Can I just say that it's about time that someone wrote about this! I've been seeing countless articles about how amazing celebrity women's bodies are a short time after giving birth and it just ticks me off. It makes women who take a more normal time to return to their pre-birth body feel like they're not doing enough. Heck, I've not even given birth and it makes me feel sensitive about it! Talk about pressure! Not only are women trying to recover from giving birth, learning to tend to their child's needs, dealing with the lack of sleep, and having to return to employment, but they are also expected to add in a whole weight loss program at the same time. Amazing. If only everyone is able to hire nannies, personal trainers, nutritionists, chefs, plastic surgeons, stylists and purchase the appropriate accoutrements to look even better than one did before pregnancy.
I'll leave my thoughts about the articles on celebrity women who are 9 months pregnant and able to flit about in 5 inch heels for another time.
Media Obsession With Celebrities' Postpartum Bodies is Part of the War on Women
By Liz Garcia, Contributor
4/30/2012 @ 11:50 PM
One of Us Weekly’s lead articles on their website today is about football player Tony Romo’s wife Candice Crawford. Romo and his wife attended the White House Correspondents Dinner this weekend, where Crawford caught the attention of the press, ’cause of her rockin’ just-three-weeks-postpartum figure. Don’t you feel dirty reading that phrase? I felt dirty writing it. But US Weekly did not feel dirty writing the headline ‘Candice Crawford’s Hot Post-Baby Bod: How She Did It‘, accompanied by an article detailing the healthy habits this new mother has practiced in the last weeks that have melted those pounds right off. The topic is all over the internet, as are photographs of recent mothers Jennifer Garner, Hilary Duff and Beyonce Knowles with captions calling attention to the state of their postpartum bodies. Women’s postpartum figures are a media obsession, which has fed a social obsession, and this obsession needs to be stopped.
State governments cutting funding to women’s health organizations like Planned Parenthood, the legislature that would’ve made mandatory an invasive vaginal ultrasound for women seeking abortions, Rush Limbaugh calling Sandra Fluke a slut for advocating for accessible birth control — these are all obvious moments in the War on Women, obvious attempts at oppression. But the US Weekly article and every paparazzi photo taken of a recently-postpartumed star absolutely exist on that spectrum, as well. Scrutinizing these women, praising them for rapid weight loss, stalking them in the weeks after their babies are born (or, in the case of poor Jessica Simpson, stalking her every outing up ’til and including her arrival at the hospital this morning to give birth to daughter Maxwell), it all sends the message that a) their bodies are objects for public consumption and judgement b) that sort of weight loss is an option for every woman and c) that it’s something to aspire to. That, three weeks after having a baby, when most of us are still learning how to breastfeed, and some of us still can’t move around without assistance, we should be aspiring to weight loss.
Before I had a baby, I might’ve interpreted the US Weekly article as actual advice; that at three weeks postpartum it’d be reasonable to expect to be exercising and eating healthily and wearing a dress that was shiny and tight. Now that I’ve lived it, I feel qualified to write my own article. It would go like this. Headline: “Candice Crawford’s Hot Post-Baby Bod: How She Did It.” Content: “Genetics and undergarments.” That’s it. Because at three weeks postpartum, that’s the only truth behind that body. And to suggest otherwise through “how to’s” is to perpetuate shame and untruths that could actually be dangerous to women recovering from birth, and those who are breastfeeding and need extra calories.
But the attention paid to Crawford’s ‘hot bod’ is of a vast, disturbing dynamic at work in this country. We are a culture that values child-bearing — consider the obsession with celebrity children as evidence thereof, not to mention Personhood amendments — and yet we expect our childbearing populous to shed the physical evidence of said childbearing as soon as possible. On the one hand, this would seem hypocritical. On the other, it’s depressingly consistent, and the consistent element is misogyny. Let’s say it again, ’cause it’s happening: Misogyny. Women are so undervalued in our culture that the government wants to tell us how and when to have babies, and the media will tell us how and when to feel ashamed of our postpartum bodies. Have babies. Be an Object. Repeat. Quickly. Here’s how!
If we play by these rules, we can’t win. So, simply put, we need to make our own rules. Mine will include not reading articles like ‘New Mom Looks like She Never Even Had Baby: How To Be Like Her’, not paying undo attention to a friend’s postpartum figure as though that and not her emotional state of being is what matters, and not, now nine months after the birth of my son, getting on the scale every morning wondering what amount of forgiveness to dole out to myself today.
4/30/2012 @ 11:50 PM
One of Us Weekly’s lead articles on their website today is about football player Tony Romo’s wife Candice Crawford. Romo and his wife attended the White House Correspondents Dinner this weekend, where Crawford caught the attention of the press, ’cause of her rockin’ just-three-weeks-postpartum figure. Don’t you feel dirty reading that phrase? I felt dirty writing it. But US Weekly did not feel dirty writing the headline ‘Candice Crawford’s Hot Post-Baby Bod: How She Did It‘, accompanied by an article detailing the healthy habits this new mother has practiced in the last weeks that have melted those pounds right off. The topic is all over the internet, as are photographs of recent mothers Jennifer Garner, Hilary Duff and Beyonce Knowles with captions calling attention to the state of their postpartum bodies. Women’s postpartum figures are a media obsession, which has fed a social obsession, and this obsession needs to be stopped.
State governments cutting funding to women’s health organizations like Planned Parenthood, the legislature that would’ve made mandatory an invasive vaginal ultrasound for women seeking abortions, Rush Limbaugh calling Sandra Fluke a slut for advocating for accessible birth control — these are all obvious moments in the War on Women, obvious attempts at oppression. But the US Weekly article and every paparazzi photo taken of a recently-postpartumed star absolutely exist on that spectrum, as well. Scrutinizing these women, praising them for rapid weight loss, stalking them in the weeks after their babies are born (or, in the case of poor Jessica Simpson, stalking her every outing up ’til and including her arrival at the hospital this morning to give birth to daughter Maxwell), it all sends the message that a) their bodies are objects for public consumption and judgement b) that sort of weight loss is an option for every woman and c) that it’s something to aspire to. That, three weeks after having a baby, when most of us are still learning how to breastfeed, and some of us still can’t move around without assistance, we should be aspiring to weight loss.
Before I had a baby, I might’ve interpreted the US Weekly article as actual advice; that at three weeks postpartum it’d be reasonable to expect to be exercising and eating healthily and wearing a dress that was shiny and tight. Now that I’ve lived it, I feel qualified to write my own article. It would go like this. Headline: “Candice Crawford’s Hot Post-Baby Bod: How She Did It.” Content: “Genetics and undergarments.” That’s it. Because at three weeks postpartum, that’s the only truth behind that body. And to suggest otherwise through “how to’s” is to perpetuate shame and untruths that could actually be dangerous to women recovering from birth, and those who are breastfeeding and need extra calories.
But the attention paid to Crawford’s ‘hot bod’ is of a vast, disturbing dynamic at work in this country. We are a culture that values child-bearing — consider the obsession with celebrity children as evidence thereof, not to mention Personhood amendments — and yet we expect our childbearing populous to shed the physical evidence of said childbearing as soon as possible. On the one hand, this would seem hypocritical. On the other, it’s depressingly consistent, and the consistent element is misogyny. Let’s say it again, ’cause it’s happening: Misogyny. Women are so undervalued in our culture that the government wants to tell us how and when to have babies, and the media will tell us how and when to feel ashamed of our postpartum bodies. Have babies. Be an Object. Repeat. Quickly. Here’s how!
If we play by these rules, we can’t win. So, simply put, we need to make our own rules. Mine will include not reading articles like ‘New Mom Looks like She Never Even Had Baby: How To Be Like Her’, not paying undo attention to a friend’s postpartum figure as though that and not her emotional state of being is what matters, and not, now nine months after the birth of my son, getting on the scale every morning wondering what amount of forgiveness to dole out to myself today.
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