I am openly a Jane Austen fan. She was sophisticated, witty, funny and a truly gifted writer. Even the fact that she was published under her own name in the early 19th century makes her a feminist icon. I’ve read all six of her completed novels, several times over, with very good reason.
So when I found this passage in Persuasion, you can imagine my disappointment:
Believe it or not, I have the body of a goddess. This is Venus of Willendorf, from c. 25,000 BCE. Photo by MatthiasKabel
They were actually on the same sofa, for Mrs Musgrove had most readily made room for him; they were divided only by Mrs Musgrove. It was no insignificant barrier, indeed. Mrs Musgrove was of a comfortable, substantial size, infinitely more fitted by nature to express good cheer and good humour, than tenderness and sentiment; and while the agitations of Anne’s slender form, and pensive face, may be considered as very completely screened, Captain Wentworth should be allowed some credit for the self-command with which he attended to her large fat sighings over the destiny of a son, whom alive nobody had cared for.
Personal size and mental sorrow have certainly no necessary proportions. A large bulky figure has as good a right to be in deep affliction, as the most graceful set of limbs in the world. But, fair or not fair, there are unbecoming conjunctions, which reason will patronize in vain — which taste cannot tolerate — which ridicule will seize.
This makes painful reading, especially so since nearly two hundred years have passed, and this stereotype is still in place. The word “fat” has the edge of a weapon, and obese people are more often than not portrayed as lazy, stupid and coarse.
Austen here displays the difficulty of characterizing an obese person with any kind of refinement; a problem that seems to have followed us all the way into 2016. In stories of all kinds we’re still the comic relief; swept off to the sidelines, unlike the devastatingly attractive hero and heroine. If we are allowed emotions, they tend to be of the cruder sort: near-comatose stupefaction, primitive anger, unquenchable cheerfulness. Or depression linked to the fact that we’re fat, and therefore ugly.
It would probably surprise many people who know nothing of me but my appearance that I’m thoroughly literate, that I enjoy intellectual pursuits, or that I care deeply about the state of the world. Or that my chronic dysthymia has no original causal relationship with my weight, other than in terms of the rather horrible upbringing that contributed to them both.
Working for Planet Waves and being exposed to Eric’s writing has shocked me into one realization in particular: that I’ve been living in denial of my sexuality. As a fat person, I’m not only considered undesirable; but I am not supposed to even feel sexual desire, except in the darkest recesses of my (obviously warped) mind — certainly not to express it. Sure, we’re a porn fetish genre. But definitely not mainstream; and an object, not a person.
It’s not exactly a healthy existence, physically or emotionally, to believe oneself ugly, disgusting, repulsive; to file away every compliment as given out of pity; to think one’s feelings are best kept under the hat, so as not to alarm or revile. Being the bloody world champion of unrequited love, and not being able to conceptualize real love coming in the other direction, is a dreadfully lonely place to be.
And I can’t bear it any more, so I intend to sort it out. I apologize in advance if my desires, hopes, dreams and affections offend my readers. But I’m afraid that as of today, I refuse to pretend they don’t exist.
Sorry, Miss Austen.
The Planet Waves Boutique has plenty of balm for your soul. Come pay us a visit, put your feet up, and enjoy discovering all the wonderful readings we have to offer.
Love ya, Amy! ((((()))))
PS This is an extract from (Manzanita flower remedy) one of Isha Lerner’s beautiful cards, from her website, which I love – as none of us women escape the horrors of living up to female stereotyping:
Healing: The Venus of Willendorf and the dancing Goddess figures in Manzanita tree greet you, honoring the feminine spirit that resides with you. You are being mirrored by the Universal Mother who asks that you see yourself as she sees you – as an incarnation of divinity. Perhaps you need to tap your roots a bit closer to the Earth in order that you may fully take pleasure in your glorious body. As your body cycles through its many seasons, contemplate the Manzanita as a symbol of feminine transformation: its bark peels from its lovely branches after its ripened fruit has fallen to Earth, and like the snake, it then begins a new cycle of rejuvenation. The female body is nature’s treasure, for without Her many symbolic deaths and regenerations, humanity would surely perish. We must once again learn to respect our female bodies, nourish them well, and love them fully, if we are to honor the Great Goddess who gives Her abundant Love to all.
Lizzy thank you so much for this link…
And how about this Amy?
http://www.ishalerner.com/home/is2/reading_child_main.html VIII Beauty and the beast
So glad you liked it, Pam! Loved your comment. Look forward to checking out your links, as soon as I have more time.
Maybe swap Austen for Deon Meyer – Heart of the Hunter (Allison Healy felt the same as you and look what happened to her!)
pg 216ff
…He sat down opposite her and said ‘Reubens.’
… ‘No,’ said Arendse. ‘He is the one who painted perfect women.’
…’The Lord works in mysterious ways’… said Orlando Arentse with a twinkle in his eyes and beckoned the waiter to bring the check.
That’s the beginning – I won’t ruin the story for you!
Pg 281 if you want to read Allison’s expression of what you felt
(thank you Lizzy!, thank you Fe!)
“As a fat person, I’m not only considered undesirable; but I am not supposed to even feel sexual desire…”
It is this idea that I find such a wake-up call. Everyone knows that large people are not “supposed to be found attractive” by others. But how many of us unconsciously ignore or suppress the idea that, culturally, we also assume large people must not even feel sexual desire? I’m sure many of us just don’t give it a second thought; but how is that fed by media stereotypes in a subtly corrosive way? How often does that unregistered thought-form inform some level of dehumanizing and discounting people, feeding our own shadow sides, or cutting off some level of our empathy?
These are the questions that I find fascinating, if a little upsetting or disturbing even to myself. Amy, that you were able to connect the idea to Planet Waves’ discussion of Mars Rx and stationing in Scorpio in our conversation (hey… where is that in your piece? Hmmmm? 😉 ) is the brilliant insight. And I appreciate hearing that you’ve made it.
Oddly enough, Mars will be stationing in my second house*, tightly conjunct the only major planet in my chart in a water sign, that being Uranus. My emotional landscape is on a fault line. 🙂
*for the benefit of readers: one of the things this house represents is the body
Depends on the culture though, Amanda. Skinny gals are not appreciated in many Middle Eastern countries (and elsewhere), for example.
For sure, Lizzy — I am definitely speaking from a Western — and specifically American (and caucasian) — perspective.
EXCELLENT TITLE! EXCELLENT PIECE!! I wish I had something equally profound to add here, but I don’t so I’ll stop here. Please know how much your piece has moved me, Amy. I love it when people go there (yep, Scorpio Moon here) and bring “it” on back for all of us to know and love.
m.
Goodness me. I am deeply moved by your kindness and grateful for your words of wisdom. Thank you all, so, so much. And I’ll certainly be looking up Isha Lerner and Deon Meyer.
Lots of love
Amy
You know Amy – my godmother thought she would never marry because she was short with huge hips and thighs (all my life she has never ever swum, never). And a young guy was billeted with them for some time (6months? a year?) and one day she was working and her colleague called her to the window and said – My God look at that film star (ie very handsome guy – he was super handsome) and she said – O – that’s my fiancé! And they are still together 52 (plus) years later.
Someone once said to me: ‘ Why should anyone love you unless they do, and why shouldn’t someone love you unless they don’t?!’ Isn’t that fine as a sentiment.
And at primary school there was a woman 2m tall, very beautiful, and again ‘huge’. She’d been an olympic swimmer (and very slim) and having children had that effect on her metabolism. We adored her. I went back to my old school 20 years ago – still the same uniforms, the only thing that had changed was that most of the kids were now of Zimbabwean rather than European origin, and the Headmaster told me this teacher would still come to talk to the kids regularly, and was still as loved and lovely.
And in Madrid I saw loads of voluptuous women – and wow! (smoking phase so thin for the only time ever – not happy, not necessarily the same thing at all, just descriptive), I felt very under juiced. Fitted 3/4 sleeve shift dresses seemed to be a specialty. (My feminity has never really recovered!)
And at a niece’s wedding her mother in law – very large – got up to dance – and wow so light so beautiful
One of the district nurses who helped my Dad similarly, and just radiant.
You know, I’ve always been ugly – I’ve always felt as you have but because I was ugly, and I finally realised I will never be beautiful, but I can be humourous and pleasant. By chance – renovations, kids – there were several (10?) years when I didn’t see myself in mirrors really and that lack of self scrutiny was helpful too. I relaxed somewhere and (still ugly but) somehow look betterish!
I’m ‘fat’ too these days – too much sitting and biscuit eating accompanying my Dad. I went to the osteo (sacrocranial) one day and she said how much more incarnate I am. You mean fat I said. No no she said , it is true you are more weighty but that is how you manifest it, others sometimes get lighter, more manifest. Which I found interesting. ie true to yourself as key? Piano playing also helped ie sitting down ie putting the weight of me in my body and on the stool, to play properly (I realised that my energy had been up for years as tho I was standing on my toes and trying to escape from fright).
Also, (I had to look up dysthymia and this next paragraph may not count but I remember reading in The Almond Bough, when the teacher got sick and all the students were being glum Moon of Virtue cried that they were acting as tho he was already dead and surely it was important to take action; at least to try – it is a lovely story by Barbara Picard in a book called twice Seven tales or sometimesThe lady of the linden tree), I’ve been feeling miserable and tired (grief, fatigue etc) and a couple of weeks ago I decided I needed help, so I now take a gramme of vit C, a multivitamin B and Eleutherococcus in the morning, with rooibos (half a pint), cycle to the post office (4km) just to get my blood turning and start the day. It took a while but I’m doing much better. I thought about acupuncture too, but finally just changed my diet. I felt I have become used to eating too much comfort food and this week I read someone’s comment who said monday wednesday friday she has a miso soup for lunch and a green salad in the evening and the other days she eats what she likes. I realise I would also like a break from cooking so my family now cook monday wednesday friday and every day I feel happier. I also had myself screened for negative somatic memories and shadows and energy imbalances and that was very energising, and really helped too. I ‘m so grateful.
Another book I read as a child and am so glad I did is a book of princesses – there was a long nosed princess, the light princess, the princess who when she walked or ran flowers grew where she had put her feet, the princess and the doll (in the end the courtiers chose the doll who said if you please, and thank you, over the flesh and blood princess who laughed when she was happy and wept when she was sad. I’ve been trying to find it for years and did today so in fact perhaps it is for you?! https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0140302492/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Hope this isn’t too frank a catalogue!
xxxp
Wow…Pam, thank you with all my heart. I’m glad you are feeling better. And I’m very willing to bet you’re more beautiful than you think – it’s abundantly clear that you are on the inside, in any case. Much love. xx
Crude Anglo Saxon bones and lines! we have 5 donkeys – not the cute ethereal donkeys but Anes de Provence with huge knees and built like (smallish) carthorses (carrying salt up mountains traditionally to make cheese in the summer pastures and carry the cheese down in autumn). Huge backward chins, and crude bones. But. Beautiful beyond compare with a sort of heavy grace (and light as gazelles when they feel like it or the wind blows). So perhaps you are right – guess I bought into the cute ethereal beauty somewhere. And it is all a question of the eyes that behold isn’t it? Either way!
So thank you!
I meant to say too that with my Godmother when I look back it is not her weight that comes to mind but that she drove very fast and with flair, she was (is) extremely artistic – cakes with flowers spilling out of them, in the form of hats, or sewing boxes with all the colour and detail of whatever she had made in sugar and marzipan. My first stay with them (4 and a half?) she helped me cut out fabric and stick it on a bear from a colouring book so the bear had real clothes instead of coloured ones. It was just beautiful and I kept it for years. And those spanish women were just so at ease with themselves and life and in their skins, and so feminine.
And also what acuity do you (and I!) have as a result of these experiences?!
love to you too!
and as you said: the internal breath that illuminates the whole!
(back to work…)
I always liked this story too:
There was a girl who wrote in saying that she was not feeling like she fit in at her school, because she wasn’t punk enough.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKsxPW6i3pM
this from the comments: wow!
There is the idea that while the masses are doing the crazy thing, the obvious human endeavor; maybe there’s another way, and if you hold on to your true self, you will find others who align with you. Always. What’s awesome about this presentation is that it could have just have easily gone the other way – religious puritans in turtleneck sweaters vs. the lone person in a miniskirt and muscle shirt. The trick is to know who you are, whatever that is, and honor it, and know… it just takes some time, but everything will be alright.
“There was a girl who wrote in saying that she was not feeling like she fit in at her school, because she wasn’t punk enough. I guess [the song] is sort of directed at her. People love to argue about what “punk rock” means, but I think a basic tenet that everyone might agree on is a level of open-mindedness. I just found it funny that these people who were identifying with punk would be closed-minded towards someone for not being punk enough, and just felt like, “They don’t get it, and you shouldn’t worry about them.”
Wonderful & illuminating post & comments. Attitudes/standards in our culture around issues of weight & beauty cause so much pain. I was fat in my late teens in the early 1960’s, & soundly shamed for it, particularly by my older (skinny) sister & her husband (who enjoyed trying to grope my ample breasts, especially). Motherhood abruptly changed my metabolism in my early 20’s, & I remained slender. Now, I’m 70, still slim, & experiencing the other prejudice: looking old. Older women are only admired if they LOOK much younger than their age. And old women are neither desirable nor are we supposed to feel desire.
It’s all about superficiality, not substance, character, or soul. But we need to work at loving ourselves & our bodies regardless.
… I was late and slow. A slow learner. But not as late as her. I love to tell her story because people—particularly women—need to hear that you can start late.
http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6253/the-art-of-fiction-no-221-ursula-k-le-guin
Love to you, Amy. Thank you 🙂
Amy thank you for this story. Thank you for getting naked.
Yes to this:
my desires, hopes, dreams and affections … I refuse to pretend they don’t exist.
I feel your beauty!
Sexual desire is for every body and every age… I am now an old lady, and I am still fat!
Sing ON. No one here is walking out!