What the body-positive movement is missing
Lindy West explains it has value — but also huge limitations
There was a time where Lindy West was afflicted with what she calls “reverse body dysmorphia.”
“When I looked in the mirror, I could never understand what was supposedly so disgusting,” the author, columnist and performer writes in Shrill, her raw memoir, which unapologetically tackles the things women have long tried to suppress in shame. Like our voices. And our bodies.
“So, my reaction to my own fatness manifested outwardly instead of inwardly as resentment, anger, a feeling of deep injustice, of being cheated,” West continues. “I wasn’t intrinsically without value, I was just doomed to live in a culture that hated me.”
But that doom began to subside as West found sanctuary online — in private Facebook groups and nooks on Tumblr, on fat fashion blogs, where “vibrant” women were photographed, peacocking down the streets in crop tops in blatant defiance to the twisted ethos that tells them they should hide.
Recently, that fat-positive consciousness has filtered into the mainstream, translating into historic swimsuit issue covers and praised music videos — but something was lost in that crossover: risk.
“Putting a size 12, hourglassshaped white woman on the cover of your magazine, who’s just microscopically bigger than the model that you would normally see on the cover, and then congratulating yourselves on being progressive? That proves nothing,” West explained in an interview Wednesday. “That’s just a performance without actually risking or changing anything. And it gives people who aren’t actually invested in liberating bodies the opportunity to declare victory and then quit. I don’t find that particularly empowering or interesting.”
So what does West find interesting? “Making space for all bodies,” she says. “And when I say making space for, I mean letting people live. People who are a size 32 and queer and disabled and are outside of what we think of as a ‘normal person,’ people with compounded oppressions, those are the people who need visibility and positivity.”
Positivity. Even that word fails sometimes, West notes with a sigh. “I don’t think everyone needs to feel positive about their body all the time. That’s just an extra layer of anguish that I don’t think is constructive. What I’m interested in is neutrality from the world. I’m interested in people being able to live without being pathologized. And within that, people can feel however they want about their bodies.”