Yasmin Alibhai-Brown
The Independent
LONDON: Summer brings warmth, bliss, vacations and, for most females, young and old, undeclared anxieties and agonies. Looking in the mirror is unbearable, shopping makes us feel freakish.
Parts of the body that should feel the sun are covered up as shame and self-loathing overwhelm. I was trying on a swimsuit the other day and was revolted by my shape. I will not go swimming when I go to the beach in a few weeks.
I am size 10-12, sometimes a 14, hardly obese. But my eyes and head have been programmed to see gross imperfections, ugliness.
I am a confident feminist and a professional journalist who can take on politicians and other powerful people, yet the sight of me brought me down. It often does.
Many readers will have had that same experience or will know women and girls who have. We have more rights, we fight back against sexism and discrimination, and are breaking through glass ceilings.
Those gains are offset by what seems to be the war within: the relentless, voices in our heads telling us we have imperfect bodies.
I note every new wrinkle and fold, veins on legs, the bits that lose elasticity. It is the worst kind of navel-gazing – obsessive and self-destructive.
Okay, maybe this is just a manifestation of loss. The years have taken my youth and I want it back. (Oh God, how I spend on face creams and oils. My husband has no idea how I squander money on expensive products. Now you know.)
The young are even more tormented about the way they look. A war is being waged on their self-esteem. They are assaulted by manipulative, unattainable beauty messages.
The media display celebrities who have put on weight or lost some; articles and programmes go on about getting that shape, that size, that complexion, that hair, all mirages which induce despondency.
Then there are the emaciated models whose lifeless expressions blithely create emotional and mental chaos.
One customer fought back this week. Laura Berry, 28, from Stroud, was infuriated by Topshop’s tree-tall and stick-thin mannequins, so she went to the company’s Facebook page and let rip. She accused the fashion chain of showing no concern “for a generation of extremely body-conscious youth…
“Perhaps it is about time you became responsible for the impression you have on women and young girls and helped them feel good about themselves, rather than impose these ridiculous standards.I used my size 10/12 legs to walk straight out of your store.”
The post received thousands of “likes” within hours. Shop bosses said the offending mannequins were not meant to be “a representation of the average female body” but vowed to phase them out.
Businesses don’t get it. Well, why would they? Misery sells. Politicians, advertisers, fashion editors have, from time to time, held summit meetings, but they were glamorous, savvy showcases of cynicism.
A teen magazine journalist told me she left the industry because it targeted female insecurities and vulnerabilities.
“I felt as if I was in some dreadful cult that was determined to capture and distort young minds. I am now training to be a psychotherapist and know the damage caused by the dreamcatchers and image-makers.”
This cult, the most dangerous of all because it is seen as normal, makes its money from mind-bending our young (and old, too). We must not neglect the problem – of ever more thinness. Size 10 is considered too big by millions of gullible females. In the winter and spring, I am told, plastic surgeons are very busy, sculpting women so that they can make their bodies “beach ready”.
These anxieties are now emerging in 5- to 8-year-olds. Seeta Pai, the author of a US report on the subject, found that kids as young as five “were expressing a desire for a body that is thinner than their current or future selves”.
This a crisis without end. We are lost in a hall of distorting mirrors. - The Independent