SIZE WARS

Off Our Backs, Nov/Dec 2004 by Rose, Tracey

For a long time, we found that image of beauty gratifying, because it let us believe that eating disorders and body image issues were really "white problems"...

As long as I can remember, I've always been small. The kind of girl that just misses names like "beanpole" or "bird," all legs and arms, with long fingers and even longer toes. Between the ages of 13 and 21, I put a moratorium on skirts and dresses, for fear of someone laughing at my "chicken legs." Lucky to be coming of age during hip-hop's upswing, with its camouflaging dress code of baggy jeans and oversized shirts, I hid my small frame in boy's clothing four sizes too big.

So, after years of not playing the game, a recent shedding of skin has reintroduced me to a size construct that's no more accepting or tolerant than it first seemed when I was thirteen.

Size does matter.

We see them. Size 2 models, pristine, long tresses blowing in the wind, a snapshot of girlish laughter and youth lying in the grass.

We get it. We can read the subtext. Picture you here, in the opportune moment, sun-streaked and light, of laughter and beauty, innocence and possibility, the hint of sexy and the surreal amid the poplars and dandelions.

We can read, but the split in the way culture impacts how we read has had communities of color almost rejoicing. In communities of color, the proverbial and sought after Anglicized size 2 isn't the ideal. Young women don't have to pass on the second helping of pie cause, after all, men make it known that it's about the "thickness," that little something extra that rounds out the curve. For a long time, we found that image of beauty gratifying, because it let us believe that eating disorders and body image issues were really "white problems" and only subject to brown girls growing up in predominantly white neighborhoods. Yet, even our addition to the standard, makes it still just another notch on the ruler to measure ourselves by.

When it comes to talking about body image, women of color with smaller frames are often left out of the discussion. After all, we shouldn't have trouble finding fashionable clothes in our size, so what's the problem? No, I shouldn't be offended by the sheer gall of people who weekly feel they have a right to comment, whether favorable or not, on my slender frame. I should never tire of family members demanding I list the contents of my kitchen cabinets or my daily caloric intake as part of monthly check-in. I shouldn't be annoyed when my exboyfriend advises that I "eat more."

A really thin woman sits down next to me on the train and I think, "Am I that thin?" It's an unfortunate question I find myself asking more and more often. A question sparked up again and again by run-ins with old acquaintances asking questions about my weight.

It seems odd that if society is finally maturing to the point where it advises full-figured women, regardless of race or culture, to be more accepting of their bodies, why it doesn't advise slender women to do the same. It's almost as if our proximity to the advertising media's distorted size-0 construct denies us any real part in the dialogue about women's body images. We stay silent, not sure if our issues here are valid in light of our full-bodied sisters' more prominent ones.

No matter what side of the line you stand on, the fact that there is a line is always going to be a sore issue when the power to define has historically been external. Theorists like John Berger say it's all part of our socialization. As women in Western society, we're taught to see ourselves the way we believe men would see us. So, there's almost a double consciousness, if you will. We exist as both the surveyor and the surveyed, the surveyor in us always aware of ourselves being looked at and thus, somewhat focused on controlling the image we want to project as we are being surveyed.

Now as much as I want to dismiss this as another theory of male projection, I have to admit it has merit even in the smallest cases. I have to wonder if my sometimes-obsessive concern with my size has more to do with wanting to be attractive to men than it does with my own beliefs about beauty and healthy ideals. Less than a month ago, I was thinking about whether I should actually do something to work on gaining weight. How surprised was I to find my obsession wane when I started dating a man who liked small-framed women! AAH!!

Whether we leap headlong into adhering to the ideal or attempt to launch a full-scale rebellion, we often forget that the so-called ideal is a fleeting one. What's considered beautiful today wasn't considered beautiful even thirty or forty years ago. We all know that the problem isn't that we don't all look alike or all have the same body type, so why do we get wrapped up in the crazy, ever-shifting paradigm?

Sure, there are plenty of places to point fingers: the media, the fashion industry, culture and community, patriarchy, take your pick, but in the end I recognize it's a choice. The cosmetic industry needs my seed of doubt to plant a foothold. Without it, it doesn't have a leg to stand on. The Victoria's Secret catalog isn't designed for me, but for the surveyor in me who forgets that beauty can't be manufactured wholesale. The airbrushed models, the strategically lit video girls, and the swarms of J-Lo wannabes' mean nothing in the wake of a centered eye seeing the whole. And we can't see the whole without seeing that beautiful, awe-inspiring perfection that is each one of us. Not just inside, but outside, too. From gangly arm to fleshy middle, it's me: lovely, divine, and supremely perfect. And it's insulting to my spirit for me to want it any other way.