You can lead a woman to body-positive messages, but you can’t make her believe them.
I stopped into a consignment boutique near my downtown office this afternoon on my lunch break — it’s the same boutique I blogged about here. The boutique offers consignment-quality used clothes that benefit Dress for Success, a non-profit program that provides low-income women with professional clothes so they can land professional jobs. The nicer, designer clothes are usually offered on the first floor with the basement reserved for the more dated and lesser quality pieces. Despite its institutional gray concrete floor and stark fluorescent overhead lighting, the volunteers have strived to make the basement as cheery a place as a basement can be, with handmade signs that read in glittery print , “You’re perfect!,” “You’re stunning!” and “You’re gorgeous!”
So, it was kind of a disconnect when I ventured back upstairs and waited patiently at the jewelry counter for the clerk to show me a vintage-inspired ring. Three volunteer clerks were standing at the counter next to me, deep in conversation. A dowdy woman whom I shall call Lady A was in the midst of lamenting her small breasts. A tall blonde woman (who can’t wear larger than a size 12) offered to give her some of her fat, explaining that she had way too much of it while pinching her stomach to illustrate her point. Lady A declined, pinching her own belly and announcing that she had quite enough of her own, thank you. A thin petite woman commiserated with the pair despite the fact that she is a perhaps a size 4-6 at most. An uncomfortable silence ensued as Lady A and the tall blonde stared daggers at her for imagining fat that doesn’t exist. The thin petite woman quickly changed the subject and began moaning about her wrinkles and how she wished she could get Botox while the other two women nodded in agreement and pointed out their own crow’s feet, lined foreheads and other imagined flaws.
I had been standing there listening to the body-hate talk for about three minutes when they finally realized they had a customer waiting on them. The petite thin woman apologized for the wait and opened the case.
“It’s no problem,” I said. “Actually, I was just thinking about how nice it would be if we extended Fat Talk Free week year round.”
“Fat Talk Free week?” she asked, confused. “What’s that?”
“Last week was observed as Fat Talk Free week,” I explained. “It’s a week in which women are encouraged not to engage in fat talk… you know, like ‘Oh, I’m so fat‘ or ‘I need to lose weight.‘”
“Oh,” she said with one of those smiles retail workers reserve for customers they despise but have to be nice to anyway. “All women do it; it’s just part of being a woman. We’re all just obsessed about our weight!”
I smiled as I slipped on the ring and found it to be a perfect fit. “Yes,” I said. “But we don’t have to be.”
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