It's not easy being a plus-sized girl in a size-6 world. OK, it's not easy being any kind of girl in a world where you're constantly reminded that your hair isn't quite right, your abs aren't hard enough, and, by the way, you're wearing last year's heel.
But the road to self-love is especially rocky for those of us of the Rubenesque persuasion. Quote all the statistics you want about the average American woman being a size 14, but the sylph aesthetic, frankly, rules.
Some of my best friends are sylphs, both naturally and through dogged determination. These women will never know the challenge of trying to find a pair of sleek, boot-cut khakis in the "Women's Sizes" section, or at least a pair of slacks not made out of flammable tarp. It's harder than you think.
Maybe that's why I got such a kick out of "Good In Bed," the terrific first novel by Philadelphia Inquirer writer Jennifer Weiner. The protagonist, entertainment reporter Cannie Shapiro, is a big girl in every way. She's emotional, uproariously funny and a veteran of the Women's Sizes department. You've got to love a woman with this to say about clothes:
"It's as if the fashion designers decided that once a woman hit a certain weight, she'd have no need for business suits, for skirts and blazers, for anything except glorified sweatsuits, and they tried to apologize for dressing us like overaged Teletubbies by silk-screening daisies on the tops."
The novel's title comes from the name of a sex-and-relationships column penned by Cannie's ex-boyfriend for a Glamour-style magazine. In horrifying, self-serving detail, he writes about the psychology of "Loving a Larger Woman," calling it "an act of courage."
Is it? I'm not sure. My husband wisely disappeared from the room shortly after I broached the topic.
"Good In Bed" has been compared a lot to "Bridget Jones's Diary," which I also enjoyed. But even though women of all shapes obsess about weight, I couldn't quite relate to Bridget's lament over weighing in at a measly 129 pounds. Actress Renee Zellweger gained 20 pounds to become the film version of Bridget, but judging from the torrent of commentary about it, you'd think she had grown scales.
This is not to say that Americans need any encouragement to be unhealthy or overindulgent. Still, it's hard not to be bothered by a draconian beauty standard that sends such destructive messages, especially to women. A good friend of mine who used to work in the fashion industry said that, at a size 8, she'd probably be considered plump by most hard-core fashionistas. Why, exactly, are we taking our cues from these people?
The Southern, African-American culture that I grew up in generally accepts larger female bodies, but that couldn't begin to counteract the magazines and TV shows that didn't. As a girl, I'd often drift to the classifieds in the back of Seventeen, wondering how I could persuade my mom to send me to one of those weight-loss camps in Wyoming.
That's why a heroine of Cannie's proportion is a bit of a breakthrough. She's neurotic about her weight at times, but not overly apologetic or afraid to stand up for herself. Perhaps most revolutionary of all, she doesn't spend the whole book on a quest to whittle herself down. Weiner never reveals Cannie's exact weight, which is ultimately beside the point.
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