Fat, Pretty, and
Soon to Be Old
A MAKEOVER FOR
SELF AND SOCIETY
KIMBERLY DARK
Dedication
This book is dedicated to all the children, especially girls, who will grow up without fear of being fat, nor fear of aging, able to focus on the beauty of their experiences and pursuits rather than their appearance. May they love fiercely—each person’s humanity, body, and integrity. They’re already on their way; I know because I am holding them in heart and vision. Let it be so.
Acknowledgments
I’m so pleased that this book found a home with AK Press. It’s been wonderful working with Charles, Zach, and Suzanne. I appreciate their skill and dedication to the values the press upholds. I’m honored to be in their company and the company of other AK Press authors.
Thanks are due to all those who read or heard my essays and stories about social life over the twenty-plus years that I’ve been publishing and performing. They’ve taught me how to write, what’s important, and how to compassionately reveal the things that I may see a bit earlier and a bit more vividly than some.
Thank you to Dr. Lynda Dickson, who was the first to teach me to see the social world vividly, via a sociological lens, and to introduce me to writers whose work was not only rigorous but accessible. We met in 1987. She was the first black-woman-scholar I learned from in person and her persistent ability to be all three of those things in every interaction was an invaluable model for my own life. Our discussions over the years, though they’ve become less frequent, informed how I think about intersecting oppressions as both analogous and different. She has also influenced how I argue—hopefully—with humility, love, and a lot of curiosity intact.
Thank you to all of those who read and offered comments on early versions of this manuscript, fully and in pieces. Carol McGrath, Rebecca Rubenstein, Linda Bacon, and others. I appreciated being challenged by astute rejections though I also believe it’s taken way too long for this book to come to print. As a culture, we are so recently speaking openly about the intersections of body identities and how appearance influences our lives. I’ve been speaking and writing about these things for years, doing my part, but wow, there is much to do and I’m so grateful that younger writers are already finding traction for their work on these themes. Go, darlings, go, go!
For my part, I’ll continue to hone my skill and effectiveness at writing and creativity. In some ways they are separate pursuits, wedded in service of expressing an actionable vision. I hope all people become liberated in ways we can’t even yet name. I pledge myself to do better and offer gratitude for all who help me see my way, though growth can be challenging. May we come to see discomfort and apprehension as part of the package marked freedom.
I accept that my work fails and I will keep doing my part. As an example, my writer-thinker-friend, Sonya Renee Taylor, pointed out that the phrasing of a certain point in the introduction to this book caused her pain. Could I not find another way to accomplish the same meaning, without re-traumatizing the black women who read that line? I’m sorry to say, I could not. I’m not that good yet. I’m committed to creatively discussing painful topics while inspiring hope and illuminating ability. With practice, I hope to do it more consistently. I am so grateful for the honesty and discussion she offered to prompt my effort.
Lastly, writers need time, space, and community in which to write. Some of this book was written at the Djerassi Writing Retreat, some at Dickinson House and some at CSU Summer Arts. The rest was written in my living room, where I thank the ancestors, the sea, land, and sky for the life I have every day.
To read my books and essays or attend my performances and retreats, visit kimberlydark.com.
Introduction
The repossession by women of our bodies will bring far more essential change to human society than the seizing of the means of production by workers.
—Adrienne Rich
This is not just a memoir told in essays. It’s a call for radical cultural change.
My mother sold the dream of life mastery—a chance for sovereignty within the restrictive and persistent landscape of patriarchy. I’m talking about the 1960s now. That was a long time ago, or at least that’s what you tell yourself.
At first, that dream of mastery was for white women specifically—but then it included men, children, and people of color as well. It included the rich, middle class, and lower-middle class but never the very poor. It could include queer folks as long as they were gender-conforming. It never included gender-non-binary folks.
My mother went to modeling classes when she was still in high school, in 1949. Her family was working class but white, so they were able to take advantage of the new FHA home loans and buy a house. They were set toward economic improvement, and their only daughter was pretty, so it made sense to give her the skills for upward mobility.
After her modeling school graduation was attended by many of her high school friends, she reaped the rewards of being seen as skilled at beauty, capable of charm. During the 1950s, she was a model herself. That was a time when the women who sold products were nameless smiling beauties, not celebrities. She went on to work for—and eventually owned—a John Robert Powers franchise. Powers’s eponymous charm schools began in 1923, and business boomed right up to the Internet age. I believe three social developments took place during the late 1980s and early 1990s in the United States to hasten the decline of modeling and charm schools. One was the increasing use of Internet sharing: not relying on just magazine articles, real people shared beauty secrets online. The second related phenomenon was the slight diversification of beauty ideals. It was possible to find affinity groups and positive representation of women of color, redheads with freckles, and very tall women, for instance. Specific lessons on hyper-conformity began to feel retrograde. The third development to hasten the demise of charm schools was the widespread availability of consumer credit and the ability of doctors to advertise to the general public, which began during the Reagan era. All of these changes made beauty a do-it-yourself endeavor and the body a repair project worthy of medical interventions like cosmetic and bariatric surgery, not just dieting and careful packaging.
Here’s the main premise of the charm school era in which I grew up and that still influences the world we live in today: if a woman can figure out how to be beautiful and how to have charm, she is more likely to control her own destiny.
This is not incorrect. And it’s a sorry substitution for meaningful social change that would actually allow women respect and the ability to steward their own destinies. When I was born, no matter how pretty or charming or trim, no matter how capable of emotional labor or choosing the right bottle of wine for dinner or enunciating proper English, a woman still could not open a credit card account without her husband’s permission. Women could still legally be raped by their husbands. Even today, we are not always able to secure birth control as part of our health plans and certainly not always believed when reporting abuse.
Further, appearance still affects quality of life. A lot. We all know this, yet we subvert our knowing by telling stories about love (in intimate relationships), talent (in employment), and tenacity (in all meaningful pursuits). The fact is, people see their partners’ appearance or power (or both) as an extension of their own success. (And you know immediately for which of the two dominant genders each is most important.) Employers want their employees’ appearance to uphold and extend their brand credibility, and they won’t hire those who are easily disdained (e.g., fat people or old people, unless they are absurdly cute and entertaining). Without reasonable accommodations, no amount of tenacity will help a wheelchair user turn a flight of stairs into a ramp. Yet we still discuss personal tenacity and positive thinking as the key ingredients in overcoming public barriers.
While modeling schools showed women (and others) how to conform to beauty standards, we less often discussed