Kimberly Dark - Fat, Pretty, and Soon to be Old: A Makeover for Self and Society

The repossession by women of our bodies will bring far more essential change to human society than the seizing of the means of production by workers.

Adrienne Rich

This is not just a memoir told in essays. Its a call for radical cultural change.

My mother sold the dream of life masterya chance for sovereignty within the restrictive and persistent landscape of patriarchy. Im talking about the 1960 s now. That was a long time ago, or at least thats what you tell yourself.

At first, that dream of mastery was for white women specificallybut then it included men, children, and people of color as well. It included the rich, middle class, and lower-middle class but never the very poor. It could include queer folks as long as they were gender-conforming. It never included gender-non-binary folks.

My mother went to modeling classes when she was still in high school, in 1949 . Her family was working class but white, so they were able to take advantage of the new FHA home loans and buy a house. They were set toward economic improvement, and their only daughter was pretty, so it made sense to give her the skills for upward mobility.

After her modeling school graduation was attended by many of her high school friends, she reaped the rewards of being seen as skilled at beauty, capable of charm. During the 1950 s, she was a model herself. That was a time when the women who sold products were nameless smiling beauties, not celebrities. She went on to work forand eventually owneda John Robert Powers franchise. Powerss eponymous charm schools began in 1923 , and business boomed right up to the Internet age. I believe three social developments took place during the late 1980 s and early 1990 s in the United States to hasten the decline of modeling and charm schools. One was the increasing use of Internet sharing: not relying on just magazine articles, real people shared beauty secrets online. The second related phenomenon was the slight diversification of beauty ideals. It was possible to find affinity groups and positive representation of women of color, redheads with freckles, and very tall women, for instance. Specific lessons on hyper-conformity began to feel retrograde. The third development to hasten the demise of charm schools was the widespread availability of consumer credit and the ability of doctors to advertise to the general public, which began during the Reagan era. All of these changes made beauty a do-it-yourself endeavor and the body a repair project worthy of medical interventions like cosmetic and bariatric surgery, not just dieting and careful packaging.

Heres the main premise of the charm school era in which I grew up and that still influences the world we live in today: if a woman can figure out how to be beautiful and how to have charm, she is more likely to control her own destiny.

This is not incorrect. And its a sorry substitution for meaningful social change that would actually allow women respect and the ability to steward their own destinies. When I was born, no matter how pretty or charming or trim, no matter how capable of emotional labor or choosing the right bottle of wine for dinner or enunciating proper English, a woman still could not open a credit card account without her husbands permission. Women could still legally be raped by their husbands. Even today, we are not always able to secure birth control as part of our health plans and certainly not always believed when reporting abuse.

Further, appearance still affects quality of life. A lot. We all know this, yet we subvert our knowing by telling stories about love (in intimate relationships), talent (in employment), and tenacity (in all meaningful pursuits). The fact is, people see their partners appearance or power (or both) as an extension of their own success. (And you know immediately for which of the two dominant genders each is most important.) Employers want their employees appearance to uphold and extend their brand credibility, and they wont hire those who are easily disdained (e.g., fat people or old people, unless they are absurdly cute and entertaining). Without reasonable accommodations, no amount of tenacity will help a wheelchair user turn a flight of stairs into a ramp. Yet we still discuss personal tenacity and positive thinking as the key ingredients in overcoming public barriers.