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<v Speaker 1>I want to start this episode with a sentence that

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<v Speaker 1>hit me in the chest the first time I read it.

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<v Speaker 1>A culture fixated on female thinness is not an obsession

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<v Speaker 1>about female beauty, but an obsession about female obedience. That's

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<v Speaker 1>from Naomi Wolf, chapter six, page one eighty seven of

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<v Speaker 1>The Beauty Myth. And the reason that line lingers is because,

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<v Speaker 1>deep down, I think a lot of us already know

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<v Speaker 1>it's true. Because women are not just taught to be beautiful.

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<v Speaker 1>We are taught to be controlled, to be smaller, quieter, lighter, less, hungry,

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<v Speaker 1>less visible, less much. And that pressure does not begin

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<v Speaker 1>and end with fashion magazines or red carpet culture, or

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<v Speaker 1>some influencer telling you to drink chlorophyll and do pilates

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<v Speaker 1>at five a m. This goes much deeper than that,

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<v Speaker 1>because the ideal of female thinness is not just about sexism.

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<v Speaker 1>It's also about racism, about colonialism, about whose body gets

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<v Speaker 1>coated as refined, civilized, moral, and worthy, and whose body

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<v Speaker 1>gets coded as excessive, primitive, vulgar, undisciplined and wrong. So

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<v Speaker 1>today we are digging into the history of thinness as discipline,

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<v Speaker 1>thinness as virtue, thinness as whiteness and thinness as a

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<v Speaker 1>visual performance of obedience, because what if women were never

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<v Speaker 1>just being told how to look? What if we were

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<v Speaker 1>being taught how to behave. Welcome to a brand new

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<v Speaker 1>episode of Beauty Unlocked, the podcast. If you're new to

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<v Speaker 1>Beauty Unlocked, I'm Carissa, host of this circus. Welcome friends.

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<v Speaker 1>If you've been a long time listener, you know all

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<v Speaker 1>about the shenanigans and utter fuckery that is Beauty Unlocked.

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<v Speaker 1>The thing about beauty standards is that they are never

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<v Speaker 1>just beauty standards. They always come carrying something else, a

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<v Speaker 1>social order, a hierarchy, a warning, punishment, a fantasy about

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<v Speaker 1>who deserves to be admired and who deserves to be corrected.

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<v Speaker 1>And few ideals reveal that more clearly than thinness, because

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<v Speaker 1>thinness gets sold to women as health, elegance, self respect, discipline, desirability, status,

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<v Speaker 1>even morality. But when you start pulling at the threads,

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<v Speaker 1>what you find underneath is a much uglier system, one

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<v Speaker 1>where appetite is treated like a problem, softness is treated

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<v Speaker 1>like failure, and taking up space is treated like a

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<v Speaker 1>kind of social crime. And before we go any further,

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<v Speaker 1>I want to make something perfectly clear. This is not

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<v Speaker 1>a dig at women who exercise. This is not a

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<v Speaker 1>dig at wanting to lose weight. This is not me

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<v Speaker 1>pretending we don't all live inside beauty culture, participate in it,

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<v Speaker 1>and sometimes even enjoy parts of it. That's not the point.

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<v Speaker 1>The point is not individual choices. The point is the

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<v Speaker 1>system those choices are happening inside of, because there is

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<v Speaker 1>a difference between choosing something and be condition to believe

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<v Speaker 1>that your worth, your discipline, your desirability, and even your

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<v Speaker 1>morality are tied to how small you can make your body,

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<v Speaker 1>and that distinction matters a lot. This episode is about

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<v Speaker 1>the culture itself, the system, the conditioning, the logic that

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<v Speaker 1>taught generations of women that hunger is feminine only when

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<v Speaker 1>it is denied. So let's get into it. If we

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<v Speaker 1>want to understand why thinness carries so much moral power,

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<v Speaker 1>we have to go back to one of the oldest

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<v Speaker 1>cultural obsessions in the West, the fear of appetite. For centuries,

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<v Speaker 1>gluttony was treated in Christian theology as a moral failure

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<v Speaker 1>one of the deadly sins, and restraint was framed as virtue.

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<v Speaker 1>In late medieval Christianity. Extreme fasting among religious women was

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<v Speaker 1>not rare historians have shown that women's fasting could be

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<v Speaker 1>admired as piety, purity, discipline, and bodily control. That matters

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<v Speaker 1>because it gave us an enduring template. The good woman

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<v Speaker 1>is the woman who denies herself, not just sexually, not

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<v Speaker 1>just socially physically. Food becomes more than food, It becomes

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<v Speaker 1>a moral test, and this pattern keeps resurfacing. By the

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<v Speaker 1>nineteenth century, especially in Victorian culture, femininity was increasingly tied

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<v Speaker 1>to delicacy, restraint, and controlled appetite. Scholars of Victorian literature

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<v Speaker 1>and culture note that women's hunger, consumption, and bodily desire

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<v Speaker 1>were often treated as morally suspect, while ideals like fragility

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<v Speaker 1>and self restraint were elevated. Corsetry itself became part of

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<v Speaker 1>this performance of feminine discipline. And before someone rushes to

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<v Speaker 1>the comments because I can already feel it coming, yes,

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<v Speaker 1>I know. Not every woman was walking around in a corset.

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<v Speaker 1>Not every single person in history was laced into boning

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<v Speaker 1>and suffering for fashion. We get it, But that's not

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<v Speaker 1>the point. The point is not that every woman wore

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<v Speaker 1>a corset. The point is what the corset represented. Because

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<v Speaker 1>even if you weren't physically wearing one. The expectation to

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<v Speaker 1>be contained, controlled and shaped into something smaller was still

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<v Speaker 1>very much there. So when modern culture tells women to

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<v Speaker 1>be disciplined around food, that is not some fresh new

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<v Speaker 1>wellness in sight. That is an old sermon in new packaging.

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<v Speaker 1>Now earlier. I opened this episode with a line that

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<v Speaker 1>probably made a few people pause. A culture fixated on

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<v Speaker 1>female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty, but

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<v Speaker 1>an obsession about female obedience. And that line comes, like

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<v Speaker 1>I said, from Naomi Wolf, but the full quote is

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<v Speaker 1>even more revealing. She writes, women's dieting has become what

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<v Speaker 1>Yale psychologist Judith Roden calls a normative obsession, a never

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<v Speaker 1>ending passion play. Given international coverage, out of all proportion

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<v Speaker 1>to the health risks associated with obesity, dieting is the

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<v Speaker 1>most potent politic sedative in women's history. A quietly mad

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<v Speaker 1>population is a tractable one. Take a second with that.

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<v Speaker 1>A political sedative that is not language about beauty, that

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<v Speaker 1>is language about control. What she's arguing is uncomfortable because

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<v Speaker 1>it suggests that dieting is not just personal, not just esthetic,

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<v Speaker 1>not even just cultural. It's functional. It keeps women focused, inward, distracted,

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<v Speaker 1>self monitoring, exhausted, and most importantly occupied. Because a woman

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<v Speaker 1>who is constantly thinking about her body is not thinking

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<v Speaker 1>about power in the same way. This is where feminist

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<v Speaker 1>thinkers become essential. Susan Bordeaux in Unbearable Weight argued that

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<v Speaker 1>the female body is shaped by culture and that modern

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<v Speaker 1>body anxieties are not trivial vanity, but deeply political. Her

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<v Speaker 1>work is famous for treating the body as a site

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<v Speaker 1>where social rules get written, enforced, and lived. And when

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<v Speaker 1>you put Bordeaux next to Mi shedvoc things get very dark,

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<v Speaker 1>very fast. Because Foco's broader work on discipline is all

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<v Speaker 1>about how power does not only control people through force,

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<v Speaker 1>It controls them by teaching them to monitor themselves, correct themselves,

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<v Speaker 1>and internalize surveillance. His work on discipline and docile bodies

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<v Speaker 1>helped shape later feminist analysis on dieting, body management, and

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<v Speaker 1>feminine self policing. And honestly, what is calorie counting if

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<v Speaker 1>not self surveillance? What is compulsive body checking if not

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<v Speaker 1>internalized monitoring? What is the fantasy of the good body

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<v Speaker 1>if not the fantasy of a woman who has successfully

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<v Speaker 1>mastered herself. This is why Thinness is so culturally powerful.

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<v Speaker 1>It does not just signal attractiveness, it signals control. A

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<v Speaker 1>thin woman is often read as disciplined, organized, respectable, successful,

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<v Speaker 1>and morally responsible, while larger bodies are still routinely judged

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<v Speaker 1>through the language of failure, laziness, excess, and poor self management.

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<v Speaker 1>Weight stigma research and public health reporting continue to show

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<v Speaker 1>that these stereotypes affect employment, mental health, and daily treatment.

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<v Speaker 1>So when people say thinness is aspirational, we need to

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<v Speaker 1>ask aspirational for what beauty or obedience. Now, let's get

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<v Speaker 1>to the part that beauty culture constantly tries to blur out.

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<v Speaker 1>The modern thin ideal did not just emerge from nowhere.

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<v Speaker 1>It was shaped through racial hierarchy. Sociologists Sabrina Strings in

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<v Speaker 1>Fearing the Black Body traces how fat phobia and the

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<v Speaker 1>preference for slenderness became entangled with anti blackness, colonialism, and

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<v Speaker 1>the rise of race science. Her central argument is blunt,

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<v Speaker 1>the thin ideal is racialized and its history is inseparable

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<v Speaker 1>from racism. Reviews and academic discussions of her work point

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<v Speaker 1>to enlightenment and colonial writing that linked fatness to blackness, savagery, greed, laziness,

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<v Speaker 1>and inferiority, while elevating restraint and slenderness as markers of

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<v Speaker 1>civilization and whiteness. That means the body was never just

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<v Speaker 1>a body. It became a racial symbol. European standards of

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<v Speaker 1>refinement increasingly coated the civilized body as controlled, contained, rational,

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<v Speaker 1>and restrained. Meanwhile, colonized and racialized bodies were stereotyped as excessive, animalistic, lustful, undisciplined,

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<v Speaker 1>and too much. And once you see that, so much

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<v Speaker 1>starts clicking into place. Why thinness came to mean virtue,

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<v Speaker 1>Why fatness came to mean moral failure. Why the body

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<v Speaker 1>became a sight where whiteness could be performed as discipline.

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<v Speaker 1>This is why the so called European beauty ideal did

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<v Speaker 1>not just elevate certain facial features, skin tones, and hair textures.

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<v Speaker 1>It also elevated a body type, a smaller one, a

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<v Speaker 1>supposedly more refined one, a body that could be read

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<v Speaker 1>as evidence of breeding, restraint, and superiority. In other words,

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<v Speaker 1>thinness was not simply fashionable. It was ideological. It helped

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<v Speaker 1>separate the civilized woman from the racialized other, and we

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<v Speaker 1>are still living in the afterlife of that. One of

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<v Speaker 1>the most disturbing things about all of this is that

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<v Speaker 1>the fear of fatness is absolutely real. We are taught

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<v Speaker 1>over and over again that fat is failure. But it's

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<v Speaker 1>not just about fatness. Its female appetite. Because appetite is

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<v Speaker 1>never just about food, it's also about sex, ambition, pleasure, presence, need, demand.

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<v Speaker 1>A woman who is visibly hungry breaks a very old rule.

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<v Speaker 1>She is not supposed to want that much. And that's

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<v Speaker 1>why beauty culture so often romanticizes women who are contained, controlled, curated, tiny, clean, effortless,

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<v Speaker 1>not because they actually are effortless, but because effortlessness is

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<v Speaker 1>the fantasy it hides the labor of self denial. This

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<v Speaker 1>is also why diet culture so easily slides into morality culture.

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<v Speaker 1>You are not just eating clean, you are being good.

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<v Speaker 1>You are not just cutting back, You are proving worth.

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<v Speaker 1>And if you fail, if you binge, gain weight, lose control,

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<v Speaker 1>or simply refuse to perform, shame about your appetite. Culture

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<v Speaker 1>is ready with a script for that too. Lazy, messy, unfeminine, undisciplined,

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<v Speaker 1>out of control, which is fascinating because the social punishment

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<v Speaker 1>is rarely just about health. It is about behavior. That

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<v Speaker 1>is one reason psychologists and advocates describe weight stigma as

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<v Speaker 1>a pervasive form of discrimination, not a neutral concern about wellness.

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<v Speaker 1>A woman who wants more is harder to govern, and

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<v Speaker 1>I think that is the real panic underneath all of this. Now,

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<v Speaker 1>of course, beauty culture got smarter. It learned that openly

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<v Speaker 1>telling women to starve is bad pr so it changed

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<v Speaker 1>the language. Now it is not be thin, it's be healthy,

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<v Speaker 1>be your best self, reset, clean girl, that girl hot,

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<v Speaker 1>pilate's body, gut health, what I eat in a day,

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<v Speaker 1>protein goals, debloat, snatched, low inflammation, summer body discipline. And

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<v Speaker 1>that's what makes modern body control so slippery. It often

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<v Speaker 1>arrives wearing the costume of self care. Recent studies of

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<v Speaker 1>Tik Tok content have found that diet culture remains highly

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<v Speaker 1>visible on the platform, including content that promotes weight loss, thinness,

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<v Speaker 1>calorie counting, body comparison, and eating disorder adjacent behaviors. Research

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<v Speaker 1>on what I Eat in a Day content has also

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<v Speaker 1>found body focused and dietying themes, while newer work on

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<v Speaker 1>that Girl culture points to pressures around self discipline, routine,

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<v Speaker 1>and diet under the banner of aspirational wellness. So the

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<v Speaker 1>message is still the same shrink but make it esthetic

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<v Speaker 1>restrict but call it optimization. Obsess but call it routine.

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<v Speaker 1>Even current reporting on the return of skinny culture points

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<v Speaker 1>to the way social media, celebrity bodies and weight loss

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<v Speaker 1>drugs are intensifying body image pressures. Again, so no, these

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<v Speaker 1>ideas are not gone, they have just become more algorithmically efficient.

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<v Speaker 1>There is also a brutal social reality here. Thinness affects

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<v Speaker 1>how people read your character. We already know from classic

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<v Speaker 1>social psychology that attractiveness produces a halo effect, where beautiful

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<v Speaker 1>people are assumed to possess other positive traits. Weight stigma

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<v Speaker 1>research shows that larger body people are also penalized in

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<v Speaker 1>work and social settings, including being stereotyped as less competent,

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<v Speaker 1>less disciplined, and less employable. So the body becomes a resume.

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<v Speaker 1>Thinness gets translated into competent, composed, self respecting, high value, desirable, safe.

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<v Speaker 1>Larger bodies get forced into the opposite language irresponsible, careless, lazy, unprofessional,

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<v Speaker 1>lacking control, And because women are judged so intensely through

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<v Speaker 1>appearance in the first place, this becomes gendered with extra cruelty.

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<v Speaker 1>Public health and workplace literature keeps finding that women face

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<v Speaker 1>particular forms of weight based stigma and discrimination. So when

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<v Speaker 1>society rewards thin women, it's not just rewarding a shape,

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<v Speaker 1>it's rewarding a performance of obedience, a body that appears

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<v Speaker 1>to say, I regulate myself, I deny myself, I know

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<v Speaker 1>my place, I will not take up too much room.

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<v Speaker 1>The hardest part of all of this is that thinness

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<v Speaker 1>does not only operate as pressure. It also operates as reward, approval, praise, visibility,

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<v Speaker 1>romantic validation, the fantasy of safety, and once girls learned

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<v Speaker 1>that shrinking gets applause, the lesson sinks deep. Naomi Wolf

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<v Speaker 1>argued that dieting became a kind of political sedative, and

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<v Speaker 1>whether or not people agree with every part of her framework,

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<v Speaker 1>that line about female obedience still lands because it identifies

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<v Speaker 1>something culture keeps trying to disguise. Body control is social control,

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<v Speaker 1>and when you add Sabrina String's work to that, the

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<v Speaker 1>picture gets even sharper. Because women were not all being

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<v Speaker 1>asked to become the same thing. They were being ranked

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<v Speaker 1>against a racialized ideal. Thinness was not neutral. It was

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<v Speaker 1>coded white, disciplined, controlled, civilized, which means rejecting that ideal

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<v Speaker 1>is not just personal rebellion. It is also a refusal

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<v Speaker 1>of hierarchy. So the next time beauty culture tries to

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<v Speaker 1>tell you that this is all just about health or

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<v Speaker 1>self improvement or becoming your best self, I want you

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<v Speaker 1>to pause and ask best for whom improved towards what healthy,

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<v Speaker 1>according to whose standards? And why does discipline for women

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<v Speaker 1>so often end up meaning hunger? Because women were never

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<v Speaker 1>only taught to be beautiful. We were taught to be manageable,

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<v Speaker 1>to take up less space, to need less, to want less,

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<v Speaker 1>to carry our obedience on our bodies so the world

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<v Speaker 1>could read it at a glance. And the ugliest part

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<v Speaker 1>is that this ideal was never innocent. It was shaped

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<v Speaker 1>by sexism, yes, but also by racism, by colonial ideas

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<v Speaker 1>of whose body counted as refined and whose body had

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<v Speaker 1>to be shamed, corrected and brought into line. So, if

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<v Speaker 1>you have ever felt like your body was a project,

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<v Speaker 1>a problem, a public referendum on your character, that feeling

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<v Speaker 1>did not come from nowhere. That is history talking. That

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<v Speaker 1>is power talking. That is beauty culture doing what it

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<v Speaker 1>has always done best, taking domination and making it look aspirational.

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<v Speaker 1>So the next time you catch yourself trying to shrink

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<v Speaker 1>your body, or silence your hunger, or convince yourself that

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<v Speaker 1>taking up less space makes you better. Just ask yourself

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<v Speaker 1>one thing. Was this ever really about beauty? Or was

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<v Speaker 1>it about obedience? I hope you enjoyed the episode and

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<v Speaker 1>that it shed new light on the way we've been

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<v Speaker 1>taught to see our bodies and ourselves. If you did,

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<v Speaker 1>pass it along to your family, friends, your group chats,

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<v Speaker 1>your co workers. Until next time, my love buckets, take

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<v Speaker 1>care of yourselves and each other, and stay curious always.

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<v Speaker 1>You'll hear from me again next week. Mm bye Li.

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<v Speaker 2>Kick clap, pick pick, Please take them