Size and beauty standards

Guide to oppressions & intersections in SF
Basics: Classism Racism Nationalism, colonialism, xenophobia Religious intolerance Antisemitism Sexism Homophobia & heterosexism Size & beauty standards Disability & ableism Ageism
Manifestations: Institutionalized, systemic, structural Unconscious Conscious Internalized Power relations
Responses: Activism: Antiracism, feminism, etc. Consciousness-raising Redress & affirmative action Diversity & representation
SFnal treatments: Race and feminist SF Race-and-gender stereotypes in SF
See also: Women of color in SF Queer women in SF Women Make SF
About the GOI

Virtually all people use size and beauty standards to value, evaluate, and assess other people. They are often not seen as legitimate in all purposes, but they typically affect decision-making sub rosa even when not recognized or acknowledged. They are highly gendered and racialized.

For instance, the preference for

• height: tall men as shown in US elections; body norms in airplane seats, shelving, cars (the airbags which killed short people, disproportionately women)
• sizeism, most Western cultures valuing thinness in 20th century (but implicates class, because fatness is now equated with working class in US and thinness with professionalism or upper class); body norms in airplane seats, cars, etc. "Personal responsibility" > laziness, lack of self-control. Highly racialized and genderized.
• Skin - See racism obviously; European-descent skin color (tans or pallor, a class and gender distinction in part);
• Hair - hair styles (straightening for African-American women particularly; afros popular during Black Power movement; straightening for Jewish women ("Jewfros"); etc.);
• foot-binding; cosmetic surgeries of various sorts; other mutilations. Surgery, ear piercing, tattoos, etc. Recent anti-tattoo screed by -- was it Rowbotham? or Jeffreys?
• Dress requirements & standards; religious enforcement; women's beauty as men's property throughout different cultures.
• make-up: women in make-up (a preference which varies widely; for instance, being seen as immodest in some cultures; necessary to be ladylike in US Southern culture; etc.);

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