Defending Your Body

Last night I saw "Schoolgirl Figure" out in Coralville. The plot, as summarized by the linked San Francisco review:

Renee hasn't eaten since she was a pre-teen and she's got the jutting hip bones to prove it.

Patty, however, can't master Renee's willpower, letting her hunger get the best of her. So for everything she shallows down, she is diligent that it comes right back up.

Jeanine, a righteous size 2, triumphing over Patty's size 8 and Renee's size 4, licks door knobs in the hopes of catching a flu that includes vomiting, .

One false chew, and the fasting trio faces the Teenage Tribunal, an eerie chorus of the girls' dead peers: once-dedicated anorexics and bulimics who gave up their lives for the cause.

All in all, this is very twisted and it can get a little uncomfortable, an effect director Domenique Lozano wants.

"It's hard to escape," Lozano said. "There are girls in the cast who have experience with the disease. Someone in the cast has had an eating disorder."

The rest of the cast, guys included, know at least one schoolmate feverishly battling even the concept of a bulge.

Given the show's content, casting was a bit touchy, and it meant finding tiny actresses to play the lead roles. Fifty young women auditioned for the show, and 80 percent were a size 2.

"That was shocking to me," Lozano said.

Even more shocking, at a recent rehearsal, the girls meant to convey skin-and-bones look like average teenage girls these days.

To start, I loved the humor in this dark play. It was awesomely acted and directed, and I recommend you catch it if you can.

That said, the subject matter was highly uncomfortable. My skirt today reads size 0.

Why do I now feel obligated to tell you I had a granola bar for breakfast and french fries instead of my usual salad and chips for lunch? That I am within a healthy BMI, if on the lowest end of the scale? Why did I feel compelled to tell people last night that the only reason I didn't have ice cream at intermission was that a) the ice cream was generic anyway, with not a Ben or a Jerry in sight and I'm rather ice cream picky; and b) I was going to have nachos and beer at the bar afterward?

NEWS FLASH: I AM NOT ANOREXIC. I am not on a diet, other than the following: eat only when hungry, organic when possible/convenient, and try to grab at least one thing from each food group every day; unless you're feeling really, really, really bitchy in which case chocolate, french fries and baked goods rule.

Why do I feel obligated to defend myself? And why did my friend sitting next to me, a size somewhere above eleven that I won't even guess at 'cause it's not relevant, feel the same?

Welcome to the Body Image wars, where every female on the planet is made to feel inadequate. Are you rating high on the BMI index? You must be undisciplined, slobby, not taking care of yourself. Rating low? Well, Barbie, must be nice to be able to wear a miniskirt. Too bad you don't have a brain.

WTF??

You can't freaking win, no matter what side you fall on. From this side of the fence, I'd like to pose a question for those "body image" people. You know the ones who advertise a "Body Image Site for Every Body" yet have comment boards full of statements that thin people are all superficial or too stupid to think about anything but dieting. Or the ones at Dove, who have spent a fortune talking about how "real women" have curves. Or the feminist theorists who portray thin women as victims of a patriarchal media brainwashing:

Why am I not a real woman?

I personally support diversification of the different women in the media, and the Dove ads are just great - if they'd only stop claiming to be the only "real women" on the planet. It is particularly ironic to be subjected to so much rejection from a crowd ostensibly advocating total acceptance of women. Yet if I don't measure up to your standard of physical beauty I'm not a real woman. Sound familiar??