply that the masculine cultural model never was an organic occurrence of history. Rather, it has seemed and continues to seem intentional. I’m not positing a white male cabal puppeteering social development. However, I am suggesting that men have sought actively to resist and overturn matriarchal models. Indeed, matrilineal and matrilocal communities in which descent, household leadership and inheritance passed through women can be traced back 12,000 or more years, a blip in the earth’s history for sure, but also long before our world’s earliest civilizations, which date between 4,000 and 3100 BCE. Indeed, scientists believe that matrilineal cultures predate patrilineal by more than 5,000 years to 12,000.
Ancient cultures certainly didn’t have the scientific knowledge we have today. We know now, however, that mitochondrial DNA can be traced to one singular woman. Mitochondrial DNA only is passed through the female line. When a woman bears a son, his ancestral connections essentially die with him. Daughters on the other hand retain and pass on the fundamental chain of existence. Women ARE the link. It’s interesting to note that our so-called pre-civilized, pre-historic cultures understood lineage better than Americans today.
Returning to the woman’s Insta post which inspired today’s blog, the patriarchy has imprisoned us. We are so removed from our matrilineal heritage that we no longer recognize our origin. The patriarchal gaze long took over the norm. For this reason, we need to change the language. Rather than beauty standards, we need to focus on health, wellbeing and safety. Rather than seeking skinny to be sexually attractive, we should aim for feeling good in our bodies, in healthy bodies. This awareness is one of the only ways we can resist. Our strength rather than thinness or frailty is the mark of resistance. Each time a woman seeks bone-level waifness, she concedes to the male standard. So women, love your body by finding its fortitude and form. When you find this, you will find your way home.
I would love to hear from you, even if, especially if, you disagree. Perhaps we can bring back the American tradition of debate. Please like and share this blog with others. Subscribe to receive it by email and go directly to the Walk the Moon website (www.walk-the-moon.com) to peruse the full collection of articles and updates. You can email me from the Walk the Moon website as well.
Please purchase a signed copy of my book using my publisher’s link below. You will receive the book at the end of the year.
Walk the Moon 