11/3/99
6:31 AM BST
Ann BradleyFat's not a feminist issueI've just changed my mind. For years I have railed against the images of women portrayed in TV commercials and women's magazines. I have protested to editors that articles I have written on eating disorders have been illustrated with pictures of sylph-like beauties with air-brushed, cellulite-free thighs.I, too, have bitched about the promotion of waifs like Kate Moss, with their pre-pubescent bodies, who manage to convince us - 'perverted as it is' - that they are normal, and the rest of us are obese. I have been sickened at the accounts of young girls horrified to find that they are developing the curves that come with healthy womanhood. And I have mocked the diet industry, although not without a certain respect for having so successfully mystified the only basic principle of losing weight - that you have to burn up more calories than you eat. So why the change of heart? Simply that, however disgusting the diet industry might be, the emerging 'obesity is OK' lobby is even worse. No doubt MP Alice Mahon is well-intentioned in putting down a parliamentary motion in support of International No Diet Day, an anniversary which has caught on in the USA, Australia and Canada where people wear pale blue ribbons to support 'size diversity'. She is certainly right when she says that 'the diet industry is getting away with murder...dictating that all women have to conform to a certain body shape', and she is also right to say that 'people's fears and vulnerabilities are being exploited'. But is a celebration of size diversity a positive counter to the emaciated-equals-elegant images? I don't think it is, and nor do I think that Labour MP Tony Banks' contribution to No Diet Day - a private member's bill to prevent discrimination in employment against persons on grounds of size - is a useful way to 'highlight the problem of sizeism'. Measures like these cannot avoid the rather patronising tone that says 'you can't help the way you are, so what if you're unhappy about your body, it's you and that's fine. Just love the way you are and everyone else will love you too'. Unfortunately that is not the way life works. Most fat people do want to change the way they look and for very good reasons. It is unhealthy to be overweight, it's uncomfortable and inconvenient. It's all very well for Dawn French to pontificate about how much happier she is when she is fat, and how miserable she was when she slimmed down for her wedding. But Dawn French is not an ordinary fat woman. She's not even just an ordinary woman. She is successful, rich, famous, and pretty - and married to a man who is also successful, rich, famous and pretty (although not as pretty as Dawn). Dawn French does not have problems getting attractive clothes to fit, she simply has them designed and made. It's nice to know that she wishes to help other fat women share her access to beautiful garments so much that she has set up a dress shop for large women. But you can bet your beer money that the only women who will be able to pay the prices will also be rich, and quite possibly famous as well. Dawn French's benevolence is not going to extend to 16-stone Stephanie who can't find anything to wear out clubbing, so is it any wonder she reaches for the Limmits? The aspiration to bring your body under control and shape it into an image that you find desirable is not in itself a bad thing. It's only a problem when the image you aspire to is one that is medically impossible for you to achieve. We are told that 97 per cent of women diet, and most of them are neither anorexic nor trying to look like supermodels. They are simply women who would probably agree that 'size diversity' makes the world more interesting, but they just want to get into the dress they bought last summer without looking as though they are pregnant. The aspiration to remove from their lives something that they perceive to be a problem is wholly positive. Why should we 'accept' the state of our bodies any more than we accept the state of our minds? It is all very well for Tony Banks to insist that, 'personally, I like voluptuousness', and to tell his parliamentary colleagues that Dawn French's South Bank Show appearance 'extolling the virtues of Rubenesque women' was 'splendid'. How nice that he can declare that 'most fat people I know are naturally jolly and kind'. (Can't believe he actually dragged out that stereotype? Neither could I. Check for yourself, it's in Hansard). No doubt fat women will sleep much easier to know that they stand a chance with Tony Banks. Lancashire MP, Dame Elaine Kellet-Bowman, made a salient observation to the House of Commons when Tony Banks announced the names of the MPs who were supporting his bill. After the roll-call of Mrs Alice Mahon, Ms Dawn Primarolo, Mr Jeremy Corbyn, Ms Diane Abbott and Mr Harry Cohen, she solemnly interjected, 'They are all thin'. And of course, it's true. I haven't checked the list of MPs who supported the early day motion on No Diet Day, but I'll bet they are mainly on the sleek side, too. In some ways the celebration of 'size diversity' is enthusiastically taken up by the slim in the same way that pretty young girls often choose plainer children as their friends. They realise that their beauty is thrown into even greater relief in the presence of someone with whom they can be favourably compared. There is something rather perverse about the line-up of women's magazine editors who marked No Diet Day by proclaiming to the Guardian that 'it's time women over size 16 had their day'. On this at least, I'm with the one dissenting voice, Marcelle D'Argy Smith. The editor of Cosmo may not have enhanced her popularity with Guardian readers, but most fat women will agree with her: 'Dawn French is gorgeous and happy but she eats too much. Fat is not beautiful; that is one of the world's great lies.' Reproduced from Living Marxism issue 68, June 1994
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