Gynecology was not always the well known field of medicine that is present in the United States today. In fact, gynecology is a relatively new development in medicine that came to fruition in the United States in the 19th century. START HERE Before modern gynecology arose in the 19th century, women’s health was the job of women. Midwives were the heads of women’s health and pregnancies. These midwives were almost always women. It was not until the practice of gynecology took root that men became involved in women’s health. In her monograph, Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology, Deirdre Cooper Owens explores the impact that enslaved and working class women had on the development of gynecology and in return, the impact that gynecology had on them.
Continue reading “Review of “Medical Bondage” by Dr. Deirdre Cooper Owens”Author: Former Student
All About That… One Body Type
I love Meghan Trainor’s song “All About That Bass” in which she is apparently encouraging women to embrace their curves and hating on the idea that women should be “stick figure, silicone Barbie dolls.” The message that she is conveying, though, could actually be counterproductive to a societal norm of recognizing beauty in all body types.
Firstly, the message that Trainor is sending through her lyrics is that female bodies are inherently sexual and that women should embrace their curves because “men like a little more booty,” which apparently makes the woman in the image below (a stereotypical, skinny, pretty, white woman) very uncomfortable.
She additionally says that she has “all the right junk in all the right places,” meaning that she has curves, or fat, in places on her body that are generally considered attractive and/or sexy, probably her ass and her breasts. This is especially prevalent in the music video for the song where many of the dance moves are very butt-focused, like in both the screenshots of the video above and below. This line makes it seem as though Trainor believes that there is a right place for fat on a female body and that fat should enhance a woman’s sexual features. The idea of women being fat in only specific places on their bodies in order to be more sexually attractive is definitely not a fat positive or feminist stance on female bodies. Fat can be considered sexy in any place in the body, from the belly to the back to the cheeks to the ankles, and Trainor is unfortunately just enforcing another impossible stereotype for women.
Also, fat should not be seen as something sexual, neither should a lack of fat. Human bodies are made for so much more than sex, and female bodies in particular are seen so often in culture as symbols of sex, and being a fat sex symbol is no better than being a skinny one. Trainor uses the idea that men like fat asses to make fatness seem acceptable. Telling women that men like a specific trait and that makes it a good trait is certainly not a feminist idea. I should be allowed to live in my own body without having to justify my beauty by saying that men think I’m sexy so it’s ok.
One lyric from this song talks about “skinny bitches,” who the woman in heels below is a symbol for, and definitely gives a negative connotation towards skinny women, implying that being fat is better than being skinny. In this way, Trainor is trying to impose a new standard of beauty that is just as unattainable for some people as being super skinny is by shaming skinny women. “Skinny shaming” should not be a substitute for fat shaming, we shouldn’t be shaming anybody about their body type!!
The cast of the music video is also problematic. Trainor and her four main backup dancers, seen below, as well as the other female presenting dancers in the video, are all pretty much the same body type, and they aren’t even fat!
In a song that is supposed to be about empowering fat women, having a bunch of women who, while they might not be stick thin, certainly aren’t fat, play as if they are fat is incredibly damaging. Additionally, Trainor has two young girls in the video, seen below, who are very thin, sending a message to the young girls who watch the video that this is the ideal body type for their age.
The only truly fat person in the video for a song ABOUT BEING A FAT WOMAN is the MALE presenting dancer below who doesn’t even get much screen time.
In a society that shames fatness, telling women that very mid-sized people are the fat people in our world completely discounts a whole group of people AND makes mid-sized people think that they are fat, which is damaging in a world that shames fatness.
In addition to the lack of size representation in the music video, the lack of racial representation is prominent, too. Depending on what you consider “dark-skinned,” there are no more than three dark-skinned people, one of them being one of the children, one of them being a backup singer (most of whose face is covered by a wig as seen below), and one of them being part of Trainor’s main group of backup dancers, in a cast of about 14.
None of these cast members get much screen time. The range of skin colors is very slim. There are only two male presenting cast members in the video, and the white man below is meant to represent a potential Ken-Doll-like boyfriend type for Meghan Trainor.
So, the main takeaway I get from the combination of the lyrics and the video from All About That Bass is that white (and sometimes black) women should strive to have big butts, avoid being skinny, avoid being fat, and to do all of this in order to be sexually appealing to conventionally attractive white men. Definitely not the fat power anthem that we need.