Diets have become something almost intrinsic to female identity. The coy, shy, “I’m full” after a salad, is crucial to maintaining our delicate femininity. Most of us do this without even realising it. Thinness and weakness is encouraged in women; that is how we make ourselves sufficiently frail for society. If women aren’t weak, then how will macho men assert their masculinity over us?
So, women are subtly encouraged to eat less, to be thin. If there are two plates of samosas on the table, the air-fried one will be presumed to be our obvious choice, because girls can’t give in once in a while. Girls can’t have cravings. Keeping their skin flawless and their bodies skinny, so that it pleases a chubby, pimpled, chicken-nugget eating man, is what women are supposed to. Those oily chicken nuggets which will likely give everyone a heart attack eventually regardless of sex, are hence only “really bad for girls,” because “Itna khaogi toh moti ho jaogi. Fir koi shaadi nahi karega.” After all, marriage is the whole point of our existence.
However, even if you haven’t been subjected to such things, or want to lose weight and eat healthy for the right reasons, you cannot deny the fact that you have been encouraged to eat less, as a woman, whereas the men around you have been encouraged to beef up.
We’ve all heard that joke about women ordering a salad on the first date, and then proceeding to eat their male date’s steak. We mock women for doing this, while also pressuring them to act like they need less food, because this suppression of their appetite is necessary for the malnourishment needed to create a woman who is the spitting image of fragility. So, women are socialised in a way that ensures they learn to pretend they are not hungry– because a hungry woman is not sexy, and how dare a woman not be sexy. It’s fashionable to starve yourself, almost.
And how can it not be? Thin female celebrities and their crash diets are a constant subject of fascination. A woman chomping down a burger, skinny or not, is not attractive. It is masculine to eat a lot of food. This is the reason our mothers always act like they are not hungry. They put more food in the plates of their children and husbands instead.
When women tell other women, “Oh my God, you’re so skinny!” or “Oh my God, you barely eat!” it is received like a compliment, with pride. Women are taught to take pride in their ability to curb their hunger. Women are taught to “grow in” and “shrink themselves.”
We’d rather rave about rumours about Kareena Kapoor’s alleged orange-juice diet, than admit that she got healthy in a balanced way, by eating eight meals a day. Orange juice diets are sexier, her capacity to deprive herself is sexier. Femininity is somehow synonymous with a demure feebleness, so that we can make ourselves weaker and smaller to give men the space to be big and eat and drink happily, while we stare at our salads in silence.
