Tiana Jackson
Essay 2-Short Essay
September 29, 2014

“Fat is a Feminist Issue”

Obesity is an increasing epidemic in the United States, in fact an estimated fifty percent of women are overweight (page 448). Being fat is not just a feminist issue, most women do not have control over their weight gain or inability to be fit. To say fat is a feminist issue is sexist and bias. However the pressures placed on women in American society to maintain a certain imagine is increasing through everyday media.
Therapist, publisher and author Susie Orbach wrote “Fat is a Feminist Issue” in 1978, one passage of the book Susie states “fat is a social disease, and fat is a feminist issue. Fat is not about lack of self-control or lack of willpower. Fat is about protection, sex nurturance, strength, boundaries, mothering, substance, assertion and rage. It is response to the inequality of the sexes. Fat expresses experiences of women today in ways that are seldom examined and even more seldom treated…..” (Page 449). Some may argue that obesity is a woman’s disease, I would say this is primarily true, obesity is a disease that affect men as well but in today’s society media plays a big role in our everyday lives. The things that are highly favored by majority can reflect our own lifestyles. However the pressure to look a certain way, and maintain a certain weight is forced upon females in dominant American culture, this gives society the presumption that this is very much so a female issue.
As a man in America you are not pressured as much to hold a self-imagine. In fact a man can be judge of social status by the woman he has on his arm. Yet being a woman of great social value and worth requires you to have a husband, better yet a husband of great financial worth. Yet we see in the entertainment industry, such as reality television, magazines, music videos that the favored look of the woman by men in the spotlight is a slender woman, often times alter by drastic measures such as plastic surgery. So woman are supposed to go the extra mile to get noticed. Whereas men have no stigma to how they are supposed to look. I would say the amount of pressure placed on men to hold a good career and earn money is the same amount placed on woman to look worthy for a successful man. Though woman are coerced to lose weight through the many articles in our magazines, the many infomercials of diet pills, and gym memberships, society doesn’t acknowledge the fact that “fat” is not always a bad thing or something that can even be controlled. In fact a woman who bares children, may gain weight, excessive weight even, yet becoming a new mother or a mother of more than one may not allow woman the proper time to diet nor exercise. There are some diseases, such as hyperthyroidism where woman can’t control the weight that they gain. Then there are the woman who are not fazed by the image of the ideal woman an instead does the exact opposite. For the pressure of maintaining what’s considered to be the picture-perfect are beyond stressful and totally unfair. The new woman may go out her way to avoid even being considered as a candidate for what is favored and hold the attitude as accept me as I am and refuse any form of diet, exercise, and eat as much as they like. To sum up, obesity is indeed an American issue, woman, men and children alike. Yet today it seems to only be a problem that needs fixing in women. The thought of a women being overweight is unacceptable, whereas the slender model like woman is glorified. We as a culture, do not consider the underlying factors that contribute to what may cause a woman to be overweight, therefore the modern woman, may defy what society expects and go out her way to avoid the stereotypes of what she should look like.