28 The Construction of Feminine Ideals and how they exclude Non-Normative Bodies.

Keywords: Femininity, Gender Ideals, Plus Size, Inclusion

INTRODUCTION

The construct of femininity is societally accepted as a very plainly defined construct. That is, until someone whos physical body brings to question where the boundary of that construct starts and stops identifies themselves within it. We are shown images of petite people with small features and slim limbs and expect them to dress, and act within what we as a society have deemed as feminine. However, we have managed to neglect those whose physical identity does not fit within the structure of femininity previously described, in this case, I speak of the so-called “plus- size person”.  Plus-size people defy some of the binary which we have created for the definition of femininity and due to this lack of conformity, it is often that those who break this mold are considered ‘unattractive’, ‘unhealthy’, or ‘less than’ their slimmer counterparts.

For generations, people have fought against this societal structure which segregates larger individuals from their smaller counterparts. The normative approach to femininity has never included these people as they don’t fit within the constraints which have been societally selected. Whilst femininity is a factor applied to one’s gender in this case it is based on the body instead. Generally, it is through a societal perception that we determine what being ‘male’ or’ female’ means based on attitudes and mannerisms and how these things engage with masculine or feminine identification. (Stets & Burke 2000) However, in the case of plus-size bodies, the conversation often sways from mannerisms and attitudes and focuses solely on appearance.

Within the last decade, we have seen that there is a great deal of fluctuation within gender identity. However, for a long time, one’s biological sex was solely linked to their gender identity, males are masculine, and women are feminine. “From a sociological perspective, gender identity involves all the meanings that are applied to oneself based on one’s gender identification. In turn, these self-meanings are a source of motivation for gender-related [behaviour].” (Stets & Burke 2000 Pg.2) Yet, in the case of plus-size or larger people the aspect of femininity is not always assumed but something that is to be strived for. Whilst there have been many changes in the past decade to how society views plus-size women, there is still an inherent separation between the identity and the construct itself. What is it that segregates these people from a gender identity as a whole even though they align with the most basic societally enforced trait, which is feeling and presenting as feminine? Within this paper, I intend to highlight not only how femininity is enforced within the basic definitions of what it means to be feminine but also how it is that plus-size people are often left out of this category.

THE HISTORY OF THE PLUS-SIZE BODY

To look at how it is that we currently analyze the aspects of femininity and how it affects plus-size people it is first important to look at the history of plus-size people and body image. In the 1830s being plus size or ‘plump’ was not only fashionable but a sign of great wealth and fertility (Stearns 2002). Being ‘plump’ assumed that there was money well spent on food and that women were highly fertile and capable of having many children. (Stearns 2002).

It wasn’t until the 1890s to early 1900s that the battle began with body fat. Throughout the 1900s body ideals changed and were questioned in small ways- what size the hip-to-waist ratio should be, should you have large breasts or small breasts, and is slimness ideal? (Stearns 2002). The issue with diet began to emerge as the meaning of the word evolved “from its initial meaning in English, of a regimen specifying certain types of food to remedy illness, to its modern usage of losing weight” (Stearns 2002 Pg.6). No longer was food used for health and wellness but viewed for the way it could affect the body. The value of food and the status of body image evolved once again in the Western world in the early 1900s around the time of the first world war. People who were seen as fat or getting fat were considered categorized as wealthy and therefore unpatriotic as they were seen as being in good health when there were so many without the money needed to eat enough to gain such healthy weight. (Stearns 2002 ). Suddenly a fat body was made into the villain, not for the negativity of the physical weight gain but because of what it symbolized, perhaps noting the first time in history that being fat was made to have a direct link to something negative.

Since this time, our minds have evolved to make the body a much more malleable entity, in the sense that it is something that societally we believe can be changed depending on what we deem as acceptable or on-trend (Peters 2017). The evolution of social media has created a world in which digital imagery can be manipulated in so many ways that it allows users to create content that may appear completely different from their physical appearance. Applications allow you to alter your size and facial structure, apply filters that even your skin tone and some filters even alter the sound of your voice (Vandenbosch, Fardouly, & Tiggemann 2022). The transformative aspects of the internet and social media have played an important role in how body image is interpreted in modern times. (Vandenbosch, et al 2022) Overall, the evolution of the societally valued body has not aged well for that of plus-size people. The ideology surrounding fatness is that there is something that needs to be changed and that change is only possible when people subscribe to the culturally relevant description of what body type is currently on trend.

ANALYSIS OF FEMININE GENDER NORMATIVITY AND ASSUMED GENDER ROLES

In the most basic of understandings, how society enforces gender roles is through the constructs of masculinity and femininity. When analyzing these ways in which gender is traditionally interpreted through gender roles it is important to acknowledge that we are discussing gender in terms of those assigned male at birth (AMAB) and assigned female at birth (AFAB). ( Abeyratne, Ratnayake, Wijetunga,Wijenayake & Bulugahapitiya 2022) This is vital in discussing gender as there are people who do and do not identify with how they were assigned at birth within the gender binary. In doing research into this topic it became apparent that most research regarding gender norms was done with those whose gender identity aligned with that which they were assigned at birth. Therefore, a great deal of the data that follows will refer to people that are AMAB and AFAB specifically.

In the most basic understanding of societally enforced gender roles, Men are to be masculine, domineering breadwinners who are big and strong and built of steel. Women are to be feminine, submissive and homemakers who are petite, thin, and amicable. The aspect of femininity that is prominent in the discourse of plus-size femininity is the inherent belief that feminine women must look and present a certain way. (Kwan 2010) For generations now this rhetoric has been instilled in women through media, literacy, ad campaigns, fad diets, and much more that the end-all goal is to be and remain thin. The opposite of this is to ‘let oneself go’ or ‘give up. A great deal of experimental research suggests that the exposure young people receive when viewing idealized thin feminine bodies often results in a notable impact on the psyche of the individual over time. (Beale, Malson, & Tischner 2016)

Body ideals are linked with how women compare their levels of femininity. We assume that how a body is determined is no longer simply by an assigned sex but by how it fits within society’s cultural ideals of that gender. Peter’s (2017) argues that the fat female body has always been something left out of the conversation when it comes to understanding the innate femininity of the female form. She argued that the fat body was always categorized “as a caricature: as grotesque, unthinking and undermining, or an object of mockery, pity, and disgust.” (Pg.180) There has never been room within such a thin space (femininity), for people who take up so much space, it was simply an area for one type of visual being and there simply was no alternate space.

In encouraging this rhetoric societally there has been a generation raised on the idea of self-policing themselves to never look how we as a society have deemed as unfeminine.  In regulating femininity this attaches identity regulation for fatness, race, class, gender, disability, and age, as well as the ways these regulations affect aspects of the body (Fahs 2017). This sort of self-regulation in turn has led to an upturn in things such as eating disorders and body dysmorphia in people who actively self-regulate to maintain their current body and avoid becoming what they have deemed as unattractive (Fahs 2017). The topic of eating disorders and body dysmorphia regarding self-esteem, and internalized fatphobia is far beyond the scope of this essay itself. However, it is important to note how the aforementioned self-regulation plays into self-policing and acknowledge the importance of its role.

Overall, men and women tend to follow traditional gender role ideology and conformity to gender roles according to their sex. (Parent, Davis, Morgan, Woznicki, & Denison 2020) In fact in a study done by Parent, et al, when studying the constructs of both femininity and masculinity against one another it was apparent that how masculinity was measured was not based on physical gender role indicators while femininity was defined solely on it in terms of body ideals. Terms used to describe femininity were words like small, thin, soft, good-looking, etc. (2020.) This process simultaneously makes it so that a variety of people (in this case plus-size people) are not able to abide by these policies and are therefore not made to feel they can identify within the culturally understood constraints of femininity.

PLUS-SIZE REPRESENTATION

Within current-day representation, plus-size bodies are only now being fully integrated into the structures of femininity. We are seeing larger bodies in plenty of mediums- such as media, television, and fashion magazines. For a long time people in larger bodies were given a primary story which was to exist in discomfort with their bodies- their vessel was something that needed to be changed. (Hynnä & Kyrölä 2019) Stories in the media portray the larger person who upon losing weight was met with all the positive changes they ever desired, luck, love, and lust. This sort of discourse was fueled by generations of normative enforced femininity which led people to believe that the ideal woman was thin. Being ‘fat’ has been made to be a negative thing, “For example, fat studies scholars have noted that fatness is often seen as a symbol of self-indulgence and moral failure.” (Fahs 2017 Pg.185) Many pondered why plus-size people should be allowed to promote their fatness- what kind of example did this set for young people to glorify being ‘unhealthy’?

Whilst there is a current surge of body positivity there are still generations of people who have been influenced by the fear of being ‘fat’. In a study done by Breanne Fahs women were asked to discuss the idea of a ‘dreaded body’-

“When imagining a dreaded body, one-third of the sample (7 women) mentioned fears about threatened or impaired femininity. The fear of not being personally sexy or attractive, particularly along stereotypically gendered lines, appeared in some women’s responses, such as Rhoda (57, White, Heterosexual) who connected fear of fatness and fear of losing femininity: ‘Not being fit and not feeling pretty enough or desirable enough. I wouldn’t want to be disgusting and I would turn somebody off and not be considered attractive so that’s what I’m afraid of.” (2017 Pg.189)

The general assumption was that when one lost their femininity it was related to a change in appearance. The discourse surrounding plus-size women and exercise is often that being bigger is solely related to the diet and exercise routine of the individual. It can be pointed out however why the topic of exercise is difficult for some plus-size people as they are “expected to engage in exercise and mocked when they do so. The purpose of the exercise, for them, is always assumed to be weight loss, not pleasure, fun, or fitness only.” (Hynna & Kyrola 2019)  This refers to an idea called body privilege, which draws off of the notion of white privilege: “the ability to move through the world and engage in various mundane activities in relative comfort, without drawing excessive attention but also without feeling invisible.” (Kwan 2010)

Plus-sized people lack this sort of body privilege as they are scrutinized in many different ways for simply existing in their body. We see further examples of this when we look at the ways plus-size fashion is dealt with. The world of size-inclusive clothing has been evolving since the 1990s, and although ever-changing, the struggle to appear attractive or ‘on trend’ while existing in a larger body has always been a difficult task (Hynna & Kyrola 2019).

“As fatness is something that is often read as “unfeminine” or “masculinizing” for a woman, fat people and their appearance are always in danger of being read as frumpy or tired, and thus expected to make an extra effort to look stylish and polished in everyday situations.” (Hynna & Kyrola 2019 Pg.1) Femininity is not something that is assumed of larger bodies but something they are expected to strive for.

In Western media today plus size people are shown as examples, ranging in all means of positive and negative feedback. While some speak in the way of body positivity and the importance of visibility and acceptance within the plus-size community,  (Hynnä & Kyrölä 2019) many view plus-size people negatively. Plus-size people are often made hyper-visible in both cases as “objects that are constantly subject to a prurient, disapproving gaze” (Peters 2017 Pg.179). In some cases, fat bodies are praised for fighting against the cultural creation of feminine understanding and showing that their bodies are capable of fitting within the determinants of the world in more ways than just their bodies (Hynna & Kyrola 2019). In other cases plus-size, people are put on a pedestal to be used as an example, if you look like this you are ‘uncultivated’ or ‘uncared for’ thus causing fear in the thinner more culturally accepted version of a feminine person leading them to believe if they gain weight they are ‘letting themselves go’ or ‘losing control’(Fahs 2017). Ultimately while there is a great deal of discourse which surrounds the enforced aspects of femininity, there are notable aspects of change in the ways in which modern people are coming to understand the true identification of a feminine individual.

CONCLUSION

When analyzing the topic of femininity it is important to acknowledge that many people identify with the traits of femininity, and many identify as plus size. In doing research for this essay it was apparent that there is a lack of research done on the effects of femininity within the realm of plus-size people for those who identify as non-binary, or trans. Whilst a great deal of this material can be analyzed in broad scope the inference that femininity and the plus size body is something that is only understood by women is not realistic. There is a notable male/female binary within most of the research found on this topic which can once again skew how we interpret femininities. To identify as feminine the societal belief is often that someone must present as female and ideally be thin, and enjoy stereotypical feminine aspects of identity. In reality, there are people of all genders and sexualities who identify as feminine. The same goes for those who are plus size and identify as feminine.

To assume someone must fit within a specific construct to identify themselves in a certain way is to negate the intersectional realities of modern life. Plus-size people, like all people, are highly capable, individual, confident, and beautiful people with the ability to identify themselves in any way that they see fit. Within society, the dialogue is often that to be identified as feminine one has to look a certain way. However, this negates the reality that no two people are the same. There is an ever-growing change in the manners in which people are accepting one another, from self-love campaigns, to all bodies welcome gym, and health programs- the world is opening up to the reality of an intersectional existence. When we as a society can engage and acknowledge how plus-size people have been historically labeled and simultaneously ostracized for their size there is a possibility that there may be room for growth. The ideal being that we can grow from a place of seperation to a cohesive socital understanding that plus-size people can identify in whatever manner they see fit.The cultural, structural identity of feminity is archaic in design but ultimately something which is still used to this day to define gender roles and identity. Whilst there are now many people who don’t identify or look at how these structures may want them to, now more than ever people are taking back the narrative to change this way of thought.

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