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First a clarification—this post isn’t about dieting for good health, food allergies, or health conditions like diabetes and high cholesterol. It’s about the type of dieting where women starve themselves to be thin for men.
Women have been fed propaganda for generations upon generations that dieting is good for us. Some propaganda lies and say it’s good for our health. Some propaganda tells the truth that dieting is for men —as in women do it to attract men. Diet fads change constantly; one decade we’re supposed to diet to be a little plump to attract men and the next decade we’re supposed to look anorexic to attract men. The one constant, however, is that plus-sized women are reviled. Why? Why are women who are healthy eaters, plus-sized, or born to tall, big-boned families treated so badly? Because they are harder for men to intimidate and control due to being closer to men’s weight and strength. They hate you because YOU intimidate THEM.
Before industrialization a fat woman was considered a wealthy woman because, not only did she have enough to eat, she had an excess. In the past a “large” woman could be an Amazon, a Viking or Scythian Warrior, a Queen. She was tall with strong bones and muscles. She was intelligent and cunning from being well nourished and loved by her family. She could be equal to a man in height, weight, strength, and intelligence.
Today, fat women are only celebrated by tribal cultures still mainly living off the land. Fatness is only celebrated where it is rare and where the privilege of not feeling hungry is sought after.
Everywhere Western (white) culture has touched hates fat women, and not just fat women, but tall women too —any woman seen as “large” is supposedly undesirable. Considering the reality is that an estimated 60% of women are “plus-sized” in Australia, Canada, the UK, and the USA —this is a problem. “But people are newly fat, it’s not normal, that’s why people look down on it.” I beg to differ. Fatness and largeness has always existed. We have ancient sculptures, art, and ancient graves to prove it from many civilizations throughout history.
How It All Began
“Dieting” historically started in private homes thousands of years ago and many traditional cultures still have practices where the men and boys eat first and women and girls get whatever is leftover (which is sometimes nothing). When you are hungry you have no strength and can barely hold a thought in your head. This is a clear strategy for weakening women to gain power and control over them. The inherent misogyny of the world’s religions (Catholicism, Protestantism, Islam, and Buddhism) unfortunately perpetuated this practice of “men benefit first” via their belief in male superiority.
Today it looks different but men are still using food to control women:
As feminists we need to start calling starvation dieting & weight watching by their true name:
MALNUTRITION
Did you know women’s desired childlike small body frames and “weakness” compared to men is not inherent to the human race but a product of multiple generations of malnourished women?
Did you know that when a woman is malnourished it not only affects her body size and health but the body size and health of her children and grandchildren?
Did you know even if you don’t diet while pregnant, your previous dieting and even your mother’s dieting will still negatively affect your baby potentially causing low birth weight which can lead to a higher risk of infant death and disease in early childhood?
Did you know that if your mother and grandmother were both chronic dieters who pressured you to diet since childhood that your size and health will be equal to someone subjected to malnourishment from extreme poverty from birth into adulthood?
Did you know the consequences of malnourishment can include lethargy, depression, cognitive impairment (lower IQ, short term memory loss, difficulty focusing…), more difficult pregnancies, more difficult births, lower resistance to infections, and a higher risk of disease throughout your life?
Did you know a small petite frame combined with ongoing health issues and fertility issues are symptoms your family had consecutive generations of impoverished and malnourished women?
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Study:
“Nutrition of Women and Adolescent Girls: Why It Matters” by Leslie Elder & Elizabeth Ransom, 2003.
https://www.prb.org/resources/nutrition-of-women-and-adolescent-girls-why-it-matters/
“Adequate nutrition, a fundamental cornerstone of any individual’s health, is especially critical for women because inadequate nutrition wreaks havoc not only on women’s own health but also on the health of their children. Children of malnourished women are more likely to face cognitive impairments, short stature, lower resistance to infections, and a higher risk of disease and death throughout their lives. Malnutrition poses a variety of threats to women. It weakens women’s ability to survive childbirth, makes them more susceptible to infections, and leaves them with fewer reserves to recover from illness.
Addressing women’s malnutrition has a range of positive effects because healthy women can fulfill their multiple roles — generating income, ensuring their families’ nutrition, and having healthy children — more effectively and thereby help advance countries’ socioeconomic development.”
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I used to resent that I am tall and muscular. I used to want to be short and petite. I thought it would make men like me more (and I was right, but not in a good way), but now that I’m aware of misogyny, why small women are men’s preference, and that women’s small stature is directly caused by men and their preference for domination —I’m glad to be tall and strong.
I’m fairly sure my height and muscle mass are the only reasons I wasn’t physically abused in my relationships with men. I think they were all scared I’d fight back and win and that’s why I experienced so much covert and passive aggressive abuse. They were angry they couldn’t physically intimidate and dominate me.
I’m curious to know if you think your height and weight has affected the level and type of abuse you’ve all experienced from men?
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In conclusion I wish the gift of nourishment, strength, height, and intelligence upon all you daughters and your families’ daughters.
I think it’s also hugely important to highlight the influence of the fashion industry on women’s bodies being commodified and turned into a trend. The fashion industry has always been headed by homosexual men who have a powerful sway on the expectations of model’s bodies. The ideal model body was always a skinny underdeveloped body akin to a very young boy’s body. Normal female shapes (e.g. having breasts, hips, even the slightest thickness in thighs) were rejected either directly or indirectly, i.e., only sample clothing sizes available being 0 or 2. You’ll note that even developed adult male bodies are rejected a lot too. The ideal body was/is the twink body. It’s creepy af. The misogyny towards healthy female bodies is horrifying in the fashion industry. The years of socialisation and influence of this industry has been and still is absolutely insidious. The moment you realise its influence, you cannot unsee it. Please note, this is not intended to be homophobic, it’s just the reality of the fashion industry.
I'd argue that the fear of gaining weight controls many or most women's lives. I've always been fat/morbidly obese. I am now on a weight loss journey because of health reasons and the way my weight impacts my life. I turned to food to cope with loneliness, trauma, and the pain of my life. I still struggle with it.
Anyway, being fat my entire life has given me a lot of perspective. I saw how the girls and women around me (many of them thin/average sized) were terrified of gaining weight. It ruled their lives. They denied themselves food, restricted their calories, went on fad diets, and so on. I think of the way this drains women and limits their potential when everything revolves around being attractive to men and staying as slender as possible. I think it also pits women against each other. I certainly had women and girls be very cruel and hurtful toward me, and I was treated like trash by men of course. I still am.
Ironically, thin women's fears about gaining weight are not unfounded. Take it from me, it's not a fun experience to be fat. You are absolutely treated like nothing. You are seen as Other, less than, lazy, disgusting. You are excluded and dehumanized. No wonder women are terrified of it. I certainly wish I'd never known any of this. It would have been one less thing for me to deal with. The psychological toll of being fat is not talked about enough. You cease to be a human being in most people's eyes, and this, in turn, can fuel self-destructive eating habits. Go to any weight loss sub on reddit and read the stories of women who went from being fat to being thin (or vice versa) and you'll have all the evidence you need that, as a woman, your worth is dependent on the size of your body. It's heartbreaking.
I know I'm writing a novel. I'm not sure what point I'm trying to make. I'm angry that women have to worry about any of it. I'm angry that women can't just eat and nourish their bodies in the way that feels right for them. No wonder so many girls develop eating disorders. I binged in order to soothe myself because of the pain of the exclusion and loneliness. Other girls starved themselves or did other things. Everyone's relationship to food is so fucked up, and it does not have to be this way. We should be able to love our bodies the way they are. I had to start loving myself before I could do all the work it takes to lose weight. No, I never should have let myself gain so much weight, but I was in terrible pain because of the society I live in, a society that deems women only useful if they are thin and attractive to men. We all suffer as a result, whether we fit those standards or not.
Yeah f this - I’m also tall and I love to eat and train. That foundational feeling of strength and capability in my body is better than any male attention - and I don’t feel any less feminine for it.
I’m almost 6 feet tall and was 130 in my younger days — ED thin. It was a huge part of my appeal, zero doubt. Now I’m between 180-200 and look normal. I have an ass, that’s the biggest part of me. I do not eat a lot — typically once a day and vegetarian. My ex-fiancé told me he didn’t like “large Fern.” I knew if we married I would have to somehow get down 40 pounds or so to please him. Nah, I’m good.
With regards to controlling a population, starvation is key to compliance. Fascist regimes start by starving a population in order to gain their compliance—is there any wonder why women are subjected to this shit?! It's to control us. Fuck them. Eat what you like.
I like to think of it as what your body can do rather than how it looks. Being taller-- you'll have better chance in defending yourself, multiple bonus points for weight and even more for muscle mass. Being small I feel too f-ng vulnerable and I know that it is a huuuge disadvantage in a battle.
I've been relentlessly bullied since I can remember myself. Bitten up by my older sister, girls and boys. I also went to school earlier than my peers. Although things kept getting better with age or I just become too much of a people pleaser which now involves its own set of problems.
Being small is a sh*t show. You even get less respect from people in a confrontation as an adult unless you are extra agressive.
If I was bigger, my sister wouldn't have bullied me to pieces in my childhood and I wouldn't have frozen later in life when assaulted by my XLVM who refused to listen to me saying stop. Even martial arts can only do so much when you have a huge disadvantages like hight, weight, muscle mass and testosterone in males. I've missed so many job opportunities because I'd be scared to walk from work in some places and some careers I just discard right away if I would have to go to people's houses.
I don’t know what is it about weight but yes, I am tall and gain weight easily, and when I was thinner I noticed that even male relatives were way nicer to me. Now that I gained the weight back I am left to my own devices, like “well… she’ll manage” CRRRAZY!
Thank you for reminding me to eat! I hate that subconscious part of me that says to me that being very thin is ok, even though I feel very week and have no energy. I'll remind myself that I keep fighting patriarchy by eating more and better. I hope it will give me more motivation and will help defy the brainwashing by society.
I'm slightly taller than average and growing up I had a really fast metabolism. I got so many passive aggressive comments like, 'How are you so slim when you eat so much?' And it really surprised me that so many people are so fixated on weight to the point of being quite bitter. I might eat a lot but I eat healthily and I make sure that I exercise regularly and keep active. I hate the double standard that men are supposed to have a 'healthy appetite' but women who eat a healthy amount are seen as greedy. And the whole big strong man/small fragile woman dynamic has always given me the creeps. Men who subscribe to that are potential abusers at best and potential paedos at worst. The whole insidious trend of infantilising women is vile and should be called out for what it is.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for opening this thread, OP. I could sit here and write all day about the inherent damage that diet culture has done for women all around the world for much of our history. The biggest lesson I've learned while learning about what to eat to heal my body after my endometriosis (And another chronic disease on top of that!) was that the low fat diet hyped up in the 80s and 90s has done significant damage to women's reproductive health and may be the reason for the uptick in miscarriages and complicated pregnancies over the years. Apparently, dietary fat is NOT bad for you, and I may argue is extremely important to digest a good amount of it per day if you are a woman, especially if you are menstruating.
I'm 5'8" and very thin, like 120 lbs, because of my eating disorder, and my mom says I look great being unhealthily underweight. I feel like tall girls in general we are pressured to fit the "supermodel" trope because tall thin girls with hourglass shapes are revered and looked as exotic. I feel like society only likes a certain TYPE of tall girl. However, when I was on the heavier side, I felt incredibly masculine and hulking, and it's only now that I am literally unhealthy that I finally feel "fragile." I like being tall, because it comes with long legs and a nice figure, but I have to literally starve to get to this size and I wish I could shake off the internalized patriarchal thinking that I have to be very thin as a tall girl. I feel so much pressure from society, my parents, and the modeling industry that I can't ever stray from this size.
I'm only 5.06 feet tall because of genetics and maybe anorexia (before). I've always thought tall women were gorgeous and I've always wanted to be 5.9 because I think muscles on a bigger body look better and I've always wanted to intimidate men. I hate men who "like" short women, lots don't really like us, they think it's just easier to control and abuse us. I'm sad my mom didn't marry a taller man but it is what it is.
Yes! I wrote an essay once about medieval Europe and how men had generations of picking small framed women so they could feed them as little as possible. This would make effects of the plague even worse because of how sickly and malnourished everyone was. My scrote professor said I needed a source but I was like…have you seen women???
Where did you see that previous dieting can affect your baby? I have an ED so that concerns me for my future kiddo.