Is the skinny trend really a patriarchal tool to keep women in line?

Recently, a TikTok went viral questioning whether “every time women get too powerful, the skinny trend re-emerges to keep us all too tired to create and vote”. Users were captivated by this compelling concept and started asking questions; could the Ozempic-fuelled return to 90s so-called “heroin chic” we’re currently witnessing be a political tool employed to stop women voting in the general election? Well, not exactly. The logic itself feels iffy when we notice that almost every woman in power is, in fact, thin and that pretty privilege exists. But let’s look at where the theory came from and what truth there is to it.

Back in 1990, Naomi Wolf wrote and released The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women which examined how beauty standards in the west are a mechanism that patriarchy uses to control women. The book explains how in historical moments when other material constraints on women loosen, and they begin to gain some social power, the beauty myth – an obsession with physical perfection that traps the modern woman in an endless spiral of hope, self-consciousness, and self-hatred – tightens to take on the work of social control, exhausting us into apathy and navel gazing. I first read this book in my early twenties and it was definitely an entry-point for feminism at the time. I’ve since re-read it in preparation for this piece, and older me has a broader understanding of intersectional feminism.

It’s clear why The Beauty Myth went on to be wildly successful and inspired Third Wave Feminism; it’s accessibly written and hits as a truth that so many women experience; how expectations of femininity monopolise women’s lives. However, issues were raised with some of Wolf’s claims at the time, which she later went on record to change; in the book she claims eating disorders are an existential threat to women with wildly inflated numbers. She also never mentioned the systemic oppression Black, Indigenous, queer or disabled women are subject to or how restrictive beauty standards specifically impact them. Her call to action is also almost entirely individualistic, and it feels as if the message essentially is: if this wasn’t the case, we would be free. While her theories were a valuable way for women to see how profit and patriarchy conspire to make women feel rubbish about themselves, just like The Feminine Mystique by Betty Freidan and The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer, it was a distinctly white, heteronormative look at being a woman that was written as if it applied to everyone.

Is it true that beauty standards are deadly; one person dies from an eating disorder every hour in the U.S, and many of these deaths are not from health consequences related to starvation, but from suicide, so the harm that expectations of beauty and thinness cause is real.

If we’re talking specifically about political engagement, though – which this viral meme and Naomi Wolf were – that’s a different question, and while beauty standards may be a contributing factor, it’s not as simple as “thinness makes us too tired to vote”. Expectations of femininity divide us by enforcing standards that we police each other in, but there are many reasons women aren’t as politically engaged as they should be; like literally policy and law that disenfranchises them, gendered violence, poverty and more. When talking about beauty standards, we must also recognise that those who sit outside of white and thin expectations of femininity entirely are experiencing much more effective barriers to political engagement than those who sit relatively close to them. To put it plainly, yes a culture obsessed with appearances monopolises our time and energy, but often we talk about this in the mainstream as if it is the silver bullet to end patriarchy altogether.

I’ll be the first to admit that I notice how much I think about my body and appearance, and wonder what I could do with all that used up time. But I also have to be pretty honest with myself in recognising how close to the beauty standard I actually am and work to shift my focus to broader systemic feminist issues instead of my perceived “failings”: wealth hoarding, lack of affordable housing, climate justice, reproductive rights, misogynoir. Patriarchy convinces thin, white women with pretty privilege that they’re sitting miles away from a standard when they are, in fact, not. And while theories like this have truth to them, white feminisms’ obsession with focusing entirely on beauty standards alone only serves patriarchy; “want them too busy to think about how they look to become political? Sure! And have them too busy talking about beauty standards to learn about racism, transmisogyny and class wealth divides? Great!”. Ironically, sometimes it feels like the more we keep talking in circles about this issue in an individualistic context, the more exhausted we might be, and the less we form alliances on other important issues.

Yes, bullshit beauty standards are monopolising our mind and time, and we must notice this and push against it, because if those of us with power and privilege use the pressures of beauty standards as justification for why we are less politically active then we’ve all lost. But to really disrupt this system we can’t do that at the expense of other issues. We mustn’t focus on how patriarchy convinces us not to eat carbs, but also on how it convinces us not to eat the rich, too.