Why we must keep challenging the beauty myth

Written by Kat Schuetz, MSc Applied Gender Studies

This is the second of two posts by Kat Schuetz, see her earlier post here on affect and the feminist archive.

‘We do not need to change our bodies, we need to change the rules’, is one of the most effective sentences in Naomi Wolf’s ground-breaking book on diet culture, The Beauty Myth.[1] When I first read this phrase, I was grabbed by its clarity and force, encapsulating concisely the necessity to fight the structures of diet culture that discriminate against ‘non-ideal’ bodies and instil body-shame and self-hatred in women and other marginalised identities, instead of fighting our own bodies. Wolf published The Beauty Myth in 1991, and while awareness on eating disorders (EDs) and on the toxicity of dieting has increased, many are still trying to change their bodies, and the rules have not all changed.

In The Beauty Myth, Wolf argues that women’s self-esteem, their dieting and their EDs are political and politicised: ‘women do not eat or starve in a succession of private relationships, but within a public social order that has a material vested interest in their troubles with eating’.[2] Low self-esteem is hence not a personal character trait or failure, but is prescribed to women (of all backgrounds, though probably not with equal severity) by culture. Dieting therefore stems not simply from personal desire to change, it is imperative in contemporary diet culture which pedestals a rarely attainable body ideal, connects women’s (self-)value to their ‘beauty’, and in return promises satisfaction once the diet is complete, which is likely never or never permanently. Wolf, and more recently also body-positive activists like Megan Jayne Crabbe, argue that billion-dollar industries depend on women’s low self-esteem, promising their products will fix their bodies, only to cause feelings of shame and guilt when women inevitably ‘fail’ their regimen.[3] Wolf suggests that the hegemonic social order uses this to its advantage: ‘dieting is the most potent political sedative in women’s history: a quietly mad population is a tractable one’.[4]

In the foreword to the 2002 edition of The Beauty Myth, Wolf writes that ‘ten years later, women have a bit more breathing space […] to make the beauty myth their own’ and redefine beauty.[5] She notes that schools spread awareness about disordered eating, breast implant surgeries decreased, the ideal body image has been questioned, and societal beauty standards were implicated in the rise of EDs. However, since then, diet culture has gained new infrastructures and resources with the rise of social media. Wolf’s earlier demand to ‘keep our analytical gaze always sharp’ remains important to expose the sometimes hardly-visible body-negative and fatphobic ideologies of everyday culture.[6] Here I showcase actress Jameela Jamil who continuously highlights the normalised, harmful practices and endorsements by celebrities, for example Khloé Kardashian’s Instagram post about ‘2 things a girl wants: 1) Lose weight. 2) Eat.'[7] Jamil responded by pointing to the toxic environment Kardashian suffers from and urges girls to ‘want more than this’. Similarly, Jamil denounced Kim Kardashian’s harmful endorsement of ‘appetite suppressant lollipops’ which posit food as morally bad and hunger as to be negated and controlled; and has challenged celebrities’ promotion of detox teas as fraudulent exploitation of their impressionable, mostly young and female followers.[8]

Jameela Jamil on banning airbrushing, the Kardashians and her traumatic teens:

Channel 4 News, Youtube

Wolf further advocates creating a ‘personal counterculture of meaningful images of beauty’.[9] Enabled by the rise of social media, the body-positive community promoting mental wellbeing in connection to one’s body image as well as self-love and body acceptance, might contribute to such a counterculture. Body-positive activists like Megan Jayne Crabbe not only encourage self-empowerment and recovery, they also fight for the acceptance and equality of marginalised bodies. Crabbe is known for her videos dancing to upbeat music in her underwear, celebrating rather than hiding her jiggly belly and thighs.[10] Additionally, she posts nude photos with captions asking ‘how could bodies so magically made ever be wrong’, thanking her body, and reminding the reader that ‘your body is so deserving of your kindness’.[11] This embodies what Wolf calls a ‘radical rapprochement with nakedness’ as part of conquering the beauty myth[12] – an individual ideal, but also a challenge to rules of diet culture we should collectively address: which bodies are allowed to be seen, which bodies deserve respect, and which bodies are right or wrong.

The beauty myth ‘punishes virtually any woman who tries to raise these issues’[13] and both Jamil and Crabbe have faced sexist and fatphobic harassment. The rule(s) of the beauty myth have not been toppled, and we must continually challenge this by being loudly angry, instead of ‘quietly mad’, not only so women can make ‘the beauty myth their own’, but so that all marginalised bodies can exist safely, freely and equally.[14]  

Do you have a short neck?! Click here to read the second in our series of twin blog posts by 2018-19 Applied Gender Studies.

Notes

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[1] Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women (New York: Harper Collins, 2002) 289.

[2] Wolf, 189, 198.

[3] Wolf, see for example the chapter ‘Religion’, 86-130; Megan Jayne Crabbe, Body Positive Power (London: Penguin Random House, 2017) 42.

[4] Wolf, 187.

[5] Wolf, 8.

[6] Wolf, 278.

[7] @jameelajamil (Jameela Jamil), ‘This makes me sad […]’ Twitter, https://twitter.com/jameelajamil/status/1083211023018938369, 10 January 2019.

[8] ‘Kim Kardashian called “toxic” for advertising diet lollipop’, BBC Newsbeat, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-44137700, 16 May 2018.
Emily Alford, ‘Jameela Jamil Hopes Celebrities Shit Their Pants in Public’, Jezebel, https://jezebel.com/jameela-jamil-hopes-celebrities-shit-their-pants-in-pub-1830632582, 24 November 2018.

[9] Wolf, 278.

[10] Bodyposipanda, ‘I thought we could probably use some joyful jiggling in our lives right now […]’, Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/p/BO2yOb8gCvM/, 4 January 2017.

[11] Bodyposipanda, ‘i have my father's nose, my mother's jaw, my ancestors in my bones and stardust in my veins […]’, Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/p/BrN8qmCnO7J/, 10 December 2018.
Bodyposipanda, ‘Wearing nothing except peace […]’, Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/p/BqvC-8jHZu0/, 28 Nov 2018. 

[12] Wolf, 280.

[13] Wolf, 274.

[14] Wolf, 8, 187.