HYDERABAD: With our bodies always under analysis, when a certain size of breasts and bottoms are the parameters of attractiveness and a certain colour of skin is considered beautiful, which girl hasn’t heard, “you are too curvy for a crop top,” or a man being told to “grow a beard and be a man?”
“Why don’t you see this dermatologist for your skin,” or that “You need to watch out what and how much you are eating.” But what happens when you defy these standards?
“You are reminded repeatedly that you need to work on your body image to fit into the conventional definition of beauty or ‘you wont be taken’,” says Rishika N. “Being five feet tall, I have often been told that I am short. I remember one instance, at a social gathering when a concerned aunty worried that my height would kill my chances of getting an “achcha ladka.” This followed by a suggestion to my mother that I should never be seen in flats. ‘No offense par aapki beti bas height se maar kha gayi’, she rued,” Rishika recalls.
This is not a standalone instance. While body shaming is not just insulting it is also teaching us to feel ashamed of our bodies. Here are a few instances where people — irrespective of their age, gender, profession and body type — are shamed on a day-to-day basis.
You are too...
...skinny, curvy, voluptuous. You resemble a stick figure in a cartoon strip. Why don’t you go to the gym and gain some muscle? Why don’t you watch what you eat? Irrespective of gender or age, people have been asked these questions. Then there are people who obsess over meeting societal “size” standards. Size zero is passe. May be we can go ahead and call it ancient. Because the latest fad is to be an A4. “I am not an A4. I am an A5,” shares one girl proudly online. Young girls place an A4 sheet on their back or front and aim for the width of the sheet. The online campaign that emerged from China became a rage on social networking sites. Go on a crash diet or starve, but make sure that you are an A4, even better A5.
Buying ‘beauty’
From tummy tuckers that will protect your love handles from gravity and change your breathing pattern, whitening cream companies that mark India as one of their biggest markets, to hair straightening serums get off shelves like hot cakes, people quite depend on “beauty enhancers”. Tummy tuckers, like everything else, are available online for less than Rs 1000 in different sizes. “I don’t have to go through any weight management programme or diet to lose the flab on my tummy. This look is instant and also cheap,” says 20-year-old Kiranmayee. She has one in skin colour and one in black.
Why don’t you...
...shave everyday and you’ll get it. This is one of the many suggestions young boys get if “enough” facial is not visible by the time they are 20. “Kitna chikna hain re tu” is another. The most common stereotypes are labelling men without facial hair as ‘gay’ and women with a little facial hair as too manly or macho. Hairy hands and legs are a complete taboo. While women go through to painful threading and waxing, apply concealers to cover up scars, men are forced to take enhancers for muscle building, hair growth and all things “manly.”
She must be having an...
...active sex life. If a girl wears a dress that bares her shoulders or reveals a bit of her cleavage, she is termed as a “whore”, “slut”, “loose character” “available” and “must have multiple sexual partners.”
Girls are often told by known and unknown people that they ‘must’ dress up appropriately so as not to get raped. But many girls can vouch for the fact, (add an eye rolling moment’) that whether we wear a short or a long skirt, uniform or burqa, catcalls and teasing are order of day. And when you tell a girl to cover up because she might get unwanted attention, you are teaching her to feel shame for her body.
You will not believe...
...how Rani Mukherji looks without make-up. Statements such as these serve as clickbaits for online portals. Stories such as these trend on social networking sites more than a breaking news story. It doesn’t stop there. There are trolls, abuses and judgements on how all the film stars look glamorous only because of the million different things they use to accentuate their “beauty”.
Can you see the gap?
“I don’t have thigh gap and I am not working towards it either,” says 25-year-old Rajni Sunder. The MA student says she keeps hearing people tell her how courageous she is – “because I am comfortable in my skin.” Told to watch out what you eat, how much you eat, suggestions on what you should wear to make your heavy thighs look slimmer are just some of the ways we are being branded to accept the unrealistic beauty standards, falling which the F word – FAT – is used to categorise us. “The only time I wish to have thigh gap is during summers – when the areas gets sweaty and the skin scrapes off. It’s not a beauty parameter but a functional need,” Ragini explains.