Media Storm - Intersectionality and body image

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to MediaStorm, a news podcast that starts with the people who are normally asked last. I'm Matilda Malinson and I'm Helena Wadia. And we're back with some bonus content for our loyal listeners. New Year, New You. Or at least, that's the message the mainstream media likes to push. On last week's episode, we dissected why the wider media often tells us our bodies need to change. change. We looked into fat phobia, diet culture and depictions of body image and discussed how the mainstream news media helps the diet industries profit of our insecurities. But the conversation

Starting point is 00:00:43 doesn't end here. And that's because fat phobia doesn't affect all plus size people in the same way. Various intersections such as race or gender identity or queerness can change the way people experience body image. We asked Stephanie Yaboa and Essie Dennis to tell us more about fighting back against a world that tells them to just be smaller. Of the government strategy to tackle obesity, it's a great fat, hulking model. If you're unhealthy as a body, you should not be celebrating. Rapid weight loss is a much more accepted thing to do. The childhood obesity at record high level.

Starting point is 00:01:22 There is a virus out there to which you could be susceptible if you're going to. don't lose weight. You've both written books that talk about the intersections of body image and fatness. Stephanie, your book is a black fat girl's guide to living life unapologetically. An essay yours, which is out in two months. about queer body power. Tell us about writing these books and why it's important to highlight intersectionality in body image. So I think for me, it was important for me to write this because growing up, you know, in the 90s and the naughties and stuff, we collectively had little to no

Starting point is 00:02:17 representation when it came to black fat women on screen. So I grew up not only having a really huge complex, not only about my fatness, but also this notion that black people are not worthy of being seen, we are not as pretty, we're not as this, not as that. And I guess the motivation for writing the book sort of came around 2017 when I noticed the huge shift in the body positivity movement, a movement that I no longer feel represents me, because the movement in part was kind of created by fat black women. And that narrative got lost. very quickly, the more popular the movement became. The visibility was being given to women who were predominantly white or light-skinned, hourglass

Starting point is 00:03:04 shaped, sort of smaller fat, and leaving out the larger fat black women and darker-skinned black women. And I just wanted a place for women that looked like me, especially in the UK, to feel seen. Because the way in which black fat women navigate life is very different because we have to deal with misogy noir, we have to deal with the racial element, we have to deal with the colourism element. So, you know, the tropes that we see of fat black women in media, for instance, were always seen as the help slaves, servants, the sassy black friend, the sassy fat friend, you know, we don't get to have sex lives or portrayed, we don't get to have

Starting point is 00:03:45 romantic lives, we're always the stereotypes that are attributed to us, such as being very dominant being very aggressive, the amount of like, even in dating, like the amount of messages that I used to get from predominantly white men asking if I was a dominatrix, if I would do all of these, you know, really kinky things to them. And I'm like, I'm very like introverted. I don't know what you're talking about, that kind of thing. And it was just like, because of my appearance, there was this assumption that I had a specific personality type because of my skin color and my weight. And that was the thing that really spurred me into saying, you know, we need to have our perspectives heard because there's just a lot of extra things on top of

Starting point is 00:04:28 fat phobia that we have to deal with. Essie, tell us about queer body power. So I used to go into schools a lot and talk about kind of queerness and eating disorders and things. And I'd have a lot of kids. And I'd have a lot of kids come up to me afterwards, basically coming out to me, like, just afterwards, because they had no one to talk to. But also, they were struggling a lot with, like, their physically, how they felt in their own bodies, because they just couldn't find anything to kind of almost, like, attach themselves to, you know, when you're a kid, you're kind of looking around, looking for people who look like you and feel like you and trying to figure yourself out in your identity. And just

Starting point is 00:05:10 a lot of these queer kids weren't really getting that. And then I sort of started to look into it, and I saw just the really high proportion of eating disorders and body dissatisfaction among different queer communities. But this is the thing, where we're obviously such a large community that you can't just write a book about everyone as sort of a homogenous lump of people. Like, there's a lot of, like, for instance, fat phobia is really, really rife in the queer community. But in different communities, like for gay men, it's different than for gay women, for instance. Like, there's a lot of different things going on. And it was kind of trying to bring all these things together so that there was kind of a book that was accessible. people could read about it and be like, this is what I'm dealing with. And you've got things

Starting point is 00:05:48 like desirability politics and you've got kind of the dating aspects of it. And then you have like being queer and disabled, which I am and having to deal with those two things. So I was trying to bring it all together so that people could have like a really well-rounded book about queer experiences, but also for it to be a positive book in general. Like I wanted it to be a book where people could actually get what they needed out of it. And I have like people who've read it already have said like sometimes as points where they're crying because they hadn't realized that it was the issue sometimes you just need someone to to say something in a way that you know you kind of understand and someone from your community to talk about it but I'm very grateful for everyone else

Starting point is 00:06:26 who's put you know done interviews for the book as well because I just feel like it makes it a lot richer can you just to explain how queerness can sometimes manifest in increased body image pressure So there's a lot of pressure in different parts of our community to look a certain way and be a certain way, you know, especially for instance with kind of gay and bisexual men, there's this huge pressure to be thin and there's this huge kind of gym culture for like other men because, you know, there's like a kind of different experience than for instance straight men are having with women. And then you have, you know, trans people. There's this idea of what femininity and masculinity look like and how you're supposed to fit. into that, you know, and I'm gender fluid and I find myself, you know, when I'm presenting more feminine, I'm chill. It feels quite easy to me because I feel like people see me for what I am. When I'm presenting more masculine, people are like, you've got boobs, that's bit, okay, like, they'll just be like, no, no, you look like way too girly, you shouldn't be dressing like this, you shouldn't be looking like this, and it makes you feel like you can't express yourself

Starting point is 00:07:31 kind of properly. But yeah, different experiences, obviously if you're non-binary or if you're kind of a binary trans person, you know, there's these ideas of what a woman looks like, like, what a man looks like, and the idea that you have to pass, and your body has to look a certain way, and you're not trans enough or queer enough if you don't look a certain way. And, you know, in terms of, you know, queer women, there's this idea of, you know, you either have to look butch or femme, and you're not allowed to look any different. And if you're butch, you have to be thin, and you have to be this, like, there's just all these different ideas in different parts of our communities. And that's why I think it's so important,

Starting point is 00:08:04 because it is a different experience than if, you know, you're a cis-heterosexual person. It just is um and that's kind of why i wanted to bring it in because it was almost like these things weren't fully getting talked about it's like we all knew it was going on like we all knew we were having these problems with our bodies and we all knew we had these things relating to our queerness but it wasn't being talked about that much totally yeah i think it's so important to talk about intersections especially with body image with fat phobia um i was talking about how in um South Asian communities, you're like simultaneously showed love through food. Like you're taught how to cook. The plates are always like really piled high of food and eating everything on

Starting point is 00:08:46 your plate. It's like a sign of respect and a sign of gratitude and you're practically like force fed by your grandmother when you go to family events. But then on the other hand, while all that's happening, you're being told you need to lose weight by your blunt Indian aunties and you're being told that you look better in a sari if your stomach's flatter. And it's interesting because there are so many, yeah, there are so many ways that kind of body shame intersects in different communities. And it's super important to talk about it and to highlight it. So everyone, I mean, no shade to my grandmother.

Starting point is 00:09:27 Thank you for the food. Oh, my God. If you're listening. I mean, yeah, I have like a big Greek family and it's a similar thing of like a lot of food and a lot of kind of that kind of family sort of thing with your kind of granny making loads and loads of food and then it's also like, but you're putting on weight though

Starting point is 00:09:43 but also eat this entire goat but also like that's just the vibe constantly and you're like, guys, we're getting mixed messages from you here. My granny Catholic, very Catholic woman. Oh gosh. This story was very pro keeping her four daughters and her female grandkids chubby because she wanted us to stay

Starting point is 00:10:09 virgins. Well, this is more something that affected my mum. She said her and her four sisters, they would, yeah, yeah, they would be encouraged by their mum to put on weight and my mum thinks it is because she wanted them to stay virgin. Which is just, I mean, so many problematic associations. There are so many essays from now. Thank you. Thanks for listening. We'll be back on the 10th of February with our next episode on homelessness. So make sure you've hit subscribe. Follow MediaStorm wherever you get your podcast so that you can get access to new episodes as soon as they drop. If you like what you hear, share this episode with someone and leave us a five-star rating and a review. It really helps more people discover the podcast and our aim is to have as many people as possible here.

Starting point is 00:10:59 these voices. You can also follow us on social media at Matilda Mal at Helena Wadia and follow the show via at MediaStormPod. You can also get in touch and let us know what you'd like us to cover or who you'd like us to speak to. Media Storm, a new podcast from the House of the Guilty Feminist is part of the ACOS creator network. It is produced by Tom Solinsky and Deborah Francis White. The music is by Samfire.

Media Storm - Intersectionality and body image

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