Fraudulent Feminist no. 2: A weighty issue

I was nearly persuaded to become a cavewoman last week. 

Oh, I was seduced. There she was, a slender, toned, gleaming specimen of flesh. She looked up at me, back arched, and drew me in. It might have been the streak of blonde in her hair, or the deep and earnest glance. It was almost certainly the sheen of her skin and the contours of her body. In any case I was won over.

The steps to emulating such perfection were easy. Eat like a cavewoman and that body was mine. Only consume food that could be picked from the ground. Ok, I’m cool with that. Don’t eat any sugary, fatty, mouth-wateringly divine treats. Ok, par for the course. Don’t eat any pulses or grains. Erm, hang on, that means giving up bread. And oats.  And rice. What WOULD I eat?  I saw through its contradictions (don’t oats and wheat and rice grow on the ground?) and its skewed view of the world and got on with my life and my fairly healthy diet. But I had been shaken all the same, knowing that I should do more.

It’s hard to avoid in January, this tyranny of weight loss. And it speaks to the very heart of darkness in women.  I’m not happy with my figure. I don’t know anyone who is. I know I’m not fat, but you know, I’m not thin, not really.

Three months ago, on my wedding day I was 9st 6lb (and ok, at 5ft 8in, that’s quite thin) and today I sit at my desk a slightly portlier 9st 12lb. Exposing my size in this way is excruciating for me. I find the extra weight disturbing and hateful. I’m uncomfortable with the weight gain; it signals a failure for me. There’s a deep seated drive and desire within me to be thinner. I  feel the need to move more and eat less and if I spend the weekend drinking beer and eating chips (because that what makes a good weekend) come Monday I feel disgusted with myself.

Uncomfortable reading, no?  I would do anything to be sixteen again, when I really didn’t care about the puppy fat I’d developed and I enjoyed food with relish.  It was a slow descent into my current love/hate relationship with food but by my early twenties the pattern had been firmly established. Where does this come from?

Well, the cliché to turn to is the fashion world and the general bombardment of images of stick-thin women in the media. But I don’t read those kinds of mags and genuinely have no desire to be thinner than a size 8 – those models look scrawny to me. I’m not so convinced by that argument.

No, it’s darker, deeper, something that lies in the great abyss of the psyche. People with real eating disorders are often said to be using food as a way of gaining control over their lives. I wonder if that is also part of the wider relationship of women and food. Are we trying to gain control of our own lives in a world that is set up to exert control over us?  I’m not absolutely convinced by that idea either. It sometimes feels that to be thin is to be successful. It suggests a certain self-control. It suggests a keen sense of knowing what’s attractive and how to keep yourself that way. Are thin women sending out signals that they are ‘good’ little women? We’ll keep ourselves nice for you,  we can be controlled, we won’t cause you any trouble.  I really hope that isn’t the case.  

Whatever the reasons, whatever cultural influences are bearing down on me, I’m disturbed by the link I seem to have established between my weight, the food I eat and self-loathing.  This is in no way a positive phenomenon.

Of course, beauty ‘ideals’ are mere fashions. I’m quite aware that I would have made a HOT Victorian: delicate fair skin, dark curly hair, slim but curvy where it matters. I just missed my time.