Mind the Gap

Welcome to the ninth carnival of feminists. Fix youself a drink and settle in. I do hope you all still have some space left on your blogrolls. We’ve organised the posts broadly into subject areas, but obviously there is overlap.

Section 1: Feminism

One of the primary purposes of the feminist blogging community is, of course, to advance feminist thought. We spend a lot of time discussing and debating this subject with ourselves and each other, so we thought we’d start this carnival with a round up of posts which are primarily about feminism.

The Biting Beaver offers a very thoughtful post about women and patriarchy, asking “Should we be blaming women too? At what point do women stop being innocent victims and start being held responsible for the role they play? Do they ever? Are they ever responsible for their actions under a repressive society?”

Muse and Fury wonders how often do we downplay our politics? - “whether it be on dates, with colleagues, family, parents, bosses, grandparents, children, neighbours? Sometimes do we just need to get along? Just keep our mouths shut - get in, get what we came for, get out? Uggh - am I really about to say, “be nice, quiet, polite girls?“

Brownfemipower from ‘Woman of Color Blog’ writes brilliantly about women of color and identity politics. Everyone should read this post.

Emily from Fiercely feminist unpacks some of her problems with feminist theory: “i believe, fundamentally, like bell hooks, that feminism is the fight for the liberation of all peoples. i believe that we cannot seperate realms of domination and exploitation by measures of race, class, sexuality, or gender. if we do that, we get debates over who is better in ‘08: condi or hillary. and if those are my choices, i’m seriously moving to another planet.” What one person means when they call themselves a feminist is very different to what another person might mean by the word.

Earlbecke, from the wonderful new blog ‘Definition’ throws the net wide with an open letter to all the liberal straight men.

Dora deconstructs a supposedly feminist critique of the Vagina Monologues.

Irrational Point from ‘The Soapbox’ discusses the role of men in feminism.

In response to an argument that prozac is the answer to women’s low self-esteem, Aspazia asks
Are we ready for this medically enhanced post-modern Feminism?

Meanwhile Kelley Bell puts down her thoughts in the form of a poem.

Anti-feminism

It has come to our attention that some people don’t like feminism very much! Well, well, never mind because we’re quite equipped to deal with them.

Claycomb from ‘Raining Cats and Dogma’ doesn’t think much of Caitlin Flanagan: “Of course, her most frequent tactic is to set up “FEMINISM” as a straw man that elides multiple feminisms while vastly oversimplifying any individual feminist arguments, taking the kind of cheap potshots at an abstract ideological bogeyman that she says “FEMINISM” does with “PATRIARCHY.””

Apurva Mathad takes an Indian perspective on anti-feminism in response to attacks on one of his friend’s blogs: Look deeper.

Blitzgirl responds to an anti-feminist review of Ariel Levy’s book Female Chauvanist Pigs.

Joida from ‘Buried Voices’ objects to a sexist university paper. Has he been too hard on them? You decide.

In at the very last minute because it’s brilliant, we have The Patriarchy Phrasebook from Laurelin.
Section 2: The issues that matter

On Violence, Rape and Sexual Harasment

Witchy Woo from ‘Well I’ll go to the foot of the stairs’ considers the case of Christopher Lumdsun a man sentenced for the man- slaughter of his wife on the grounds of diminished responsibility, even though he stabbed her in the back with a 12cm kitchen knife that had somehow found itself in a bedside drawer and proceeded to stab her in the face and neck so many times the pathologist couldn’t count the wounds. How exactly did this happen?

eM from ‘The Compulsive Confessor’ offers a wonderful post which really captures the insiduous, even subtle, nature of the power relations involved in sexual harassment : “He didn’t listen to me saying “No” softly, over and over again, till I said, “NO” and he saw my expression, the fear in my eyes at the sudden realisation that boys were so much stronger than I was and that Small, fast asleep in her room, probably wouldn’t be able to hear me if I yelled and what was I going to do and he said, releasing my wrists, “You know I’m a nice guy, right?” Right?

Holly from ‘Self Portrait As’ is shocked to come across someone searching the internet for a Sorry I date raped you card”. Yes, because getting one of those would make it all better wouldn’t it?

Just when you thought it was safe to take your vagina to work, Emmy from ‘Gendergeek’ finds that sexual harassment is alive and well on Wall Street.

Heo Cwaeth tells us about her “friend” Lenny, a man who thinks that being a woman means enjoying sexual harassment.

Zuzu from Feministe takes down a dirty old man who likes to use his power to oogle young women in his office and call it a compliment because, obviously, women just luuurve being publicly humiliated.

On Reproductive rights

Natalie from ‘Philobiblion’ reports on the The International Planned Parenthood Federation’s estimate that 19 million women worldwide will have an unsafe abortion in 2006: “Just meditate on that number of a minute - 70,000 women a year, every year. That’s twenty-six 9/11s, every year. Man-made and man-dictated laws are killing that many women every year.”

‘Abortion Clinic Days’ considers the intersection between medicine and politics in relation to the prescription of Accutane, a drug which cures cystic acne, but causes severe birth defects if the user becomes pregnant. Unfortunately, the intersection of politics and medicine precludes an honest discussion of risk: “Bad politics and bad medicine yielding heartache for real people.”

Rad Geek looks at the Abortion debate in Australia.

‘The Bad Feminist’ argues that abortion is not always the most important life and death struggle for feminism and it should not necessarily be our highest priority.

On Sexual culture

Nubian, the ‘Blac(k)ademic’, writes powerfully about the erasure of black lesbians in popular culture: “i am invisible. you do not see my face television or in cinema. you do not hear my voice in the popular songs rotating on bet, mtv, or the radio. you do not see me because i am a black lesbian and we do not exist.”

The anti-pornography v. sex positive feminists debate continues. Arwen from Rants for Invisible People posts on ‘Pandagon’ about her own stance: “I have read the discussions about porn, burlesque, and BDSM with interest all round the feminist blogosphere, and I have the odd sensation of being in both camps and neither.”

Andrea from ‘Vociferate’ attacks the idea that anti-porn feminists are just jealous.

Bitch Lab analyses the word “Slut” (via some interesting observations on shifts in sexual culture): “In the US, slut is an epithet deeply bound up with claims about someone’s social class. To hurl the name is to suggest someone is not a member of respectable middle class society. So, in this case, it’s a concept that we have to look at in so far as we ask about how it’s not just gendered, but “classed.”

Laura from ‘I’m not a Feminist, but’ takes a hard feminist look at the phenomenon of pimps and hos parties: “Sorry, say that again, you’re inviting me to a PIMPS and HOS party. You want me to dress up as a ‘ho’, my boyfriend as a ‘pimp’, and you want us to parade around in public in this fashion. And this is in aid of…your BIRTHDAY. Right…”

Trish Wilson discovers a sane district in the US where they’ve decided to avoid abstinence only sex education.

Anti-Music blog reminds us that homophobic discourse is derived from sexism and sexual subjection.

Michelle from ‘Mutant Cat’ objects to the recent Cover of Vanity Fair featuring a very naked Scarlet Johansen and Keira Knightly and a very clothed man. At the very least, he should have his kit off too.

On Sex Work

Alyx from ‘Mad Sheila Musings’ explains why prostitution should not be legalised in Western Australia: “Prostitution is not liberating, it doesn’t subvert stereotypes and, contrary to the libertarian’s view, prostitution couldn’t exist without patriarchal morality, because the latter is what makes the former so damn compelling.”

Andrea from ‘The Shrub.com’ tells us about a group of prostitutes organising to boycott a computer game which glorifies the violent murder of sex workers. Good for them.

On Motherhood

‘Red State Feminist’ addresses Stay at Home Moms and Housewives who believe that feminism disapproves of their choices: “Feminism is about choices. Feminism gave you the choice to stay home - suddenly, it was no longer required. The majority of feminist thought would like to see parents and caregivers treated with respect, and some would like to see parents and caregivers given fair compensation in various ways, for the work they do.”….. [But, let's face it], “Being a stay at home mom is great - if you are middle class, or wealthy, and have someone to support you.”

Kactus, from ‘Super Babymama’, brings out the racism and classism inherent in media scare stories about “bad” welfare mothers: “what we have here, if it is true, is a woman who sounds like she needed a LOT of help managing a big hoard of kids…But instead we get a lesson in manipulating public opinion.” You’ll probably want to read the follow up post as well.

Molly from ‘Molly Saves the Day’ questions the notion that stay at home parents always make the best parents: “We can idolize stay-at-home moms all we want, but the truth is, there’s no way to tell whether these mothers who are nobly “opting out” of the labor market are decent parents … The notion of deciding whether someone is a “good” mother based only on whether she attends to her child full-time, rather than on her actual interaction with her child, makes my blood boil, especially when bad parenting abounds.”

Inkspill writes about choosing to be childless: “Not everyone is meant to be a parent. It requires a sacrifice of the self at all levels of existence. The argument that our sole purpose on the earth is to reproduce our own kind is the most pessimistic kind of truth that there can ever be”.

Jess from the ‘F-Word blog’ comments on the idea that Britain is suffering a “Baby shortage”: Women Warned: Procreate.

On Marriage

Sarahlynn from ‘Yeah, But Houdini Didn’t Have These Hips’ muses on the politics of changing your name on marriage: “At what point does it become unprofessional? At what point does it begin to effect the way all women are seen in a professional setting?”

Khalidah from ‘Mind’ discusses the problem of traditional arranged marriages in a changing culture.

Rombo from ‘What an African Woman Thinks’ hits on a friendship wrecking problem between Christian single men and women in their thirties: “apparently, on a page that keeps getting left out of my bible, God said to be single past thirty is a SIN in capital letters.”

On politics

The Mad Kenyan Woman explains why the respect for older men or, as she puts it, age as fetish in Kenyan culture, presents a lot of political problems.

The Religious Policeman explains why there hasn’t been much progress in allowing women to drive in Saudi Arabia.

Religion

Nzingha from ‘Nzingha’s soapbox’ insists upon the right to question within Islam, particularly in relation to misogynistic rulings: “It is the thought that one can’t question the legitimacy of a scholars ruling be it based on the foundation of the Qur’an and sunnah or of the major madhab or scholars that I have a huge problem with especially living in Saudi Arabia. I find it impossible to suggest that women here can not question the rulings that do nothing but hamper them and oppress them within this society. I find it impossible because I see it as a total injustice and a grave error to do so. I am of the view that everyone has the right and the duty to rise up against what they may deem is wrong.”

From India Annie Zaidi discusses the provisions that Islam makes for women and the sad reality for them in India.

The Raving Atheist examines whether feminist pioneer Betty Friedan’s sexual ethics were consistent with traditional religious doctrine

On popular culture

Rae from ‘Soft Graffiti’ critiques the feminism of Pink’s latest video “Stupid Girls” in is quasi feminism better than nothing?: “Frankly, girls need more than athletics and a keyboard to stave off the pressures of shallow femininity. They need more than a funny video that shows as much tits and abs as Brittany Spears. They need more than a timorous sense of superiority over the ’stupid girls’. What young women need, and rarely get, is media literacy, which Pink hints at but can never declare as she is using the same soul-sucking means to promote her own career.”

Mickle from ‘The True confessions of an Hourly Bookseller’ talks princesses.

On Women blogging

Black Looks tells us where the African women bloggers are.

Tom Head from Jackson Free Press looks at the anti-feminist attitudes of some “liberal” male bloggers and suggests “If you think liberalism implies feminism, think again”.

Sport

‘Goddess Musings’ talks about gender politics and sport, in particular the idea that women athletes just aren’t really tough enough, so when they get hurt…well weren’t they asking for it a bit?

Section 3: The Body

If there’s one thing we can say about the feminist body, it’s very productive. We’re delighted with the range of posts we’ve received on our chosen theme. They prove again and again that the phrase ‘The Personal is Political’ is more relevant than ever.

Koonj from Hu blog speaks out against the hurtful psychological assault launched upon women’s bodies in the media and advertising: STOP hurting me she demands, “Stop hurting my sisters. Stop hurting us.”

Maia from ‘Capitalism Bad, Tree Pretty’ declares the necessity of getting personal when it comes to talking about body politics, because we can’t analyse the political implications of food and women’s bodies, unless we talk
about what that means personally.

As a male teacher and youth leader, Hugo discusses the responsibilities of helping young people deal with the pressures of being faced with unattainable body ideals: “We must all acknowledge the plain reality that our students and others will always filter what we say through their understanding of the bodies they see us in.”

The Happy Feminist also decides that it’s time get personal and talks about her own body image issues: “there is no denying that distorted body image causes intense and debilitating personal suffering among huge swathes of our female population (as well as a growing number of male sufferers). I know because I myself spent years in the grip of that suffering.”

When it came to choosing a post from Mind the Gap to include here as is the host’s privilege, it was a little difficult because we’re a blogging collective and it didn’t seem fair to just pick one. So, here are the three best posts from our recent body image week: confessions of a binge eater from Naiades, what I learned at school by Bat Girl and Body Discipline by Winter.

Lingual Tremors writes brilliantly about her own experiences of weight gain and loss in relation to feminism and women’s body image: “I wonder, with my own significant feminist history, with my own feminist publishing, with my own feminist studies, if I could find myself lost in culture, how do we expect young girls–adrift in public schools with no feminist consciousness–to find their way?”

Pamela K Taylor meditates beautifully and poetically upon body image in relation to Hijab, motherhood and getting older.

Sue Richards from My Menopause Blog writes about her eggs: “I have preferred my eggs to remain unhatched or scrambled. My fertility has never been of interest to me. Which I realize is a bit odd given all the ticking of the biological clocks that seem to deafen and torture the female population around the world.”

Liz from Granny Gets a Vibrator writes brilliantly about being a middle-aged woman who lifts weights: Hey Lady,You’re a Freak! . She observes, “When I hear women expressing a fear of weight lifting, what I am really hearing is a fear of being powerful.”

Meanwhile, Jen from ‘Where the Revolution’s Gonna Begin’ Theorises Breasts.

Tenacious One defends the tiled images of her body on her blog background. She wants to stand for a “A counterpunch to the gut of all things considered beautiful, powerful, intelligent and relevant in the mainstream…and sometimes in our own movements for change.You’ll have to continue to simultaneously read me and assimilate me visually if you really wanna truly get me, seen?”
N.B. If you’re reading this in the office, you might not want to click on this one right now!

Stella from ‘Where the Cornflakes are’ explains why it’s the gynocologists that have a problem: “She’s such a twit that I really shouldn’t have been surprised when I read the letter that began - “Stella has severe Osteogenesis Imperfecta and is wheelchair-bound. Surprisingly, however, she is sexually active and requires contraception.” Read the rest and be outraged.

More outrage from Twisty of ‘I Blame the Patriarchy,’ who recounts the god awful story of Nia, a young woman taken off the drugs that helped her schizophrenia because her doctors decided that she’d prefer the voices to being fat. She didn’t, as it happens.

Bookdrunk from ‘Rhetorically Speaking’ takes a critical look at the notion of cosmetic sugery as empowerment in an article in the Observer Woman magazine: “Rather than claiming ‘all cosmetic surgery is bad,’ we need to argue why we should presume - as in the tone of the Observer article - that all cosmetic surgery is beneficial.” Indeed.

Shakespeare’s Sister also considers plastic surgery and desperation it represents. Ok, in such a body obsessed culture, we might all be tempted …. but how desperate do you have to be to attend a botox party?

Dangereuse Trilingue discusses an honest-to-god sexism spat in the French geekosphere concerning an advert for Firefox using scantily clad women. The problem here is “about making a particular type of heterosexual male gaze directed towards conventionally attractive female attributes the norm, via using it, and the object of the attention, to incite people to do something entirely unrelated to eroticism and female bodies: use a particular web browser

Textaisle from ‘Arbusto de Menacity’ asks what’s the use of a 24-inch waist?.

Ann from ‘Feminist Law Professors’ asks whether the blog ‘Go Fug Yourself’, which makes fun of female celebrities, is funny or not?.

Feminism, as some have observed, is not a little like the red pill offered to Neo in the Matrix, and a raised consciouness is not with its problems. ‘Grace from Avast! Feminist Conspiracy!’ argues that we must be open to admitting the discomfort with ourselves and our bodies which can be caused by our own feminist principles. Feminism doesn’t always make life easier in this respect.

Jess from ‘Burninglibrary’ also takes a self-reflexive approach problematising her relationship with her feminism and her body, asking “Is it possible to be a fat-positive feminist who also conforms to strict self-imposed dietary rules?”.

Educand from ‘Andragogy of the Op-Eds’ argues that failing to care for oneself does not necessarily constitute a feminist objection.

Spotted Elephant from ‘The Bipolar View’ talks honestly about the gap between her intellectual feminist awareness and her emotional feelings about her body: “I reject societal pressure for women to fit one physical model. But I still feel ugly, and it still matters to me. I’m furious that I feel this way. I’m enraged that it still matters to me.”

Nut, from “Welcome to the Nuthouse” has has a conversation with her mum about interview suits. Haven’t you got a skirt???

On a rather different note, Kalinara from Pretty, ‘Fizzy Paradise’ hated growing up as a white *girl*.

Finally, Lorraine from Culture Kitchen sings the body electric, and celebrates the female body and “its endless capacity for pleasure.” Hallelujah! A good one to end on.

Valentines

Now we couldn’t just let this February carnival pass without a few Valentine’s Day posts could we?

Kat, ‘The Geeky Feminist’, draws attention to the fact that heterosexuality doesn’t always do itself any favours. How disturbing is this window display?

Valentine’s Day certainly brings out the arse in some people. Amanda from ‘Pandagon’ finds John Tierney using his column to make excuses for men who don’t want to lower themselves to picking up the degrading women’s work of caring for the people you love. Charming.

Andygrrrl suggests an alternative, how about Susan B. Anthony Day?

Sour Duck sends us a Valentines from the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics. All makeup users should read this post.

Ok. That’s it for this carnival. Thank you for reading. Thank you to everyone who submitted and nominated posts. Thanks to all the people we “stole” good links from and thanks to Natalie for all her help.

Carnival No 10 will be on Indian Writing on March 8. Nominations should be sent by 5th March to indianwriting AT gmail DOT com. Or you can use the submission form at the blog carnivals page.

p.s if you enjoyed this Carnival of the feminists, you might also like The Carnival of Bent Attractions and The Big Fat Carnival.

Oops! forgot to mention the Radical Women of Color Carnival. Sorry.

Another great body image post from Cruella blog: Female celebrities and eating.

Thanks for the link Sour Duck.

In keeping with our current body image theme, Happy feminist has this great post about her own experiences with food and body image.

Enjoy

It was hot, there was a famine raging in Niger and there I was sweating over a display table full of diet books in the upstairs of a book shop. Did I want a bikini bottom, to detox my aura, level my blood sugars or count grams of fat? I had no idea. I never thought I would be that person. The person who looks at the menu and mentally crosses off anything that contains sugar, bread, mushrooms or even looks vaguely appetising.

When I was twenty I would boldly claim that I didn’t limit the things I ate, didn’t calorie count or cut out carbs, like it was some great feminist statement to sit on my arse and glut on cake. I said I didn’t want to be skinny, I wanted to have curves. Unfortunately, this was disguising the real problem. It’s never one cake, it’s two. It’s never one biscuit, it’s four or five, with chocolate. It’s not a glass of wine, it’s a bottle, maybe two. Chocolates? Here’s my box, where is yours? Claiming that no one was going to tell me what to eat and what not to eat was really a cover for the fact I have no impulse control and spend a good portion of my waking life thinking about food. At twenty four I had put two stone onto what used to be an athletic muscular body. I felt fat. Worse than that I got tired, flabby and unable to concentrate. My blood sugars were a mess. I spent most of my time feeling exhausted, bordering on depressed and eating more cake. Many feminists have talked about fat and feminism, many have concentrated on eating disorders such as bulimia and anorexia, on the cultural pressure to be skinny. Resisting these pressures is hard and many women have developed erratic relationships with food and with their bodies. I include myself in this group. Binge eat can be part of bulimia, I only ever managed to make my self sick once while I was sober, I didn’t spend hours and hours exercising, frankly at that time I didn’t spend any time exercising. My binge eating, and binge drinking stand alone.

My nurse thinks I may have polycystic ovary disease and carrying lots of weight around can make the symptoms much worse so I decided to diet. I spent a while looking at diet books. There are literally hundreds to choose from, and where does one start? Luckily I had a starting point, PCOS is linked to insulin resistance and so a low GI diet is the best was to go. The idea is that you stick to complex carbs, protein and vegetables to keep your blood sugars level rather than the massive peaks and troughs that lead to exhaustion and an inability to concentrate on, well anything really. A year later I’m a stone lighter, have more energy and can concentrate for much longer. I have found that as my physical strength grows, so does my confidence in myself to go out there and do things.

I can also mentally recount every item from the last three days, and categorise it according to its GI and fat content, not to mention essential vitamins, minerals and proteins. The fact that I can be obsessional about food does not make me a good dieter. If I were able just to stick to a fairly healthy lifestyle and not worry too much about the occasional chocolate cake then life would be easy. But I can’t, it’s still not just one piece, I have to have the whole bloody cake, or two. I slip really can go on for a few days. Bread, pizza, chocolate, cake of any kind. All trigger foods, all eat at your own risk foods that can leave me tired, restless, depressed and completely unable to concentrate.

Where previously I brazenly lacked control, cherishing it like some kind of mantra, I now have given myself an unobtainable goal of absolute control. Low GI, low carb, low fat, low sugar, all the lows, and combined with exercise. Now I want to be about ten stone, nine even, but not a healthy eleven. I want to be skinny, I want people to see the muscles in my arms, I’d like to be healthy, but more than that, I want to look good in tiny swim suits as I whip up and down the pool like a demented mermaid. I can be quite anal in that pursuit. Swimming at a minimum of twice a week, a few circuits and yoga thrown in if I can find the time, a mental list ever morsel to pass my lips over the last three days and intense scrutiny over any item that does not fit the program. Did I really need that second coffee? What’s the GI of semi skimmed milk? How many sugary things have I had in the last month? How many pounds have I lost?

So, while sitting around watching TV and glutting on chocolate cake and ice cream turns out (to my eternal surprise) not to be a feminist statement of my independence, how can this tight control of my food be any healthier? So it’s not empowering to sit there and stuff donuts, even if the donut binging is in the name of sticking it to patriarchy and the beauty myth. In reality looking after my body, feeling strong and having loads of energy so I can get out there and live and make active choices feels pretty feminist to me. The problem with limiting what I eat, what type of food, how much of it, and when, feels pretty empowering. I’m pretty sure it’s not. The problem is that any one will tell you that those kind of feelings of being in control litter the route to fill blown eating disorders. Have I just swapped one obsession for another?

By Naiades

Barbara Kruger’s iconic feminist art work from 1989.

Sadly more relevant than ever.

Another new voice here at Mind the Gap. This was written for us by a group member who’s a little shy about blogging generally.

As a young teenager, of dark colouring, I grew shiny black hair in all the normal and expected places. Biologically speaking this was good and a sign that I was healthy and thriving. But in the school yard, with the obligatory gym shorts and netball skirt, it was not good and it was not acceptable. It could be resolved with razors and hair-removal creams, if they existed in the house or you were brave enough to ask your mum for them, but it remained as a Damocles sword throughout my school career. That one day when I would forget to shave for P.E, or to scrape away the bikini hair for swimming lessons, was always waiting around the corner with a generous serving of ridicule and humiliation.

This ongoing worry was accompanied by an even greater anxiety- that of periods and feminine ‘odour’! Somehow, we all knew that periods were an issue of utmost secrecy and potential embarrassment. But, we also discovered an even deeper social secret- that when girls reach puberty they not only become sexually mature, they start to smell sexually mature! This is as normal and natural as hairiness, but at school ‘feminine odour’ was one of the worst social ‘faux pas’ you could commit. For me, this led to a heightened awareness of any slight niff that emerged in my near vicinity, and an intense anxiety that it might be me and it might be noticed by someone else. The ultimate horror being that one of the boys would loudly proclaim that someone smelt of “fish” - a public humiliation which was somehow deemed acceptable punishment by both sexes. By the end of secondary school we’d all learnt the rule. Women must not smell like women. We must, literally, smell of roses.

The importance of being ‘average’ also became clear in secondary school. Until then it had been predominantly the ‘fat’ children who had been ridiculed, with the occasional attack on the smelly or deprived. But as we developed through puberty it became increasingly clear that extremes were bad. Flat chests and big boobs were commented on by both girls and boys, and the latter created ‘entertainment’ for all during P.E and swimming lessons. I can even remember a male P.E teacher laughing with the boys whenever one of the bigger girls ran round the bases during rounders. We soon learned that B and C cups were good and anything else should either be flattened down or boosted up to meet the required standard.

By the time I left school I’d almost unconsciously adapted my daily routines and behaviours to achieve acceptance, or avoid humiliation. Having arrived at secondary school ‘au naturel’, and having rarely wasted a thought on how I looked or smelt, I walked out of those doors five years later with wealth of worries and distractions. Did I need to shave, did I look too flat-chested in this top, had I put enough deodorant on this morning, had I remembered to spray perfume up my skirt, did I have enough ‘supplies’ in case my period arrived unexpectedly, did I look fat in this outfit, did I look pretty enough, was I wearing enough makeup to hide that spot, did my hair look greasy and why did my thighs have to be so bloody big?

Since leaving school the discourse hasn’t changed much. The majority of women seem to accept these lessons without question and we are led to believe that the hairless, scentless woman is both normal and natural. Having been deprived of images of the natural female form, with the wondrous scents of female sexuality and the full scattering of hair that protects us from infection, we now live in a society which condemns and rejects those who stray outside the accepted ‘norms’. Any woman who wanders into a public place with visible hairy legs and armpits can expect at best a ‘frosty’ reception and at worst open aggression. Natural female odour remains a virtual ‘taboo’ and the way in which feminine hygiene products are now being advertised and marketed only serves to reinforce female anxieties about odour and cleanliness.

The diversity of female shapes and sizes has been rejected in favour of an extraordinary template, with a drive to be thinner, firmer and disproportionately large-chested. With the average woman in the UK being around 5 foot 2 inches tall and a size 16 it is an impossible standard for the majority and a full time job for the determined. While we’re distracted with diets, waxing and washing, the male population continues to eat well, be hairy, smell ‘manly’, and grow a middle-age spread.

But behind all this there is a private reality. We are all ‘imperfect’ (relative to the current standard) and yet the world doesn’t end. Women grow stubble and hair between shaves and most male partners don’t even notice (probably because they’re more interested in looking at other parts of our bodies). Most of us smell pretty womanly by the time we go to bed and it turns out to be a potent aphrodisiac. Other people rarely notice if we don’t wear makeup, and most shops don’t even bother to stock clothes for size 8 women with DD breasts. The ideal standard doesn’t naturally exist and the examples we see in pictures and on TV have been skilfully created by plastic surgeons and the wonder of digital technology.

What I’ve now learned as an adult woman is that the backlash against the impossible ideal is already here, in the diversity of women all around us. If we could just open our eyes and see what we really look like, and what is and has always been feminine and sexual, then perhaps we could begin to accept ourselves and each other. In striving to be small, thin, hairless and scentless we are striving to become more like pre-pubescent children than normal, healthy women. And if we spend our adult lives worrying and struggling with this impossible standard, trying to remove or hide what was naturally given to us at puberty, we will never be strong, healthy and focused enough to challenge the discourse we were so effectively taught at school.

This piece was written for us by a woman in her sixties.

I was twelve years old when my mother decided that I was BIG and needed a bra. To this end she visited Dorothy Perkins, unattended by myself, and discussed the matter with the assistant who dealt in bras – telling her that I was BIG. The latter suggested that I should be measured but recognized that of course young girls were SHY about being measured when they were BIG. My mother purchased a 38 bra which she presented to me, informing the rest of the family of its and my dimensions. I worked out how to raise the straps, tried it on and discovered that it was significantly too large. I was just about five feet tall and probably weighed in at around eight stone so a 38 bust would have looked proportionately odd. But I didn’t question the matter, particularly since after my rather slim childhood, my father had taken to referring to me as ‘fatty’. I set about altering the bra to fit, taking in at least one inch on either side - although this did nothing to alleviate the bagginess of the cups. It is interesting of course that my mother did not alter it and was thus able to maintain her position as to the correctness of its size. The information continued to be spread but I do recall one younger visitor looking at me, emphatically denying that I could be that big, and offering to measure me to prove the point. The challenge wasn’t taken up, and my perception was reinforced by other family members, one uncle pronouncing that I had ‘good mammary glands’, and another finding it very amusing that my younger brother called me ‘Bubbie,’ since one could make the association to ‘Bubs’ and subsequently to ‘Stonkers,’ and Bristols,’ – although I found the semantic development unclear. It seemed that I was no longer a person - an individual with a unique identity, but some entity attached to two breasts.

I am still puzzled as to what this was all about. Was my mother involved in some cultural throwback in which she had to demonstrate to the tribe that her daughter was ready to suckle a child and therefore available for mating? And did the older members of the family have to confirm this with suitable observations? Occasionally I have been with a group of women when the subject of the first bra is mentioned and immediately excited stories pour out. It seems that it is always the mother who initiates the bra – becoming seriously involved in its size and purchase. One such story described a mother packing several sized bras into her daughter’s luggage when she departed for boarding school. This might seem prudent and kind, except that one wonders how many sizes a girl would need in the course of one term.

It is the drama that is puzzling. I can well understand a degree of furore if a girl did not produce breasts, but since they are definitely going to appear round about the time of puberty or adolescence, excitement such as my mother’s, seems odd, as indeed are compassionate comments that girls at puberty and adolescents feel awkward and even embarrassed about their bodies. I’m not surprised!

Did you know? Feminists did not burn their bras in the 1960s. This myth is based on events which took place at a demonstration against the1968 Miss America Pageant. A few women tossed some padded brassieres and other items of stereotypically feminine adornment in a rubbish bin. This action was wrongly reported as a burning of bras. There is in fact little evidence of bra burning at women’s rights demonstrations, “Yet, according to press accounts of the time, the bonfires of feminism nearly cremated the lingerie industry.” See Susan Faludi, Backlash, p. 99.

Anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa are the two main eating disorders prevalent in our society. Others, like compulsive overeating, are much rarer. People with anorexia restrict their food intake so much that they experience tremendous weight loss and eventual emaciation. It is typical that a person with anorexia will never believe herself or himself to be thin enough. There is desperate determination to never approach what is considered by others to be a normal size and weight. About four out of ten people with anorexia will eventually make a full recovery. Only about three in ten continue to have major life long illness. Untreated, fifteen per cent of suffers die, making anorexia the deadliest of the psychological disorders.

In bulimia there is not the iron will to completely exclude food that occurs in anorexia. Food intake is erratic and may include food binging. Intense feelings of self-loathing, guilt and shame often follow compulsive over eating sessions. Actions are taken to rid themselves of what has been consumed; vomiting, laxatives, drug use and excessive exercise are some of the forms this behaviour may take. With bulimia an individual is rarely emaciated but still shares the extreme fear of weight gain that occurs in anorexia.

It is not easy to predict who will develop an eating disorder. It is about ten times more common in females than males, reflecting society’s increased focus on the female form but incidence in men is rising. Eating disorders are more common in teenagers and young adults, in those of above average IQ, in people with a family history of eating disorders and in those with controlling family units or traumatic childhoods. They are also a great deal more common in societies where it is considered desirable to be thin. In nearly all cases dieting and a low self body image precede fully established eating disorders

What to do if you are part of a culture that produces eating disorders? I have some suggestions. We can strive to understand what drives these behaviours. We can reclaim the media. We can stop the ever-critical eye that we pass over others and ourselves. We can de-stigmatise mental illnesses, discuss them, explore them and not be in fear them.

By Siberian Fall

In honour of Eating Disorder Awareness Week we declare this Body Image Week here at Mind the Gap. Over the next few days, we’ll be posting a range of material created and collected by our group members for our forthcoming body image zine.

Towards body power….