Losing weight = more unwanted attention/harassment?

[dawn16]

@heavensweet I totally agree! I work in a male dominant field where majority of the people don’t care about their appearance. So if you are a woman and you put on makeup and have average BMI you will get attention.

When I first graduated from college and started working I was so afraid I wouldn’t be taken seriously so I wore really ugly unflattering clothes and bare minimum makeup. After a while I was really unhappy because I’m a girly girl. I decided that I refused to cater my lifestyle to perverts and part of being human is the ability to express ourselves. It is very unfortunate sexism exists but us women have to live our best lives despite of these unfair biases.

 

[the_shire11]

@heavensweet Yes, this, so much.

Recognizing mental health and therapy (which is helpful and can be very healthy!) has its place but they're definitely individual responses to structural problems (sexism, patriarchy, misogyny, etc).

The need and desire to feel and look a certain way can be separated from the way people act towards our bodies. The attention we get about our bodies is not our fault. Harassers and cat-callers are the problem here, not us. Having said that, I understand it's hard to internalize this while under the gaze... I still don't know how to not be bothered when people objectivify my body.. but we can always come here and rant about it, I suppose.. in solidarity!..?

 

[bryanyeap]

@heavensweet Yep, 100%. Being afraid of harassment and trying to avoid it are totally normal responses to actually being harassed It’s a bad thing! You don’t want it in your life! It’s also normal if mildly uncomfortable experiences remind you of worse or scarier experiences and your reaction reflects that. Feeling safe is a basic need and there are a lot of situations where women don’t feel safe, and don’t feel like the mechanisms of society will try to right whatever wrongs may be done to them.

I hate that there are so many shitty tradeoffs about their appearance that women have to make in the world. There is a part of me that is willing to sacrifice a lot of my own preferences to get along with the world that wonders if there is some in-between body that OP could feel healthy and safe in simultaneously. There is another part of me that is SO SO SO ANGRY that the previous part of me has been allowed to call the shots so often, that doing so felt like the right choice at the time.

Idk. If anyone has a perfect coping strategy for dealing with the weight of thousands of years of patriarchy, dm me lol.

 

[dawn16]

@heavensweet THANK YOU. I never had childhood trauma. I was always thin, but also flat chested. I had 3 kids, nursed them all, and ended up with small, deflated boobs and I just didn't like that. I had them done. Unwanted looks and attention and comments from guys happened that didn't happen before. I don't wear tight shirts or revealing clothing like a lot of young girls do after implants specifically for the same reason as OP. It sucks.

OP- be healthy, and happy! Glad you have a supportive partner. THat and your happiness is all that matters.

 

[anonyq1]

@heavensweet This this thisssss. People are trash sometimes and it's not your fault

 

[maria37]

@heavensweet Thank you for this. I'm not OP but I had posted something similar to this a while ago. It was before I'd lost any weight but I was a little worried about increased attention, and was told my fears were unfounded and that I probably had trauma I was suppressing. None of that is true, and when there are stories posted here constantly of women getting harassed or even simply hit on at the gym, I don't think it's that strange to start wondering if it'll happen to you. It never had before, and I assumed it was because I was overweight and invisible.

Lo and behold, I lost the weight, and started getting harassed at my old apartment complex so often I had to move.

 

[twinmama]

@maria37 Were the one's who said that male? I can't understand the response. I don't know any woman, of any weight really, who hasn't been harassed by a man

 

[maria37]

@twinmama I assume you meant hasn't* been harassed?

I actually went back and looked at my old thread and there were only a handful of people who said that, most were understanding, but I guess the ones that felt unsupportive stood out.

 

[twinmama]

@maria37 Yes. Oof bad typo.

 

[agedintheozarks]

@mikumiku So, I'm not an expert on trauma by any means, but I did want to maybe help clarify, if I can. That trauma can manifest itself as fear of attention and feelings of shame about one's body. It can also manifest as changes in one's appearance as a defense mechanism. Roxane Gay, if I'm not mistaken, has talked about obesity as a defense mechanism for abuse.

FWIW, a lot of women have experienced unwanted sexual attention, harassment, or behavior, and these things can be traumatic. I certainly don't want to imply or suggest that anyone is holding onto some sort of trauma that simply isn't there, but I don't think it's crazy to also consider the fact that a culture of sexual harassment and unwanted sexual attention can and does leave women with a spectrum of lasting traumatic feelings, sometimes from young ages.

 

[mikumiku]

@agedintheozarks I actually did get this, I was just mad it's what people jumped to immediately. Sort of like saying OP is overreacting.

 

[whatuhhidk]

@agedintheozarks Yes this! I don't have a history of trauma in the way it's normally thought of, but experiencing catcalling since I was about 12 has left me with some of the symptoms of trauma that I didn't even realize! It wasn't until someone asked me if I had been abused growing up that I realized.

 

[tytscott]

@whatuhhidk Me too! I remember it really well actually I was 12 and had saved my money from walking a dog to buy my own swimsuit. It was summer and I was at the free pool in the park a lot with my brothers so I wore it all the time for convenience and because I was proud of it. This older guy actually stopped his car and got out to talk to me while I was walking the dog. He asked me if I wanted to make some money. I ran, I ran a long ways and I was terrified. I was always afraid after that of men hitting on me publicly or following me. I lived in a big city so cars would circle the block all the time to catcall me. I had nightmares about it constantly. It got to the point where I was scared to go places alone. My dad talked to me about defending myself after that and gave me a knife that I always carried. It helped me feel safer but it also left its own scar.

 

[twinmama]

@whatuhhidk Same. When I was maybe 11 or 12, I remember being in the store with my mother and there was a man blatantly checking me out, my mom lost it, and that was the 1st time I remember it happening.

 

[maria37]

@mikumiku I think they were specifically referring to the fear of the attention, like the only way attention can be bad is if something has happened to you that you’re trying to hide from. Which is probably legitimate in some cases, but I’m an introvert with social anxiety who hates confrontation. So really, any attention IRL is bad, to me.

 

[dawn16]

@milan45 Never sacrifice your health for anything. At the end of the day your health is the number one thing you have and weight has an enormous impact on it.

 

[dawn16]

Not for everyone. I hope you are trying to be helpful, but this is not a universal sentiment.

 

[dawn16]

It’s a fact. Just because it makes some people uncomfortable or feel bad doesn’t make it untrue. It’s often the number ONE indicator of health outcomes.

 

[hiskid8883]

@dawn16 Being a "healthy weight" doesn't mean you're healthy.

 

[dawn16]

@hiskid8883 Correct. I said weight has “an enormous impact on health”. Overweight and obesity are very strongly correlated with and in most instances are the direct cause of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes, peripheral artery disease, heart disease, hypertension, depression, sleep apnea, high cholesterol, stroke, heart attack, complications during pregnancy, complications during the course of illness, organ failure, the list goes on and on and on.