Ways of All Flesh

YOU CAN never be too rich or too thin, we’ve always heard. But now the government of Spain tells us otherwise – some of the waifs on international catwalks are, it insists, too thin. And so it has banned them from the Spanish Fashion Week. ‘Down with the draconian measure!’ shouts the fashion industry. A large section of the media follows suit. And we all join in this collective tut-tutting, asking: how much can a few catwalk models affect real women?

A lot. Yes, a lot. Be honest and say if you don’t first glance at the fashion pictures before going on to the news pages in your morning newspaper. You’re not the only one – most of us do it, especially the women. Scores of surveys have shown that women feel depressed after reading fashion magazines; yet they continue to do it, religiously, issue after issue. So obsessed are women with looks that, in a survey conducted by The Indian Express – cited, funnily enough, by their columnist in an argument against the Spanish ban – most women said they would rather be lame than fat.

And that’s exactly the way the multi-billion dollar fashion/ cosmetics/ slimming/ cosmetic surgery/ etc industries want things to be. The international thinning industry, for instance, is valued at over $50 billion. It is gigantic in India, too, with VLCC outlets and gyms easier to find than the neighbourhood postbox. Their profitability, and indeed very existence, depend on making women aspire to a ‘model’ of beauty (in this case, thinness) that is naturally unattainable. Once it is attained, with whatever machinations and at whatever expense, it is impossible to maintain.

So the key lies in making women continually aspire to that unattainable ideal. Catwalk models, advertising campaigns, hoardings, cosmetics counters in supermarkets, beauty contests, films, music videos, fashion magazines, and even news media, all form part of this aspirational apparatus. Women, and men, are constantly bombarded by these all-pervasive messages, a task made easier by the surfeit of visual media all around us – from cellphones and laptops to brochures and hoardings.

But why only women – given a chance wouldn’t men also want to be thin? Perhaps, but not to the extent that women do – 70-90 per cent of the clientele of slimming centres/ diet clinics comprises women. The reason is not hard to seek – women have completely internalised the expectations of a patriarchal society that demands that they look good, above all else. A woman, even in a workplace, is looked at the way men are not. So pervasive is the male gaze in most popular media – advertising, films, music videos – that even women believe that they are meant to be looked at. And looking good is equated with being thin.

It is argued that one should not worry about thinness as it is not that big a problem – only 1 per cent of US women have anorexia but 7 per cent are obese. Agreed. But what about the fact that almost 100 per cent women feel dissatisfied with their own bodies? OK, so anorexia is about low self-esteem, control issues and general unhappiness. True. Also true is the fact that all of these issues stem in large part from the way ‘attractive’ women are portrayed in popular culture – as thin, perfectly flawless and forever young.

Coming back to the main argument, why ban catwalk models who are really only clotheshorses? Suspending indignation at the ethical issues involved in such crass commodification of the human body, this begs the question – why do designers insist on thin clotheshorses? Even if clothes look better on a thin model, aren’t clothes ultimately meant for real women? This brings us back to the beginning. Women are meant to aspire to look like the thin clotheshorse, remember?