SALON

Friday, Dec 7, 2012 4:41 PM UTC

Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful

Tired of being bullied for her killer abs, Britton Delizia is fighting back -- with bullying of her own

By

Topics: Feminism, beauty, fitness, Kickstarter, women, tavi gevinson, beauty privilege, ,

Don't hate me because I'm beautiful (Credit: Kickstarter)

It is hard to be a woman in this country! We still earn, on average, 25 percent less than our male colleagues. We still do most of the housework and child-raising. Elected officials still think it is OK to make personal medical choices for us, while others ascribe supernatural powers to our lady parts. Life is complicated all over. So when Britton Delizia says that she has been bullied because she is naturally skinny and has killer abs, why not believe her? And when she launches a Kickstarter to fund a photography book that celebrates “fitness” and “healthy living”? Sure, feel free.

But what could have been a chance to talk honestly about how our appearance-obsessed culture makes almost all women insecure (even ones with killer abs!) turns pretty quickly into bullying and fat-shaming. Delizia’s would-be book features women holding handwritten signs that say things like, “I’m sorry that the butt I worked for isn’t as good as the one you ate for.” It’s the same photo device used by Planned Parenthood in its “I Stand With Planned Parenthood” campaign earlier this year, only instead of supporting an essential women’s health organization it’s … picking on people with insufficiently toned butts.

It’s entirely possible that Delizia feels discriminated against because of the way she looks. Maybe people are mean to her because they think she’s pretty. Insecurity manifests in all kinds of unhealthy, unhappy ways. Plus, we’ve all seen that episode of “30 Rock,” right? This is real stuff. But her claim of a full-on cultural bias against thin people is dubious, to say the least.

Its undeniable that when we stand a skinny, athletic or even average sized female next to a larger (even if less healthy, overweight or obese) female, that unless we live outside of this stigma, we as Americans will assume that the heavier person is funnier, smarter, nicer, and less sexually promiscuous, all because she is not as thin or physically fit than the girl next to her.

It would be easy to dismiss Delizia as a narcissist in need of some serious self-awareness (though she probably is), but she is also a symptom of a larger, troubling tendency in our culture. One that encourages us to see differences — whether it’s BMI ratio, country of origin, sexuality or class — as a threat. It’s the same reason men like Rick Santorum believe that gay marriage is an affront to straight marriage. It’s the same reason women like Jan Brewer think teaching ethnic studies in high school classrooms is anti-American. It’s a losers game.

So perhaps it’s best to ignore Britton Delizia. If you want to read a thoughtful take on beauty and female insecurity, look no further than Tavi Gevinson. At 16, Tavi managed to express all of the fraught and complicated ways one can feel complicit in a culture that makes women hate themselves. She didn’t shame anyone in the process, either.

As for the Santorums and the Brewers? If only making them go away was as simple as not funding a Kickstarter.

Continue Reading Close

More Katie Mcdonough.

Next Article

Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

What To Read Awards: Top 10 Books of 2012 slide show

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 10
  • 10. "The Guardians" by Sarah Manguso: "Though Sarah Manguso’s 'The Guardians' is specifically about losing a dear friend to suicide, she pries open her intelligent heart to describe our strange, sad modern lives. I think about the small resonating moments of Manguso’s narrative every day." -- M. Rebekah Otto, The Rumpus

  • 9. "Beautiful Ruins" by Jess Walter: "'Beautiful Ruins' leads my list because it's set on the coast of Italy in 1962 and Richard Burton makes an entirely convincing cameo appearance. What more could you want?" -- Maureen Corrigan, NPR's "Fresh Air"

  • 8. "Arcadia" by Lauren Groff: "'Arcadia' captures our painful nostalgia for an idyllic past we never really had." -- Ron Charles, Washington Post

  • 7. "Gone Girl" by Gillian Flynn: "When a young wife disappears on the morning of her fifth wedding anniversary, her husband becomes the automatic suspect in this compulsively readable thriller, which is as rich with sardonic humor and social satire as it is unexpected plot twists." -- Marjorie Kehe, Christian Science Monitor

  • 6. "How Should a Person Be" by Sheila Heti: "There was a reason this book was so talked about, and it’s because Heti has tapped into something great." -- Jason Diamond, Vol. 1 Brooklyn

  • 4. TIE "NW" by Zadie Smith and "Far From the Tree" by Andrew Solomon: "Zadie Smith’s 'NW' is going to enter the canon for the sheer audacity of the book’s project." -- Roxane Gay, New York Times "'Far From the Tree' by Andrew Solomon is, to my mind, a life-changing book, one that's capable of overturning long-standing ideas of identity, family and love." -- Laura Miller, Salon

  • 3. "Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk" by Ben Fountain: "'Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk' says a lot about where we are today," says Marjorie Kehe of the Christian Science Monitor. "Pretty much the whole point of that novel," adds Time's Lev Grossman.

  • 2. "Bring Up the Bodies" by Hilary Mantel: "Even more accomplished than the preceding novel in this sequence, 'Wolf Hall,' Mantel's new installment in the fictionalized life of Thomas Cromwell -- master secretary and chief fixer to Henry VIII -- is a high-wire act, a feat of novelistic derring-do." -- Laura Miller, Salon

  • 1. "Behind the Beautiful Forevers" by Katherine Boo: "Like the most remarkable literary nonfiction, it reads with the bite of a novel and opens up a corner of the world that most of us know absolutely nothing about. It stuck with me all year." -- Eric Banks, president of the National Book Critics Circle

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 10

Related Videos

More Related Stories

Comments

 54 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username ( profile | log out )

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

From Around the Web

Recommendations