The Weight of a Stereotype

Hello everyone! Today is Wednesday and that means I have been on my new “From not to hot” plan for four days now. I can say that so far it is going well! I’m eating healthy, etc., trying to break the #1 stereotype of the overweight/ugly lesbian. (I’ll be posting photos of my of my physical attempts to break this stereotype starting soon.)

Because weight is the one that will take me the longest to try and change before I come out, I am starting with it first. My rough goal is to try and look like one of the beautiful ultimate-femme lesbians from the L-Word, because every single one of those womyn breaks the stereotype. (yay!) Okay, so no one will ever look like that (if you do, thank you Jennifer Beals for reading this blog!), but my point is that one of the hardest stereotypes for womyn to break is that they are ugly/fat/gross.

I cringe just writing that. This is NOT TRUE. First off, a woman is a woman is a woman. And there is more than one way to be a woman. I personally don’t feel attracted to skinny girls. (Seriously!) I’d much much rather date someone who was average weight-(i.e., has a butt, chest, etc!) I’d feel like she was “all there”. When I look back on the girls who I have been attracted to, they are probably actually what society would call on the “heavy-average” side. I’m not trying to knock anyone, but my point is that larger womyn need not feel excluded or that their size is a negative issue-because it’s not! There are many lesbians in this world and we all like something different, so being naturally on the heavier side (one of our stereotypes) is nothing to be ashamed of-in fact, it probably means myself (and other) lesbians want to date you, as long as you’re healthy too. =)

But to get back to the stereotype of today’s blog post. The stereotype of a lesbian is that she is a large overweight woman with short hair, a biting personality and Birkenstocks (sometimes with or without socks). Factually, is there any truth to this? Well, here is my theory, along with a few articles.

My belief about this particular stereotype is that this “overweight dyke” mentality became the stereotype because this is the most easily recognized womyn in terms of visibility. The femme-femme-femme-girl with the pink purse and permed hair doesn’t obviously look like a lesbian, so people don’t form their judgments around the femmes of our community-instead they only visibly see the short-haired, large butchy womyn because of their visibility.

Secondly, let’s check the facts. Do a quick Google search on “obese lesbians” and you’ll find that they actually have done studies on this-seriously. Here is an article from the NYPost: (I can’t post the original link because it was broken but this is from Google’s cached version.)

PLUMPING ‘OUT’: LESBIANS FACE HIGHER OBESITY RISK
REUTERS
April 28, 2007

Lesbians are twice as likely as heterosexual women to be overweight or obese, researchers said.

The report, in the American Journal of Public Health, is one of the first large studies to look at obesity in lesbians.

Ulrike Boehmer of the Boston University School of Public Health and colleagues looked at a 2002 national survey of almost 6,000 women, and found lesbians were 2.69 times more likely to be overweight and 2.47 times more likely to be obese.

“Lesbians have more than twice the odds of [being] overweight,” the authors wrote.

This would put them at a higher risk for diabetes and heart disease, among other ailments.

“Our findings indicate that lesbian sexual identity is linked to a greater prevalence of overweight and obesity,” the authors wrote in the study, released this week.

They reviewed smaller studies that have suggested a higher prevalence of obesity among lesbians.

“The results of these studies indicate that lesbian women have a better body image than do heterosexual women,” they wrote.

But the authors placed little confidence in the idea that lesbians were more muscular than straight women, and thus more likely to have a high body-mass index.

The study brings up another interesting point-that maybe one of the reasons the risk for obesity seems to be slighter higher among lesbians, is simply because self-image and personal appearance factor into the weight game as highly motivating factors. If lesbian recognize more often that they have a self-worth beyond their physical appearance, then perhaps physical appearance is just one less motivating factor to lose weight and get in shape.

Well, that’s enough talk on the subject today, but let me know what you ladies think on this issue.

-Megan

Days until I come out and break the stereotypes! 114