Everyday and repetitive conversations amidst our community at family gatherings and religious festivities, which are meant to be warm, uplifting and fun-loving, are often peppered with disrespectful and hurtful comments among family members.
The banter is often around food, its ingredients and who made which dish. Conversations about food then encourage the following discussion points about body weight and appearances in general.
Someone in the family is always underweight or overweight, or awkwardly proportioned. Conversations often include weight gain, weight loss, skin tone evenness and acne scarred complexions. Women are also encouraged to follow stringent diets to alleviate acne.
Both men and women perpetuate criticisms such as these. The continual practice of this type of speech enables us to normalise this type of conversation without any regard for the victim (person of discussion).
My engagement as a sociologist on a body-shaming talk show hosted the Newsbreak team of Lotus FM recently, reminded me of the regular verbal abuse Indian South African women have to encounter. Listeners called in and expressed their emotions and experiences anonymously.
Despite the encouragement to speak out against this pattern of behaviour, some still felt that silence was an adequate response within social settings. Women, in particular, are often encouraged to ignore these comments and conveniently forget the content of what was said and the tone of these spoken words.
The lack of inspection and comprehension of the practice of injury to feelings by our family members and social circles is prevalent. There is a tendency for demeaning comments to be undermined and ignored by elderly family members to avoid conflict or a feud.
The silence often encourages the continuation and permissiveness of this type of disrespectful banter. Yet we condone this behaviour because we value the global ideal of attractiveness and universal definitions of beauty.
Mass media platforms have been responsible for the imparting of Western European and Northern American ways of life, values and ideals. This has always included the female form. These trends were set before the 19th century, when women were deemed beautiful if they were voluptuous and described as a fuller figures.
European trends adopted in the 1920s, when the slender and frail physique took centre stage. This then reshaped our concept of attractiveness and beauty. The need for women to be petite, frail and small was also representative of the importance of women being subservient.
Patriarchal perceptions dominated even during the 1920s. By the mid-1990s, the thin female figure was seen as the ideal and still is. However, this blanket approach fails to make room for the individuality and uniqueness of women within our realities.
The rise of erotic capital has become prevalent and has set a benchmark for Indian South African communities.
Catherine Hakim, who is the doyen of this concept, explains that erotic capital gives prominence to the beauty of the face, its symmetry, and sexual attractiveness within the context of the whole body. This is complemented by dress and hairstyle as well as make-up.
Bollywood and Hollywood have adopted this value. Indian South African families have merged erotic capitalism with traditional values of patriarchy. The ideal daughter-in-law is often described in the South African context as “beautiful, educated, sociable, obliging and skilled in the kitchen”.
I often ask, “Beautiful according to whose definition?” This concept is also inclusive of attributes such as friendliness and likeability. However, the idea excludes core personality traits such as conscientiousness, extroversion and agreeability. It also does not denote competency and efficiency within the workplace or household. People sometimes cannot easily separate appearance from capacity.
Truth is, as Indian South African women, we are all multitasking with various responsibilities, including child-rearing, household and career management, and caring for other family members. Yet our communities expect us to look like models and be successful in all of the above.
How realistic is this? Should we not shift to redefining beauty and attractiveness within the context of South Africa and our lifestyles? We as women should be making an effort to be proactive in this regard by indicating what type of speech is permitted.
In addition, we need to teach practices that align with the essence of respecting women and sisterhood. We can teach our male counterparts sensitivity to the female appearance and physique.
A disturbing concern is that an overweight person is often believed to be unintelligent and greedy or lazy. These beliefs are only based on an individual's outer appearance and exclude the realities of medical challenges underweight and overweight people may have.
Medical ailments such as hormonal imbalances, alopecia and eating disorders are hardly shared because of the stereotypes and shame attached to perceptions of the female form people may have.
Every normative social practice is either inculcated and sustained by us or challenged and eradicated by us. We are in a position to propose these changes within our lives. The more we entrench the practice and values of positive and respectful speech, the more mindful future generations will become of women's appearances.
Dr Sheetal Bhoola has a PhD and two Master’s degrees in the social sciences. She is a lecturer, researcher and a freelance writer. Bhoola has been the recipient of awards and academic scholarships throughout her career. Visit www.sheetalbhoola.com