What are we trying to atone for?

The idea for this post occurred to me in a roundabout fashion.

It began when I found this article yesterday, which talks about how neuroscientists in Britain have discovered that swearing can help relieve pain. The led me to remember my experience giving birth to my twins (I swore my head off) and that led to an internal rant about the state of maternity care in New Zealand, where Mums are advised to use *aromatherapy* for pain relief in labour; and that led to contemplation of today’s topic – Mummy Martyrs and Diet Deniers.

It may be more prevalent here in NZ due to the way our health system is set up but women here at least are actively encouraged by ‘health professionals’ to give birth with little to no pain relief, preferably at home or in birthing units that are not attached to a hospital. And the sad thing is that women take this quite seriously; rather than embrace the advances in medical knowledge that our Grandmothers would have given their right arms for we throw them away in favour of bragging rights. And that fits in with the wider implications of ‘Mummy culture’ in the West; it’s all about sacrifice, baby. A ‘good’ mother slavishly devotes herself to her offspring and to a lesser extent, her man. She gives birth with no pain relief, breastfeeds even when her nipples are so sore they bleed, she devotes her free time to washing and drying cloth nappies, she exists for months on little sleep and does not need time to herself. She does not lose her temper, her equilibrium or her mind; she is calm and loving and eternally sweet. And of she does not measure up to these standards, she is not a ‘good mother’. She is somehow lesser. And the worst part is that she does this to herself – she both imposes these standards on herself and castigates herself when she doesn’t measure up. She doesn’t see that the other Mums at the coffee morning are lying and she forgets that the celebrity Mum in the magazine has a full time nanny.

While contemplating this is occurred to me that women worship martyrdom in another sphere too – their diets and bodies. A woman who denies herself a steak, bread or dessert is ‘being good’ and looking after herself. We expect women to be denying themselves something and we congratulate them for it; their forbearance in the face of a sweet treat is taken as a sign of moral goodness. Not so for the men, of course – even a white-collar office worker needs a hearty meal each day, just by the virtue of being male. And we cluck indulgently when he goes back for seconds. Kids used to be allowed to eat but that’s changing too – a nice intersection with the Mummy Martyr above. A fat kid means a Bad Mother. Doesn’t matter what the kid eats, really, so long as it’s thin. Unprocessed foods (unless they’re low fat, of course) is best. The occasional treat may be allowed. But a woman who eats with gusto (especially if she is eating ‘bad food’ with gusto) is not ladylike. If she’s bigger than a size 10 she’s downright piggish. And heaven forbid we gain weight – oh the horror!

That begs the question – why? What are we women trying to atone for? Why do we feel the need to martyr ourselves? What do we gain? Is the admiration (and envy) of other women so important to us that we will happily lie for it; lie about our feelings, our home lives, our appetites, even our very selves?

Lets throw off the shackles. Yes, I love my kids but as a SAHM I get bored at times. If I had another child I would definately have an epidural again – and no, I would not breastfeed. No, I don’t want the damn salad – give me meat thank you; I need my protein and I like to eat a *proper meal* at mealtimes. And I prefer to eat when I am hungry; eat until I am full. You can call it a ‘lifestyle change’ all you want but lets face facts – if it has rules, it’s a diet. And I’m not interested in rules. I can’t be bothered.

It’s time to take our freedom back. What are we waiting for?

“Alas, poor Logic; I knew it well!”

Years ago there was a NZ-based website for large women called ‘Realwoman’. I hadn’t discovered FA back then (the idea that I could be OK as I am had not yet occurred to me) but I used to post a bit on Realwoman. The website attracted it’s share of trolls – as any site does – and one in particular used to argue with us about our lives and experiences. We couldn’t possibly be telling the truth, she would argue, because our outcomes weren’t ‘correct’. Those of us who ate our veges and exercised were still fat? Impossible! And those of us who had no trouble getting pregnant at over 100 kilos were lying through our (no doubt doughnut-covered) teeth.

I used to think she was just a troll but since then I’ve found a lot of people like her, who ignore logic and the evidence in front of their own eyes in favour of empty rhetoric. My life so far and my weight issues (I’ve decided to stop calling it a ‘struggle’) have taught me two things; one, that each body has it’s own unique shape which it will try to stick to and two, that the process of weight gain, weight loss, dieting, etc is much more complex that we first thought. In other words, the old ‘calories in = calories out’ theory is not as logical as it might first appear.

We all know someone who just cannot seem to gain weight no matter what they do. This person (sometimes they’re female, sometimes male) may lead a relatively healthy life in terms of diet and exercise but often they don’t. This is the person who can both eat and drink you under the table and yet they never gain more than a few kilos. We say they “have a fast metabolism” or “good genes” and we envy them their ability to stay thin without having to ‘try’.

On the other hand we refuse to believe that our fat friend can’t lose weight no matter what he or she does. Whenever we see them eat something we comment on it; if they eat less than us or exercise more than us we do not notice it (they must’ve had a big lunch; we have a sore ankle). This person may lose a few kilos if they push themselves but in order to do so they have to exercise to extremes and eat a severely restricted diet. We say they “have no willpower or self-control” and we wish they would just ‘try’ to change themselves and their body.

Sound familiar? And if you want another wrinkle to this dichotomy; I made this argument to someone just the other day and their response was “Oh, but the ‘naturally thin’ people of the first group are only ever teens, it changes when people hit their twenties, so you can’t use that as an example.”

I don’t know about you  but I know people of all ages in both categories.

The above is just one example of the way prejudice and stereotypes command our thinking about obesity and our bodies. We accept that some people are naturally tall and some are naturally short. We accept that some people are right handers and some are lefties (although until not long ago the latter was blamed on the devil – and still is, according to my nutty Aunt!) and we accept that some people are naturally thin and will have trouble gaining weight – but we firmly reject that people can be naturally fat and have trouble losing it. At the 11th hour our logic deserts us. Why?

That’s the question I want to ask – why? The answer I usually get is “Well, everyone knows…” which is another way of saying “I’m about to rely on my prejudice here…” Let’s be clear about this: I am not seeking a single excuse for all fatties to use. I agree that over consumption of junk and under exercising can result in extra adipose tissue. (I don’t think extra adipose tissue is a bad thing or wrong, however; but that’s too huge an issue to cover in this post.)What I am saying is that if we want to we could apply logic to our beliefs… and be more likely to come across possible answers.