Body Culture Shock! Blog #3
It is important to discuss the differences in beauty standards that exist between cultures. As I have discussed through the previous posts, the beauty standards of the United States and the Latin culture are different but are constantly being redefined by the media. Although the Latin Culture is still very much defined by centuries of diverse traditions and beliefs, its modern beauty standards are notoriously mirroring those of the United States. Through this post, I want to emphasize and focus on the effects that western television and magazines have on, thin and fat, Latina female bodies, and how have the media impacted Latina beauty standards.
In the United States, the Latina beauty standards fall under a very stereotypical believe that all Latinas have brown skin, dark hair, and dark eyes. Although many Latinas do fall under this stereotype, the majority does not. Personally, I have tan skin, dark hair, and light hazel eyes. But my sister on the other hand is white, with blond hair, and green eyes. Talking about the Latina beauty standards can be difficult and confusing because there isn’t just one ‘type’ of Latina. We all are different from one another and our bodies come in all sizes and colours. Being so different from one another is what makes it hard to define what is the Latina beauty standard, but I love our differences and I embrace them.
Family is extremely important in the Latin culture, especially for women, and we value family over everything. Family is one of the most important socializing agents that form part of our lives, and it’s basically responsible for the core foundation of our self-identity. But the families are also part of society, and as part of society, they are constantly being influence by the media’s content.
Because we uphold our family’s beliefs, as Latina women, we feel pressured to do what we are told. This can be very damaging for young women because the “family’s disdain for fat people” is more “influential than the beliefs”,(Thompson), of those that are part of society. This socialization can ultimately lead women to engage in serious eating disorders just to ‘fit’ into society’s beauty standards of thinness and fatness.
The beauty standards that the Latin culture enforces on young girls, reflects the views and believes of those in western cultures. Because western beauty standards have taken over the media, the belief that thinness is the equivalent of ultimate beauty, Latina women are constantly exposed to the delusion ideology that makes up the ‘perfect’ American beauty.
When I look back at what I saw on television growing up, I remember seeing a lot of Latina women that didn’t looked like me. I had what a lot of people considered a ‘fit body’. To people, I was not considered thin or fat. But when it came to my family, I was ‘gorda’, fat. ‘Gorda’ became my nickname, and as I reached my teenage years, I realized how my body and confidence was negatively affected by it. But now, as an adult, I am happy with my body and my weight. I learned that my beauty wasn’t defined by my weight and that thinness didn’t make happy. Now, I am fat and happy.
-Jay Torres-Almodóvar
Citation:
Thompson, Becky.“Food, Bodies, and Growing Up Female: Childhood Lessons about Culture, Race, and Class.” Feminist Perspectives on Eating Disorders.p. 355-378
Body Culture Shock! Blog #2
When I wrote the last blog, I talked about how media has such a strong influence on society’s beauty standards. I specifically talked about television, how it plays a big role in defining beauty and, what it means to be beautiful in the United States versus Latin cultures. I decided to compare the United States beauty standards and the beauty standards of the Latin culture because even though there are over 13 millions of Latinos in the United States, the beauty standards of this country remain virtually untouched; thin, white, and blonde! We see this representation of beauty everywhere, especially in the television and the magazines. Even though television has a lot to do with that we perceive as beautiful, magazines are equally responsible.
While flipping through an issue of People En Español, I see how fat women, and I, are “betrayed” by our “celebrity icons” (Berstein and St. John). Our celebrities represent what we are not: thin. I flip through the pages and see Eva Mendez and Paulina Vega, both very thin and whitewashed. Eva Mendez represents the ‘perfect Latina’, with beautiful skin, hair, and body size. She is what Latinas ‘should’ look like. But society’s definition of Latina beauty doesn’t stop with Mendez, we are also told that we should aspire to be like Paulina Vega. A beautiful Colombian Miss Universe! We need to be just like her, white, with brown hair, and again, THIN! It becomes easily identifiable that thinness means beauty and fatness equal otherness. Now we have become the “Other” within our own culture.
We are constantly ‘betrayed’ by our celebrity icons because “fat women – are a majority group with few celebrities representing us”(Berstein and St. John), in the media. When we can’t find ourselves in the media, when we can’t find representation of our bodies in the media, it negatively affects our identities and it creates hatred towards our bodies.
To me, it is extremely necessary to analyze and compare beauty standard between cultures because, along with beauty, culture plays an important role in ones identity. Our identities make up who we are as individuals. And they also help us identify with certain groups or communities. They make us feel like we belong with one another. But if we can’t find ourselves, simply flipping through a magazine, how do we know that we belong in society? The culture differences that exist between the United States and Latin countries are endless, but their beauty standard’s seem to have more in common than not.
-Jay Torres-Almodóvar
Citation:
Bernstein, Beth and Matilda St. John. “The Rosanne Benedict Arnolds: How Fat Women Are Betrayed by Their Celebrity Icons.” The Fat Studies Reader. p. 263-270
Body Culture Shock! Blog #1
Have you ever imagine what would it be to live in a different country, and culture, than the one you have known your whole life? Would you be able to fit, or blend, into society’s beauty standards? Or would you be the ‘Other’? These are some of the questions that constantly go through my head. But there is one particular question that I ask myself every single day; would I be able to fit, or blend, into society’s beauty standards? What does ‘fit, or blend, into society’s beauty standards’ mean? And why do I care about it so much? I ask these questions because the United States is a country that I have not known my whole life. As a Latina woman, every day I struggle to find a clear answer to all of these questions. I was born and raised in Puerto Rico, and when I was 16 years old, I moved to the United States. Growing up in a mixture of a Latin culture and Americanized ideals of over a century of imperialism, it created a self-identity confusion that still troubles me today. Now I realize that my self-identity issues were heavily influenced by what was portrayed on television.
Now that I live in a different country, I realize, that the United States’ beauty standards are different from what I experienced my whole life. In the United States, society’s beauty standards are heavily influenced by what is portrayed on television and magazines, ultimately reflecting on the individuals, creating a false ideology of what beauty is and shouldn’t be, constantly rejecting our own bodies. The perfect way to describe it is by Bordo’s explanation of our culture’s obsession; “we may be obsessed with our bodies, but we are hardly accepting of them.” p.15.
I used to watch American TV shows and movies during the weekends and during the weekdays I watched Latin American novelas and local TV shows. During the weekends, I learned that in order for me to be beautiful, I had to be thin, white, and blonde. During the weekdays, I learned that in order for me to be beautiful, I had to be thin, tan, and with dark hair. Because of how relevant beauty standards are in society, I eventually realized that thinness was a synonym of beauty, in both cultures, and I internalized it.
Media is extremely influential in society’s beauty standards. What is portrayed on television is absorbed by the masses and then portrayed in society. In the United States, young girls are taught that being fat is no acceptable, that fatness doesn’t go along with femininity, and that fat isn’t beautiful. In the Latin culture, young girls are taught that being thin is beautiful, but only if you have curves.
When both cultures’ beauty standards face one another, your body size will ultimately define you.
-Jay Torres-Almodóvar
Citation:
Bordo, Susan. “Introduction” Unbearable Weight. (2003): p. 1-42.
Western Standards: Not the End all Be All of Beauty Part 3
As discussed in my last blog post, there are many countries and cultures that celebrate people with large bodies. Depending on the country, plump bodies can be signs of wealth, good health, high fertility, and beauty. The topic of beauty in relation to weight is going to be the main focus of today’s blog post, with a focus on how the correlation with beauty and fatness is different depending on gender.
Although these various countries view higher weights as a positive, there are different correlations that come with higher weight depending on if you’re a man or woman. In these countries and cultures in which high weight is seen as admirable quality, heavy weight men are seen as attractive but more importantly seen as dominating, powerful, and in control. The addition of weight increases men’s power status, but is not necessarily something that determines their sexual attractiveness.
In contrast, in these cultures, a woman’s sexual appeal is specifically determined by her weight. As previously discussed, many cultures have their daughters go through a coming of age ceremony in which they enter a “fattening room” in preparation for motherhood and marriage. Although these beauty standards vary vastly from western standards of beauty, it could be said that the same sexual objectification of women’s bodies is taking place. A prime example of this is the previously discussed Ghanaian practice of women taking appetite stimulants to develop larger butts, breasts, and thick thighs. Although female bodies are not inherently sexual, men specifically objectify these areas. In Women, Fat, and the Sexual Market, Oliver discusses the fact that most of the world views larger bodies as the sexual ideal and use self starvation as a way to subjugate women (p. 86). I believe that although the beauty ideal is different depending on which culture you are discussing, women are still being controlled by standards when it comes to their looks. In our culture, which ridicules fat women and praises thin women, the opposite may occur in these cultures where smaller women are viewed as unattractive and childlike.
It’s important to discuss the differences in valuing small bodies vs. larger bodies, and how there are many more positives that can come out of celebrating larger bodies over smaller bodies. Overall, while celebrating these various cultures for their varying opinions in order to recognize the fact that the western standard of beauty is inherently problematic and that beauty does in fact come in a vast array of sizes and colors, it is important to recognize that the same type of objectification that calls for critically analyzing women’s bodies is taking place.
Gabrielle Winger
Citations:
Ghosh, P. 2012. The Fat of the Land: Western Standards of Beauty Clash With Weset African Notions. International Business Times. Retrieved from http://www.ibtimes.com/fat-land-western-standards-beauty-clash-west-african-notions-843573
Oliver, E. (2006). Fat Politics. New York: Oxford University Press Inc.
Fat and Happy or Thin and Miserable 3
To compare myself from when I was thin and to when I was fat can be very hard. It requires me to delve into myself completely, my thoughts, feeling, and actions during both time periods of my life. The brutal honestly with myself during my thin period was finally expressed! It was freeing! I have never talked openly about the struggle with my thin self (the starving, the diet pills, etc..) It brought out all those negative thoughts and behaviors, which I was lying to myself about at the time. Looking back I should have been happy I was thin. I believe everyone one at one or another have been unhappy with their body, this self-examination has made me come to the realization that our culture makes people think that they need to be thin and when you are thin you should be happy with your body. I know I am not alone with the fact that being thin became an unhealthy obsession, but you become so blinded by the thinness. It was a mental struggle with myself and the positive reinforcement of our culture made it worse.
On the other hand, being fat should have made me feel bad about myself, according to our cultural beliefs and attitudes toward fatness. However, it had the opposite effect, I became happy! Why? I also wonder this, what clicked in me to make feel that it didn’t matter how thin or fat I am? I needed to be happy with myself. That is what it all comes down to. You can be happy at any size you are, it is all in your mind set. As a female that is forced to put up with all the diet and skinny advertisements, I finally took a stand. I decided my body size does not define me or any female in this world. Even though our society tries to shove thinness down our throats, I refuse to become sucked back into that world, our self-worth, self-esteem, and values is not defined by the number on the scale.
Western Standards: Not the End all Be All of Beauty Part 2
Before going into this research for this project, I had not previously been aware of other cultures that celebrated and praised larger body types. At first I was confused as to why this was, but after some research and reading of some provided articles, it soon became clear that this was because western researchers and scientists of the 19th and early 20th century such as Dr. Watson Bradshaw viewed cultures that did not condemn larger bodies as primitive, and that western nations were clearly advanced and civilized. This almost exclusively racially charged hierarchy based on fatphobia helped jumpstart various negative connotations with larger body types that perpetuate the western standard of beauty. Because these cultures were and continue to be “different”, their practices are given no legitimization (Farrel, 2011). Western ethnocentrism has blinded us to the realities of body positivity across the globe for hundreds of years, and we will now examine these previously discredited practices.
For many, the act of gaining weight is seen as a coming of age ceremony. In many different Nigerian cultures, girls are considered women after spending a period of time in a house called a “fattening room” in which they spend months simply gaining weight. While there, they are visited by older women who give them wisdom about being a wife and mother. The fatter these young women get, they are considered to be more beautiful and alluring. Not only do others find this practice appealing, but the young girls themselves often look forward to it (Simmons, 1998). Many other Countries practice this tradition, such as Tahiti.
For many others, thinness is associated with poor health. In South Africa, partially due to the prevalence of AIDS, there is a strong association between poor health and weight loss. Like with many other cultures, there is a strong correlation between wealth and weight. Countries with a history of famine, such as Mauritania, West Africa also celebrate fuller figures as a sign of good health and higher socioeconomic status. In addition to it being a mark of high wealth, large women in countries such as Afghanistan are viewed as having high fertility. In other countries such as Nauru, a south pacific island, high weight is celebrated as a sign of beauty and wealth but is also easily assessable due to the high import rates of cheap food from New Zealand and Australia.
The last culture I will be touching on in this blog post is Ghana. Fatness is celebrated similarly in this culture as the ones previously discussed, but with an interesting addition. Many women in this country purchase “appetite stimulants” in order to aid in gaining weight (Ghosh, 2012).
As seen throughout these various cultures, there are many reasons as to why being fat can be seen as a source of good health, wealth, beauty, and happiness. In my next blog post, I will be discussing these weight connections with gender, and what role gender stereotypes play in these cultural traditions.
Gabrielle Winger
Citations
Farrel, A. E. 2011. Fat Shame: Stigma and the Fat Body in American Culture. New York: New York University Press.
Simmons, A. M. (1998). Where Fat is a Mark of Beauty. Retrieved from http://www.anthroprof.org/documents/Docs102/102articles/fat26.pdf
Ghosh, P. 2012. The Fat of the Land: Western Standards of Beauty Clash With Weset African Notions. International Business Times. Retrieved from http://www.ibtimes.com/fat-land-western-standards-beauty-clash-west-african-notions-843573
Fat and Happy or Thin and Miserable 2
I am fat and happy! It took me alone time to come to this conclusion. I previously talked about how I struggled with being thin and staying thin. I currently weigh the most I think I ever have and I am ok with it. My weight gaining journey didn’t happen overnight, as I think with most people it gradually happened. When I looked at pictures of me I am like “Oh boy! I need to start working out.” I have to fit in that bridesmaid dress, that I had fitted 6 months before the wedding! But I didn’t freak out because I could just get it let out and it would fit. Needless to say I squeezed into the dress and I didn’t starve myself to do it. That is when I realized I am happy and I am not thin and that is ok.
Oh are you expecting? No! I am not! Why is it when a women gains weight they are automatically pregnant? My response to this is, “No Just FAT!” One would think that I should be offended, but I wasn’t. I like food and I like to eat. I realized that my body size doesn’t not define who I am. I am a person who has lived life and gone through a lot of different challenges including loving my body. My life is full and so am I, which in turn makes me happy. I have a loving family, my health, started college, and a job I love, but I am not a size 2. The problem is that everywhere you look, on TV, magazines, and social media, it is all about being thin and losing weight. There are very few positive images of people who are overweight in the media, and that is why people who are overweight struggle with low self-esteem and poor body images. It took me a long time to overcome all the negatives of being fat. The world needs to understand that one can be fat, happy and healthy!
Western Standards: Not the End All Be All of Beauty
In the United States, the pressure to be thin is enforced upon us from birth. Girls start thinking about dieting before the age of ten, young teenage girls are often subjected to ridicule if they are not slender, and by the time they are adult women they are feeding into the beauty industry through purchasing magazines advertising how to lose 10 pounds in a week, purchasing dangerous weight loss supplements, and purchasing gym subscriptions and high cost low fat specialty foods. I have been personally subjected to this, as I have struggled with being heavy since the third grade, when I was told I was fat for the first time. As a woman who was born in raised in the United States, I have internalized what Western culture deems beautiful, specifically in women.
Western culture has created the image of a woman with a thin waist and frail limbs as the ultimate mark of beauty and has only recently started to accept larger bottoms (in white women, black women have valued larger frames for quite some time now, but of course this was not accepted by mainstream media) as sexually attractive. As discussed in The Ana Sanctuary, Western culture creates a strange dichotomy when it comes to body image. We condemn women who develop eating disorders such as Anorexia Nervosa, but accept the fact that dieting and weight loss behaviors practiced in western culture are legitimate and praised (Dias, 2010). The fact is, eating disorders are more common in western cultures because of our hegemonic values of what is beautiful (Makino, M., Tsuboi, K., & Dennerstein, L. ,2004). By living in a culture that applauds every celebrity that goes from a size 12 to a size 4 and sees having 6 foot 110 pound models on the runway as the norm, it’s extremely easy to forget that these beauty standards are socially constructed. Although Americans may like to think their opinions are factual, there are many countries and cultures across the world that value large bodies over smaller ones, and in my upcoming blog posts I will be discussing the specific cultures of Nigeria, Nauru, South Africa, Tahiti, and a few other countries. I will be discussing their practices, views, and will later examine how these values are gendered. Through these blog posts, we will examine how being fat and having fat is not something to be ashamed of , and is in fact something to be celebrated.
Gabrielle Winger
Citations:
Dias, K. (2010). The Ana Sanctuary: Women’s Pro-Anorexic Narratives in Cyberspace. New York: New York University Press.
Makino, M., Tsuboi, K., & Dennerstein, L. (2004). Prevalence of Eating Disorders: A Comparison of Western and Non-Western Countries. Medscape General Medicine, 6(3), 49.
Fat and Happy or Thin and Miserable
To be fat or to be thin, that is the question? I have been both, and I know that I am not alone in the constant struggle to be happy with my body at any weight. I come to the conclusion that no size will ever be good enough. If I am thin I still don’t think I am thin enough; if I am fat I think I need to lose weight. My struggle to be thin just happened, I started losing weight when I started college, so much for the “Freshman 15.” I honestly think stress triggered my weight loss, and when people started to compliment me, it made it was worse. I thought how bad did I look before? Was I that fat?
The diet industry made it worse, I would flip through magazines and see all these skinny models and advertisements for diet pills. I thought, since people were complimenting me on how good I look, I must have looked awful before I drop some weight. So I bought diet pills and took them daily. The diet industry uses such trickery, I often wonder how much money I spent on all the different types of pills. It seemed that is all I did was take those pills, any type of diet supplement you can think of I probably tried. I felt awful all the time, but hey I was losing weight and people were noticing! I then took it even farther and really watched what I ate, if I ate at all and continued to take all the diet pills. Did I mention I felt AWFUL! I was tired, run down, and sick all the time, my immune system was down and I couldn’t even fight off the common cold. Oh yeah and I was HUNGRY! All the time. But I was thin and people kept saying how good I looked. It is a slippery slope when a person starts losing weight, it becomes an obsession and is very dangerous. When was I going to be thin enough? I don’t think I would have ever considered myself thin even at my thinnest, it is amazing how blind to your body image you can be. Although I was thin, one thing I was not, was healthy. This cycle of taking diet pills and eating very little continued for years, until I found out I was pregnant. My little miracle, saved me of more years of diet pills and hardly eating. Then all of the sudden it didn’t matter how “thin” I was, and five years later I would never go back to vicious cycle again.
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