Why I Can't Sexualize My Body: White Skinny Feminism and How It Oppresses Me

Post date: Apr 18, 2017 8:51:55 PM

Written by Biba Contin at Thursday, April 6, 2017 10:57:11 AM

I have always had an extremely complicated relationship with my body. Despite being a very active and healthy person, my body has always been on the bigger side. Beginning in middle school, my soccer coaches told me that if I wanted to continue to excel in the sport, I would need to "watch what I eat.” I have a vivid memory of walking in the cafeteria and running into my two coaches with my plate in hand. They proceeded to pull me aside and tell me that what I was eating, pasta with marinara sauce, was unhealthy, and I needed to be really careful in such a developmental phase. Not long after, as everyone around me noticed I was gaining weight, my parents decided to take me to a "Weight Watchers " meeting. I attended a couple sessions, but seeing as it was not the right environment for a thirteen-year-old, my time there was cut short.

My awareness of my body and my weight started early, and I began to gain even more weight as I realized how much focus it was getting. So much of my identity and existence during my adolescent years were defined by how my body looked – about how I needed to lose weight to be pretty or happy. Because of this experience, and many others similar to the ones mentioned, I have always been sensitive to subjects relating to body image and presentation.

Coming to Skidmore, a very liberal community whose feminism is led by white women, I am constantly exposed to trends in the movement that fail to be intersectional and ignore the experiences of non-conventional women. One of the most common means of expressing feminism in the circles social circles that I am in is through the exposure of the body, in both sexual and non-sexual ways, as a means to fight the patriarchy and the conventional norms that encourage women to be concealed and pure. Although this movement seems positive at first glance since it proposes to deconstruct the Patriarchy by actively fighting against gender norms, it is important to note that it is dominated by women whose skin color and body types are praised by society and main stream media. Most white, skinny women jump onboard with this new trend, believing it to be a form of social activism. What many women are not acknowledging though, is how the constant exposure to white, skinny bodies continues to uphold systems of oppression that harm bigger women and women of color.

As I explained before, women with bigger bodies and WOC are conditioned from a young age to believe that they are not as beautiful or as acceptable as those who fit into societies beauty standards. When women who do fit into these standards parade their bodies, especially by claiming that this is in some way pushing a feminist agenda, they are participating in a movement that is exclusive to people who are typically considered "beautiful.” In addition, because the movement- at least from what I’ve seen- is led by white women with skinny bodies, any person that does not fit that mold is automatically excluded and oppressed.

This notion of showing your body is very limiting to women who have bigger bodies or different skin tones: we know that people do not want to look at our stretch marks or ""fat rolls" ", and many of us, including myself, have been repeatedly told that out bodies are ugly and need to change, leaving us too weak to even feel comfortable with exposing so much skin.

Furthermore, many of the women I have seen who partake in this new movement begin and end their feminism in body-centered activism. They pride themselves in posting nude pictures of their thin bodies, yet fail to continue their pursuit of an intersectional feminism that sticks up for all body types as well as women of all color. Activism that continues to uphold systems of oppression fails to help those who need it the most. If your specific form of feminism continues to uphold a common rhetoric of body shaming and exclusion of bodies of color, then it must be reconstructed.

Not to say that I want women to stop being proud of their bodies. I think that if women need to participate in this sort of movement as a way to work against the patriarchy, by all means, go ahead. But I do believe that the activism can’t stop there. Women whose bodies are considered beautiful need to aid those who aren’t and continue to deconstruct the systems of oppression in the most intersectional way possible.