Girls, How About We Stop Policing Each Other? #ITotallyAteThat

Friday, June 6th was National Donut Day. I did not know this when I clipped a coupon for six donuts for $2.99 from the coupon circular. I did not know this when I stashed the coupon in my wallet for safe keeping, and I definitely did not know this when, on June 6th, I walked into Dunkin’ Donuts in Bridgehampton, NY and picked up two glazed, one chocolate glazed, one Boston cream, one chocolate cream, one strawberry frosted, and one chocolate frosted donut for the grand total of $2.99.

Despite my ignorance, I celebrated National Donut Day on the beach eating more than half of the six donuts. It was a great afternoon.

On the same day as National Donut Day, June 6th, the Huffington Post published an article about an Instagram account that “pulls images of models, bloggers and actresses posing with food, and shames them for pretending to eat things that they supposedly would never actually put in their mouths.”

YouDidNotEatThat_pic

I find the idea of this anonymous Instagram user policing food pics hugely disturbing. Women and girls have it hard enough without having what they eat cut apart by thousands of people online. Maybe some of these pictures were staged, and maybe there are moral implications to purporting to consume a food that you didn’t actually eat. But why do we care? Is making some women feel bad about what they are eating, or not eating, going to create anything positive?

Imagine if the hashtag was #WeCanTellYouAteThat, if instead of posting pictures of skinny models with cupcakes the account posted pictures of normal, beautiful, amazing women eating the same foods. How would people be reacting then? Rather than joining in the fun, I hypothesize that the same users who are commenting on and liking photos now, would decry the account as everything wrong with the way we view and treat women’s bodies.

Now, I really hope that no one ever creates that Instagram account because no woman, no human, deserves to be picked apart for who they are, what they eat, or how they are shaped. Places like YouDidNotEatThat serve as forums for hate and negativity where thousands of anonymous users descend like flies. If we don’t create these forums, they won’t have a place to land. Rather than dealing with insecurity, or perhaps just boredom, by shaming other people, they’ll be challenged to face their demons in hopefully more productive and healing ways.

Flipping the coin and thinking about what the opposite, a WeCanTellYouAteThat account, would look like has it’s utility. If one angle disgusts us, why shouldn’t the other? If you become enraged or upset by the idea of being judged for any aspect of who you are, there is no reason for you to be ok with someone else being treated the same way even if they, in this case primarily thin women, are placed in a position of privilege in our culture.

By shaming anyone we are digging our collective hole deeper and deeper. Calling someone out, no matter their shape, isn’t furthering the body acceptance or broader feminist movements. It’s a vicious cycle, a staling pattern, that keeps us from moving forward.

So, is any body more worthy of defense or criticism than any other one? I sure hope not.

#ITotallyAteThat and loved every minute of it.

#ITotallyAteThat and loved every minute of it.