Laws Regulating Fashion Models: Protection or Intrusion?

While I was climbing away on the elliptical this morning at the gym, my eye was caught by a news story flashing by on the television screen of a fellow exerciser. Marc Levine, a California state assemblyman, has proposed a law that would require fashion models to obtain a certificate from a doctor before they can work in the state. Modeled after a new law in France designed to reduce the pressure on fashion models to lose weight or face unemployment, the legislation would require doctors to certify that models are a healthy weight and are not suffering from anorexia or any other eating disorder. Modeling agencies would be required to be licensed, and would be penalized if they were caught employing models without the proper medical certification.

A neighbor of mine worked as a model as a teenager, and has a boatload of stories about the pressures adults in the industry put on young girls, pressures that can far too often slip into abuse. I was also reminded of Marie Force's romance novel, True North, which features a model who is disillusioned with the industry. Would such a law have made the careers of my real life neighbor, and Force's fictional heroine, less dangerous to pursue?

Or is such legislation just another example of men intrusively regulating women's bodies? Are there other possible solutions that might be proposed to protect women in the modeling industry?

Do you know of any other romance novels with models as protagonists that touch upon these issues?

Fat as a Feminist Issue for Teens: Julie Murphy's DUMPLIN'

Kelly Jensen's BookRiot post this past summer on Fat Phobia in YA points out how rare it is to see a fat person in books for teens portrayed as anything but a villain, or at the very least, a person who needs to lose weight in order to be deemed worthy of happiness and love. Despite the rise in activism around issues of body size and fat acceptance since the turn of the 21st century, YA books have been slow to embrace fat politics. Kind of makes you want to bundle up the 20+ books listed as references in Wikipedia's "Fat Feminism" page and drop them in the hands of the nearly one third of American adolescents who are, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, overweight or obese.

Or you might want to give them a copy of Julie Murphy's new YA, Dumplin'.

As Dumplin's narrator, sixteen-year-old Texan Willowdean Dickson, explains,

     The word fat makes people uncomfortable. But when you see me, the first thing you notice is my body. And my body is fat. It's like how I notice some girls have big boobs or shiny hair or knobby knees. Those things are okay to say. But the word fat, the one that best describes me, makes lips frown and cheeks lose their color.
     But that's me. I'm fat. It's not a cuss word. It's not an insult. At least it's not when I say it. So I always figure why not get it out of the way? (9)

Willowdean has always been pretty comfortable in her body, at least by her own account. Her mom may be a former beauty queen who can't quite bring herself to accept her daughter's far-different figure, but Willow could always turn to her live-in aunt Lucy to give her unconditional love and support.

Miss Texas Teen 2014 & court

But six months ago, Aunt Lucy, only thirty six, died from a massive heart attack. Lucy's obesity—she weighed four hundred and ninety eight pounds at her death—was undoubtedly a contributing factor. And Will's mom, wrapped up in her volunteer work for the annual Miss Teen Blue Bonnet Pageant, can't seem to help Will mourn her lost surrogate mother.

And now, this summer, so many other things in Will's life are changing, things that feel completely out of her control. Her best friend, Ellen, becomes sexually active with her boyfriend. And El's been hanging out with her summer job friends, the skinny girls obsessed with the fashions they sell at Forever 16. Both things make Will feel that she and El, best friends since before first grade, are slowly but inevitably drifting apart.

And even more unbelievably, Will's coworker at Harpy's Burgers & Dogs, Private School Bo, former super jock and still super hot guy, seems to be interested in her. Like, really interested. And not just in her ability to keep a conversation going when he can barely string a few sentences together at a time. So interested, in fact, that he kisses her, out by the dumpsters at work. So interested that he and Will end up driving to the old elementary school for epic make-out sessions almost every night after work.

Will believes she's never been really embarrassed by her size before. So when Bo starts to take things beyond kissing, Will (and the reader) are both pretty shocked by her reaction:

His hands travel down to my neck and along my shoulders. His touch sends waves of emotion through me. excitement. Terror. Glee. Everything all at once. But then his fingers trace down my back and to my waist. I gasp. I feel it like a knife in the back. My mind betrays my body. The reality of him touching me. Of him touching my back fat and my overflowing waistline, it makes me want to gag. I see myself in comparison to every other girl he's likely touched. With their smooth backs and trim waists. (58)

And Will's negative reaction to Bo never seems to abate. Especially after summer ends and schools starts, and Will finds out that her secret lover is no longer attending private school, but is going to be in her very public school. So Will breaks things off with Bo, without really telling him why. Because Bo lied/didn't tell her the truth? Because he kept her a secret? Or because she kept him one, and is afraid of trying to merge her secret and her everyday life? Because who wants to constantly hear "how did she end up with him?"

After being teased one too many times by the school jerk boy about her weight (and kicking said jerk boy in the nuts), Will spends her week on suspension brooding and longing for her dead aunt. But when Will uncovers a blank entry form for the Miss Teen Blue Bonnet pageant amongst Aunt Lucy's old papers, an "obscene thought" crosses Will's mind. And before she knows it, she's signing up to participate in her mom's obsession: The Teen Blue Bonnet Pageant. And providing inspiration for a small group of other teens whose bodies do not meet the conventional norms of beauty to join her.

But this isn't a Disney Channel story, one in which the underdogs triumph, or are at least offered acceptance by the normative folks. Instead, it's a story about fighting against one's own internalized prejudices. And taking a stand for what everyone, not just the beautiful people, deserve.

As Will's new friend tells her when Will's on the verge of dropping out of the competition:

"Maybe fat girls or girls with limps or girls with big teeth don't usually win beauty pageants. Maybe that's not the norm. But the only way to change that is to be present. We can't expect the same things these other girls do until we demand it. Because no one's lining up to give us shit, Will." (325)

If this were a Disney Channel film, a potential new boyfriend, a passel of new friends, and a chance to compete for a cubic zirconia crown would of course lead Willow to recapture her old self-confidence. But instead, Murphy sets a harder path for Willowdean:  to create a new sense of herself, one that recognizes the hidden loathing she harbors within herself, for herself and for others, and to move past it. Only then can she find the courage to "step into her own light" (371).


Photo credits:
Miss Texas Teen 2014: voy.com
Thin Privilege: Everyday Feminism
Crown: Miss Universe Bahamas Application

The Beauty Double Standard

"There's only one problem with going to an Ivy League school," a (male) friend of mine once said as we made our way, bleary-eyed, into our college dining hall one post-exam morning. "The women here don't make any effort to look good. See, they're all hanging out in ratty sweats and mangy t-shirts, no makeup, no dresses. Some of them haven't even washed their hair. Girls here care more about their grades than they care about their looks," he concluded, shaking his head in chagrin.

We're all familiar with the gendered double standard about sex. Men who like sex, who engage in it for its own sake rather than in the context of a relationship, who collect sexual partners as if they were baseball cards or comic books—those men are studs, worthy of admiration and awe. Women who like sex, who engage it in outside the context of a romantic relationship, who sleep around—those women are sluts, whores, worth only our most cutting epithets. But reading witty Brit Stella Newman's anti-romance novel, Pear Shaped, brought back memories of that less talked-about, but equally sexist, double standard: the double standard of beauty. No matter how unattractive they may be themselves, most men feel entitled to the admiration of the most beautiful women in the room. Entitled to get the girl they want. And girls should work their hardest to make themselves attractive, because, damn it all, that's why there here: to look good for men.

Snarky Sophie Klein, the first-person narrator of Pear Shaped, experiences this double standard first-hand. When she meets wealthy James in a bar, she's a little surprised when he calls her "skinny." She may be a size 10 (U.S. size 6), but she'd got "tits and an arse," unlike the other girl James was chatting up before talking with her ("one of those girls you can count the vertebrae of through her silk shirt") (Kindle Loc 87). Sophie and James hit it off right away, though, Sophie drawn to his carefree charm, boundless energy, and confident ways. He's far from drop-dead gorgeous, and he's forty-five to Sophie's thirty-three, but he's just Sophie's type: "a big man," "tall and broad, with a stomach he wears well" (301). Before long, Sophie's falling for him, big time.

But James? He's not so sure. Over dinner one night, after the two have been dating (and shagging) for three months, Sophie thinks James might on the verge of proposing. But instead, his declaration turns out to be embarrassingly insulting: "I'm worried.... you're not my normal type.... physically..... I know I'm no Adonis, but..."  "BUT WHAT?" Sophie thinks to herself. "You're rich and male so it doesn't matter?" (1137) But Sophie keeps her outrage inside, not challenging James about the sexism that has him feeling that he's somehow less than a man if he doesn't have a trophy woman on his arm.

Sophie realizes that James' worry doesn't actually have "anything to do with me not being his type. It's either his ego's need for a trophy, or his fear of commitment. Whatever the problem is, I reckon it's about his head, not my body" (Loc 1167). Later, she tells him straight out what she thinks of his worry:

Whatever your 'type' is, that 'type' clearly hasn't been working out for you so well. Some men have a turning point in their lives where they realise what long-term relationships are all about. Love isn't all about crazy hot sex in a glass lift. It's about finding someone you fancy and like and respect and who you can be yourself with. Find that and you're very, very luck. The reason I'm calling you back is because I don't think you're a total idiot; I think you might be smart enough to grow up and realise that.  (1126)

Yet even though she's both furious and crushed by James' unfeeling revelation, Sophie can't stop herself from longing for him, both emotionally and physically, and ends up taking James back, even though he never openly acknowledges the truth of her interpretation of his fears, or even apologizes for his obnoxious comments. He asks her to move in, and even proposes.

James certainly thinks of himself as a nice guy, and thus, of course,
deserving of a trophy girlfriend

But over time, it becomes more and more obvious that James has not grown out of his worry, or at least out of the assumptions of male entitlement that lie behind it:

His thoughts about Sophie's friend, who is suffering from postpartum depression: "He's supposed to be eternally grateful that she's a lard arse? A wife should make an effort for her husband. She should get down the gym, get on the high heels and suspenders, that'll sort out their marriage better than some stupid therapy" (2013)

Sophie's impression of his thoughts when he introduces her to his business associates: "When he says 'this is my girlfriend, Sophie,' the word 'girlfriend' sits heavily on his tongue like an ulcer" (2137)

" 'One of your eyes is bigger than the other,' he says. I have noticed this only recently myself.... It is truly a microscopic difference, but he has spotted it and seen fit to comment on it. Not in a 'your flaws make you unique/beautiful to me' way. Just in a 'you are not perfect' way" (2300).

Sophie watching James fixate on a model: "James is staring at her in a way that I have never, ever seen him look at me. It is the way he sometimes looks when he is driving his car too fast" (2162).

James' only half-way joking comment when Sophie rolls on top of him to admire his good looks: "Get off me, you big lump" (2284).

After a lot of determined avoidance on Sophie's part, and a lot of wiggly, passive-aggressive behavior on James', James finally admits that he just can't overcome his worries. The two part ways, and in the second half of the book, Sophie goes into, and climbs her way back out of, a major emotional trough, chronicled with equal parts humor and pain. Sophie's well aware of what went wrong:

The truth is I am furious: furious that I took him back, furious that I didn't pick him up on all the comments about my weight, furious that I didn't assert myself more, furiuos that I shagged him in the car when he was almost definitely seeing Noushka (the model), furious that I put his value above mine, furious that I believed his version of me.  (3818)

But its not so easy for her feelings to catch up with her brain. Especially because she, like many white middle class women, has been "conditioned to think of anger as ugly, ugly, ugly" (4681).

Sophie does end up with a different, far better man by book's end. But the climax of the story is less about her new romance, and more about her acceptance, not only of her own strengths, but also of James' limitations:

I know what my life would be like with James. If I stayed slim and well maintained and aloof and played a constant game and kept him on his toes all the time, he'd eat out of my hand, for a while. If I never had a bad day, never showed weakness, never put on weight, never needed reassurance, never gold old, I'd be just fine..... And while I want him to fight for me, and tell me he's realised he's making a mistake, and that he wants me, fat, think or in the middle, the truth is, he really isn't built that way. And for the first time I actually start to feel sorry for him.  (4255; 4274)


I wonder if someone could write a romance with a hero who starts off with the same entitled attitude as James, but who gives it up/moves beyond it? And not because he falls in love (changed by the love of a good woman trope), but because he comes to understand how limiting it is, both for women and for himself?


Illustration credits:
Beauty double standard: Good Men Project
Entitled to a girlfriend: The Lion's Roar

Stella Newman

Pear Shaped

Avon, 2012;

ebook by Bookouture, 2014

Feminism, First Kisses, and Beauty Pageants: Gina Willner-Pardo's PRETTIEST DOLL

Feminists have long held up the beauty pageant as an event particularly worthy of scorn. In 1968, protests organized by the New York Radical Women against the Miss America Pageant not only called attention to beauty pageant's sexist objectification of women, but simultaneously brought the Women's Liberation Movement into the broader national consciousness. The murder of child beauty pageant participant JonBenét Ramsey in 1996 only added fuel to the feminist fire, bringing global attention to the child pageant industry and the limiting standards of femininity girls as young as four were being asked to embody and perform. Interest in child pageants waned in the wake of Ramsey's death, but recent reality shows "Toddlers and Tiaras" and "Here Comes Honey-Boo-Boo" have led to an upsurge, accompanied by all the expected protests.

So when Gina Willner-Pardo's middle grade novel, Prettiest Doll, opens with narrator thirteen-year-old Olivia Jane Tatum, a long-time pageant participant, declaring—"It's good to be pretty. I'm really lucky"—I worried that I was in for little but heavy-handed ranting in the novel to follow. Books for teens often ask their readers to see beyond the limited scope of their still-developing narrators, and that opening line clearly suggested that Olivia would be in for a lot of hard knocks, holding on to such an obviously narrow view of herself and her world.

The opening third of Willner-Pardo's novel does read like a textbook case against the child pageant industry, at least at first glance. Olivia, or Liv, tells us right from the first page that despite knowing she's lucky to have been born with beauty, she still feels something isn't quite right: "Sometimes, if I really pay attention, it's like there are other feelings inside me, buried down deep, close but far away. It scares me a little, but then I remember about my hair" (1). The dulling repetition of pageant practice, more enervating than working on a factory line, as well as the negative messages about girls' worth that accompany it, drives Liv, and the reader, nearly to distraction. Though Liv has clearly learned the party line about the benefit of pageants—after a boy she meets says pageants are weird, she protests: "they give you poise. They make you confident.... You have to answer questions. It's hard, speaking in public, with everyone watching" (22-23)—the frustration she feels at being told to sing instead of dance for the talent portion of the upcoming Prettiest Doll contest makes her seethe. Liv stinks at singing, and no coaching will ever change that sorry fact.

The narrative also makes it clear that participating in pageants is as much, if not more, for the sake of Liv's mother, than it is for Liv, the "Princess by Proxy" syndrome. Left alone with a young child to raise after her truckdriver husband was killed in a highway accident, Mrs. Tatum works two jobs to be able to afford the expensive costumes and extra coaching necessary to make Liv into a winner. Staying up late into the night to sew on just one more sequin, Mrs. Tatum sees in the lovely, slim Liv the self that she once was, or might have been. Though her mother never says it out loud, Liv can see not only the love in her self-sacrificing mother's eyes, but also the "wanting," the wanting that only Liv's continuing agreement to participate in the pageant world can seem to fill.

So it is hardly a surprise when, about a third of the way into the book, we find Liv running away from home, hopping the bus to Chicago in the company of a fifteen-year-old boy who's having his own difficulties with the pressures of his mother's expectations. Oh, of course, during her trip, Liv will learn to stand up for herself, I thought to myself; she'll return home, diss her mom, take charge of her life, and stop this foolish pageant business. With such a predictable outcome, I was ready to just skim the rest of the book and set it aside.

But the remainder of Prettiest Doll doesn't allow its readers to come away feeling so smugly superior, as viewers of Toddlers & Tiaras does, sure that we would never treat our little girls in such a demeaning way. Instead, it asks readers to think a bit harder, not only about what parents owe their children, but what children owe their parents, particularly single mothers. And it asks readers to reconsider some of the judgments they made during that first third of the novel, to think about how social class is implicated in the disdain heaped upon the stereotypical mother of the child beauty pageant queen.

A romantic setting for a first kiss: Chicago's Navy Pier

"Mama says being pretty is the best thing to be good at because that's what people really care about. 'Being pretty is what opens doors,' she says" (7). As Liv watches the way people make fun of her mother, once a slim teenager, now an overweight woman who can't seem to give up the unattractive permed hairstyle of her adolescent years, Liv has seen firsthand all the doors that slam shut in the face of the not-so-pretty, particularly those without much in the way of financial means. But the empathy Liv comes to feel for Danny, the object of her first romantic feelings and a boy with body-image problems of his own, is what allows her, and through her, the reader, to come to recognize that being pretty isn't all that people care about. And it's far from all that there is to Olivia, either.

"Part of growing up is knowing when to stand up for yourself. And that, sometimes, backing down is the right thing to do, the better path to walk," Liv says during the interview portion of her final pageant. Sometimes, as Willner-Pardo's book shows, it takes a little of both in order to stop being just an object in others' eyes, and finally be seen.

Gina Willner-Pardo,
Prettiest Doll. Clarion, 2012.













Photo/Illustration credits:
• Miss America Protesters: Veteran Feminists of America
• Toddlers & Tiaras: VH1
• Ferris Wheel: Alina Bliach

Next time on RNFF:

Printzs and RITAs and boys, oh my!