One of my students came to me yesterday with a question. “Carine” is twenty, and has already taken four of my classes here. She’s getting ready to transfer on to a four-year school, and she’s doing so — to my considerable delight — as a women’s studies major.
Carine is an independent student, and has lived on her own for several years. She’s entirely self-supporting, and her parents have contributed nothing towards her college education. (This is a very common story here.) She is taking a full load of classes, and working a great many shifts as a server in a West Los Angeles restaurant. Though the tips are good, she’s barely scraping by. Her twelve year-old Camry is on the verge of complete collapse. Something’s gotta give.
Since she was in high school, Carine has done a little bit of modeling here and there; it’s provided a little extra pocket money from time to time, nothing too significant. But now, with transfer looming and the economy hitting the restaurant business, she’s decided to investigate making her modeling more serious. She has the right look, and earlier this week, she met with one of the better-known agencies in town. They loved her face and her portfolio, and were quite willing to sign Carine to a “conditional†contract. The “conditionsâ€: lose three inches off her hips and drop fifteen pounds off her already lanky frame. The agency would check in her with regularly to assess her “progressâ€; if she did as she was asked, she could be assured of steady work. There’s no question that taking this contract would make a huge difference to Carine. It will enable her to transfer, to stay on course for her degree (in women’s studies, heaven be praised), to remain independent.
Carine is a self-described “staunch feministâ€. She took my women’s studies class and was hooked; she regularly e-mails me for “more books, please!†I send her reading suggestions at a staggering rate, and she ploughs through them just as fast. And Carine, like so many young feminists I’ve known, was worried about whether taking this contract would compromise those infamous “feminist credentials.†She said something like: “I know the fashion industry sends a lot of destructive messages to women. If I lose this weight, do I become part of that destructive message? Am I hurting other women as well as myself?â€
I blog a lot, perhaps too much, about the politics of personal purity. I write frequently about the importance of matching words and actions, convictions and lifestyle. And while there is much to recommend the pursuit of private integrity as a vehicle for social change, it’s obvious to me and to everyone else that it’s easier to be “pure†when you’re privileged. We all have choices, of course. But the choices we have are functions of our socio-economic status. I am a vegan by choice, for example; I can choose to eat a plant-based diet. I shop at Whole Foods and gourmet health food stores because I can. The urban poor can’t afford the dietary lifestyle I lead. My veganism may be virtuous, but it is a virtue inextricably linked to prosperity. The same thing is true for issues like modeling and sex work.
I’ve had many students who worked as models, and others who worked in the sex industry itself (both the legitimate sex industry – porn and stripping – and actual prostitution). A few celebrated what they were doing as a positive choice, but most entered that world out of economic necessity. It seems clear to me – and I said this to Carine yesterday – that moral responsibility for any decision exists in inverse relationship to need. The sex worker (or the fashion model) is less complicit in the misogynistic aspects of the business because of economic vulnerability. It’s not enough to talk about choices: responsibility for the choices we make is inextricably linked to power. That’s not infantilizing or patronizing; it’s good sense.
The fashion industry, in so many ways, is directly linked to women’s oppression. From the exploitation of Third World women in sweatshops, to the extreme self-denying behavior it encourages in its models, to the negative messages it sends to young women about their bodies, the makers and marketers of women’s clothing profit from suffering. (And don’t get me started on animals: fur, leather, silk, and so forth). That’s not left-wing rhetorical flourish, it’s undeniable reality. But the choice to take a job in a sweatshop sewing tiny bikinis, and the choice to take a contract to model those bikinis, is essentially the same: it is a choice that hardly seems like a choice at all, forced as it so often is by dire economic circumstances.
So I suggested that if Carine accepted the agency’s offer, she make the best effort she can to lose weight safely. I suggested she see a doctor through the campus health service. I recommended a good nutritionist I know who develops inexpensive diet plans; I asked Carine to be careful to monitor her own physiological and psychological responses to “complying†with the conditional contract. It may well be, I told Carine, that this is the best choice for her right now, given her options. But that’s contingent upon the degree to which it impacts her well-being. Making enough money to stay on track for her B.A. is worth some compromises, but it isn’t worth her emotional or physical health. Different folks respond to weight loss differently; different folks have different issues with their bodies.
The onus to change the fashion industry, I told Carine, lies not on the workers in the sweatshops or the models on the runway. It lies with those who own and operate the companies that profit from their labor, and it lies with those who consume the products. Every dollar is a vote, my grandfather used to say, and he was right. We achieve change not by judging how people earn that dollar, but by holding them accountable for how they spend it. That last line seemed to resonate with Carine, and she went away comforted, with a promise to keep me posted.
UPDATE: The student I named “Carine” responds in the comments section, though those were in moderation for several hours; it’s here.
Though she is fine with me posting about this, I do ask that those who choose to join the comment stream do so with the understanding that this is a real person we are discussing, not a hypothetical creation of my imagination; balance candid disapproval with courtesy, please.
Good post. Like you, I find myself more concerned with how the weight loss would affect her health more than I am about whether or not she takes the gig. It’s unclear whether or not this weight loss would indeed be in her body’s best interests or if it’s just the crazy standards of the industry.
I agree with your grandfather and I think it’s fine that she takes the gig, especially if it’s just something to do for now and not her chosen path. If she doesn’t, there’s plenty in line that will. I have an older friend who’s an actor and a sober alcoholic. Years ago he told me he’d just auditioned for a Michelob commercial. I asked rather naively if that felt like a conflict of interests for him. His reply, ‘I’d do a commercial for Mein Kampf(he’s Jewish), this is my job’.
One suggestion, has she tried meeting with other agencies? Perhaps there are others that are as good if not better and would not make the same demands on her.
Oh, she’s been with other agencies. This is THE agency, the one whose name is similar to that of a major auto manufacturer.
While I agree absolutely that none of us should judge either the sweatshop workers or the models for the lousy conditions of the industry I think those conditions are cause for pause. I think there are numerous negatives to being a model other then the physical negative of loosing fifteen pounds you don’t need to lose. (Fifteen pounds also sounds like a lot on someone who’s a good weigh to begin with.) She sounds like an intelligent, resourceful woman and thus I’d encourage her to explore other options to deal with the financial problems. (Without of course, saying that she gives up her feminist credentials in any way if she decides the modeling is the way to go.)
And though I’m sure her refusal won’t change anything in the industry the people who maintain the industry are also human beings and not monsters and it might well make someone think twice. It’s a slow process but it has to start somewhere.
One thing I’d warn your student about is that it’s all too easy to underestimate the effect a diet can have on one’s physical and psychological well-being. Studies have shown that eating too little really does a number on your ability to think clearly — not only do you have less energy to think, but you use a lot more of that energy thinking about the food you’re not eating. I’m thinking in particular about WWII-era experiments on men; the diets studied in these experiments weren’t really very restrictive by modern weight-loss standards.
My own experiences bear this out too; I’m an anecdote, not data, but the one time I started dieting (from an already low-normal BMI), I was suddenly deluged with compliments and suggestions that I take up modeling — I have a pretty face and a thin-but-curvy waist. None of which would be relevant except that I suspect it puts me in a physical position similar to your student’s, and it makes me desperately want her to know that young, healthy, smart, happy women aren’t immune to the damage diets can do.
More seriously, the physical and cognitive side-effects can last quite a bit longer than the diet itself.
To sum up, a job like this can be a lot more damaging than society would have us believe, because weight loss itself is frequently a lot more damaging than society would have us believe.
I hope and pray that your student can find another option, or keep this one from damaging her — not because it’s a wrong choice — I, like you, don’t think it is that — but because it’s so potentially dangerous to her.
(Of course, if she’s modelled before, perhaps she knows all this already.)
I think you gave her good advice. It’s easy to stay on the moral high ground when, as you say, one is affluent enough to pay for that choice. (Tell her to keep notes and write a tell-all book when she’s done.)
More generally, I’ve thought for a long time that the push toward ever-more anorexic models with ever-less “female” bodies has nothing to do with fashion as fashion, i.e., “stylish clothing to wear.” It’s been a long time since “fashion design” really had anything to do with clothing. These days, “fashion design” is considered more of an art form. The closer the model’s body is to the shape of a clothes hanger, the simpler it is for the “designer” to design for it.
In addition, the revelation that even the magazine and billboard pictures of these size -2 women are airbrushed to remove any inconvenient suggestion of actual body fat? Suggests to me that the dichotomy between the USofA’s increasingly obese population and increasingly skeletal “ideal” is actually telling us something serous about our culture.
Probably several things, but my lunch break is now over, so you won’t have to suffer through my random thoughts on the subject.
This may be THE agency, but it’s not the ONLY agency.
Why does she *have* to go model, at all? And is economic need really a valid excuse? Are there other jobs that she could do?
I know you and your readers are probably going to stone me for this, but I would really like to see if she has the courage of her convictions. I currently work in the aerospace industry–something very, very close to the defense industry. For over a year now, the non-defense projects have become few and far in between, and because I refuse to work on contracts that include kill vehciles, targeting systems, or missiles, and made my position very clear, I’ve passed up opportunities for promotion or even job stability. And yes, in a slumping economy, I’m looking for a job in which I can marry conviction and economic need–but more than that, the personal is still the political. And by justifying excuses for a disconnect, the academy devalues its own theoretical progress as exactly that–merely theoretical and not applicable to everyday life.
You mean the Hyundai agency? Way to go girl!
I think the best solution here is to drive the fashion industry underground. Government regulations would define a standard uniform that everyone must wear – something like the garb of Soviet-era grandmother for women and a Franciscan monk for men. This should also be the only clothing permitted on TV and in the movies. I mean – does the fashion industry serve some vital social purpose?
This should eliminate any possibility of exploitation – at least in this industry. You have to start somewhere, and stopping this insane fashion arms race dead in its tracks seems like a good place to start.
Just a libertarian having some fun
To charlotte: This isn’t a nice question to ask, but I do mean it seriously: Has courage of your convictions ever required you not to have a car, or to seriously delay getting a college education? I use these examples because they seem to apply to Hugo’s student, and because, while they’re not strictly necessary for survival, they’re not things I would easily give up myself — and I only personally know one person who works in the defense industry without a college degree.
I don’t think that having convictions necessarily requires that we cripple ourselves for them. Is it wrong for me to eat 2000 calories a day when others are going without food? Maybe, but I work (albeit very imperfectly) to make it a net gain for the world.
Yes, Carine has modeled before so she knows the drill — this is the first time she’s going back into that world with a “head and heart full of feminism” as she puts it.
And Charlotte, I hear you. But sometimes, as much as it pains me to say it, a scrupulous attachment to certain convictions is a luxury item. That doesn’t mean that drug-dealing to get through college is okay, and it doesn’t mean that the ends always justifies the means — it means that sometimes, when dealing with a “grey area” like fashion modeling, compromises may need to be made.
Interesting post -
a couple of things/questions, though. When you write
are you implying those parts of the sex industry are legitimate in your view, which I would not have guessed from reading through your archives, or that these services are currently provided legally (in the US)?
teleology vs deontology. You do realise that there is an inherent contradiction in that last paragraph, don’t you? At what point do we start making people responsible for their choices when it comes to earning? Because “operating” a company is clearly on the income part of things, not on the spending part. What counts as economic necessity that would redeem you from making choices you cannot justify for yourself? Hunger? Rent? Piano lessons for the kids?
You know, Hugo, I’m still skeptical of compromises. I think that too many compromises is what ails the “real-life” credibility of women’s studies and feminist studies and perpetuates their perception of ivory-tower “truths.”
To answer to Hypatia: Actually, yes. But then, please take this with a grain of salt because I grew up outside the US and under very different circumstances. Being of the stubborn German variety has, I’m sure, something to do with that. I’ve gone years without a car because public transportation was available to get me where I needed to go. I’ve carried shopping bags on bicycles, rain or shine. I respect the preciousness of food immensely, which is no leftovers go unused in my home.
When I was told by my German dissertation advisor that women don’t become professors in Germany, I said “I guess I’m in the wrong country,” applied into the American system, and left Germany. That was 14 years ago.
I also believe that wealth is a necessarily communal resource. When someone asks me for money and I can see that s/he needs it to survive and has no other way to procure it, I give as much as I possibly can, and never look back.
While I do recognize that much of this may have to do with my not growing up in the US, I really wish that more people would put their money where their mouth is. How can you expect to make a difference in the world by talking the talk, but not walking the walk?
And yes, I still think that Carine might position herself better by starting to build her resume and starting to network in an industry in which she hopes to build a post-graduate-school career.
All right, I’ll try not to be judgmental but I hope she finds some other line of work. If I had it to do over again, I never would have let my employer some years back make me do something that permanently damaged my forearms (and L & I screwed me over bigtime.) You can get another job quicker than another body.
If she got into a serious exercise program like, oh. say, running, she might be able to give the impression of having lost that weight without actually losing it, or even dieting.
Yes, sometimes intergrity is a luxury you can’t afford all of. I don’t know what my own price is, what I might sell out for, but I do know I felt better whenever I did what I thought was right. Maybe sometimes, with some ingenuity, a person can find a way to afford that treasure after all. Or compensate in some other area until they can. I hope that Carine not only rattles some cages with her feminism-filled head and heart if she goes back into that woman-eating world, but that then she finds another rewarding [and safer] career. Maybe writing a big fat expose`?
Sam, we make folks responsible for their earning choices at that moment when they, in fact, have actual choices. Choosing between a modeling gig that might mean four figures for a few hours work and busting your ass for tips six hours a night when you have rent to pay and you need to study is not a real choice.
When a mugger robs you, sticks a gun in your face and says “Your money or your life”, he’s given you a choice. When you’re a cute little fox with a leg stuck in a trap, you have a choice — chew off your leg or die. Extreme examples, sure, but reminders that “choices” in real life are rarely pleasant activities, like selecting flavors in an ice cream store.
Does the child laborer in, say, India or Guatemala, who sews shirts with “Boys are Stupid” as the logo have a choice to find another line of work? If that child doesn’t opt out, does he or she deserve the ire of the men’s rights activists, or is that ire properly directed only at those who buy the shirts and those who own the means of production? Cripes, does no one read Marx anymore?
Charlotte, I think Carine — who is busting her butt to be a first-rate feminist, is mentoring other women, finding precious time to volunteer — is “walking the walk.” You and I can disagree about that.
“it’s easier to be “pure†when you’re privileged. We all have choices, of course. But the choices we have are functions of our socio-economic status.”
I agree that some choices are easier when you have money, but some choices are more difficult, too. For example, I am committed to veganism. I have been vegetarian for 26 years and vegan for one, but I will never ever eat meat (on purpose – mistakes happen in restaurant kitchens). I have been poor and I have been rich. Some choices are easier when you’re poor.
When I’m poor I eat more whole foods because I can’t afford the processed, prepacked vegan foods and luxury items. So I eat more dried beans, more fruits and veggies, more basic breads… I cook more, I grow my own herbs… When I am rich, I shop for convenience. I buy the soy ice cream and the soy ribs.
Also, when I’m poor I take road trips for vacation. I don’t fly cross-country multiple times a year. But when I’m rich – I fly across the country (or to another country) a few times a year. When I’m poor I shop at GoodWill and other charity thrift stores. When I’m rich I consume, consume… I try to be careful about it, but sometimes I just wish I were poor again because then the choice about how to consume isn’t as difficult. It’s sort of how lottery winners often make poor decisions with their winnings and end up in debt from mismanagement.
The real privilege is education – the knowledge of how to manage wealth and how to consume responsibly.
I just wanted to point out that ethics are NOT tied to wealth.
So long as your basic needs are met, you can make ethical consumption choices.
The only time I would ever even consider eating meat is if there simply weren’t ANYTHING else available anywhere. Like if I were in a plane crash in the mountains and there was nothing around and I was going to starve… then I might consider it. I’m not sure I could do it, but I’d consider it. And to me, it would be exactly the same as eating a human. It would make me extremely uncomfortable.
I have another thought about another part of your article – the main point part
– but I’ll put that in another comment.
Well, I guess too many people read Marx, particulary far too many who have no actual idea what they’re (and he is) talking about even AFTER reading it. I’m sure you do realize that Marx was wrong on most accounts economically and is (theoretically) responsible for social field experiments that caused unspeakable horrors. Of course, as Keynes once noted, being responsible for the misapplications of lesser, practical, men is the default condition of every social/economic philosopher. But not being alone in that situation, doesn’t make it better… and doesn’t make any more appropriate to use Marxist argumentswhen there are better arguments available (in the case you mention, I’m sure there are).
I didn’t argue with that. I was just wondering at what point you would call a decision an “actual choice”? In the case at hand I would absolutely support your student in her decision, but I’m not the one telling her in class how “modeling” *is* misogynist (personally, I think it *can* be misogynist, but it doesn’t have to, your student could possible make money AND a difference in that industry once she’s in…). As for “boys are stupid” t-shirts, I couldn’t care less if someone wears, sews or markets them (I haven’t seen it). And I cannot believe there are people who do. Are you serious?
I agree with Charlotte above.
There are certain types of work I would never perform because I think they are unethical. If Hugo’s student thinks modeling is unethical, she shouldn’t do it, regardless of her need for the money. It will eat at her soul.
I’m not saying that from an ethical standpoint. I’m saying that from an emotional and mental wellbeing standpoint. If you force yourself to do something that you find highly unethical, it will harm your mental and emotional wellbeing.
For example, if the only work I could find was to work in a factory farm slaughtering pigs, I would go insane. Literally, that type of work would ruin me emotionally and mentally. It would harm me far worse than being poor every could.
It’s not a coincidence that there’s so much depression and post traumatic stress disorder among veterans. The ‘work’ of war is damaging to the brains of the soldiers. Anyone who believes murder is wrong who then must commit murder as their job will suffer emotionally and mentally.
Working as a model is not the same as working as a soldier or working as a slaughterhouse worker, though.
I don’t get the sense that Carine thinks modeling is highly unethical. I think she (and Hugo) sees it as a gray area. So maybe she can do it. I’d suggest that she make certain promises to herself now before getting into it, to leave if she ever feels it’s damaging her and to come up with a back-up plan now if she needs to leave. Because the golden handcuffs are real. Once you start making decent money it’s hard to feel free enough to let go of it. Modeling is probably lucrative, but you can work yourself through college doing other things. I did.
I’d say I was in a somewhat similar situation to Carine financially during college. There were plenty of times when my car broke and I had to take the bus or walk. I didn’t get any help from my parents to pay for school. I didn’t qualify for most scholarships. So I worked a lot. I waited tables. I worked in the computer lab helping other students. I wrote articles for the school paper. I did some telemarketing (terrible job!). I counted people for the Census. I worked at a bookstore. Basically, I did a lot of things to get by. And it was hard and I had to take out some loans, too. But I don’t feel like I was ever in a position where I had to choose between my morals or my money. I’m just suggesting that there are alternatives.
If she is strongly against modeling or against losing weight to model, she shouldn’t do it. But personally, I don’t think there is a huge problem with modeling. I think there are far worse career decisions she could make than that one. I do, however, agree with Hypatia that dieting can take a toll on your brain. Her grades could easily suffer and then it doesn’t seem like it would be worth it. But, of course, it just all depends. Hence, the gray area.
Sam, Hugo is, at least, partly right about the t-shirts. What I don’t agree with–and again, that may have to do with my upbringing and with having been, at times, so poor that I myself considered sex work as a quick monetary fix–is the compromise approach and the comparison of a relatively wealthy college graduate to Asian child workers who don’t know where their next meal comes from. And let me tell you from my own experience: Busting your ass for six hours a night for tips (or minumum wage) when you have rent to pay and to study *is* a choice. It’s just not the easy choice in an environment fuelled by an immediate-gratification attitude.
So, right after my break-up, I explained to one of my fundamentalist Christian guy friends how I had waited four and a half years to have sex with my ex. He says that you should at least wait until you get the engagement ring. I told him that engagement rings are fairly pricey, which is somethng he doesn’t have to worry about since his parents are, literally, millionaires. He’s getting married to a girl he has barely known for three months, and of course, doesn’t have to worry about the fact that he isn’t out of college yet because he inherited money from his rich grandpa. He can afford to wait until his wedding night. I told him that his sexual politics are the product of not only his theological background, but also extreme priviledge.
*clapclapclap*
Now if only I can get my ‘socialist’ friends to understand that. You know… the kinds of socialists that come from a middle class background, don’t get that the ‘workingclass’ people they idealise have to, you know… WORK, and refuse to support boycotts.
Something tells me that her ethical dilemna would be considerably less burdensome if she did not have to lose the 15 lbs. to get back into the business.
Female image, sending a wrong message to young girls, sweatshops, etc. Oh brother.
She seems to be lamenting that these social constructs exist because they are impacting her immediate ability to get a better paying job than waiting tables, but it is easier to couch these feelings as a moral dilemna rather than admitting to selfish motives.
If your friend is 15 pounds away from signing onto THE modeling agency, she presumably has something going for her. Is settling for a lesser agency such an awful burden, particularly if you are torn by the ethical ravages that your chosen field imposes on our culture. This seems like unseemly whining to me, aren’t there more sympathetic cases out there?
Married Tom, we’re all selfish by your lights, surely; if the desire for autonomy and an education is inherently selfish, then virtually all wants fall into that category.
And we all face moral dilemmas in our financial lives — what to buy, what to eat, what to drive. In the end, we must balance our politics and our spending, as well as our earning. And I wrote about this story because it does involve a complex gray area, in a way that taking a job as a drug dealer (obviously objectionable) or as a home health care worker (obviously unobjectionable) don’t. And Tom, careful — when I blog about my students, accusing them of whining is a good way to get your comments deleted.
As for the other agencies, I do know a thing or two about modeling through friends, spouses and so forth. Ford, Wilhelmina, Vue, and so forth — they’ll all tell ya the same thing: the camera adds ten pounds, etcetera. And while commercial modeling may have some tolerance for body diversity, fashion and runway stuff has no margin for anything outside a woefully narrow range.
Mermade,
You can use any kind of ring as an engagement ring. It doesn’t have to be a diamond.
Your illustration does not make the point that his morals come from privilege. I could easily find plenty of people who agree with him who are dirt poor.
I’m not saying he’s right. I don’t think he is. I’m just pointing out that this ‘I’m not priviledged’ excuse is being used to justify unethical behavior. People are saying “I’m too poor to act ethically.” And that’s just BS. If you have your basic needs met (food, clothing, shelter) then you can act ethically. If you choose not to, then that’s your issue, it’s not the priviledged people’s issue.
I agree with Charlotte. I dislike “the comparison of a relatively wealthy college graduate to Asian child workers who don’t know where their next meal comes from”. The student who wants to model isn’t anything like a sweatshop worker. She’s not in ‘dire’ circumstances. She can get other jobs; I’m certain of it. What are the other, not-as-pretty students doing?
He says that you should at least wait until you get the engagement ring.
Sounds like your friend has already slept with his fiancee and is trying to justify to himself why it’s OK that he didn’t wait until his wedding night.
If you have your basic needs met (food, clothing, shelter) then you can act ethically.
Health care not being a basic need, apparently, and nobody having anyone else dependent on them. Deciding you can do without is a little different than deciding your children, or your disabled mother, can do without.
As a cash-strapped, hard working student myself I am in total support of Carine modeling even though she may feel less than enthusiastic about the fashion industry’s views on women. She can rally against the industry once she’s out of school and has the time and resources to dedicate herself to such a cause. What really concerns me is the request that she loses the fifteen pounds. If she is already lanky how realistic is healthfully losing fifteen pounds going to be? I think losing weight under the request of an outside entity that is going to be monitoring the weight loss, and her whole financial stability being placed on her ability to lose this weight, is a recipe for disaster (i.e. a setup for an eating disorder). Hugo, for someone who has been so wonderfully open about your own eating disorder in the past I was really surprised that you weren’t more concerned about the request for Carine to lose a pretty significant amount of weight for an already small person. Every woman is different, and maybe for Carine this isn’t a big concern, but I know for me the request and attempt to lose the weight would potentially be both physically and psychologically damaging.
Charlotte,
Sure, we’ve all listened to Skunk Anansie, but I think calling the student’s chance to upgrade a job “fuelled by immediate-gratification attitude” is a bit unfair, regardless of the appropriateness of the comparison. And as for the tshirt – I’m not saying that such tshirts need to be produced. Just that I don’t care about the logo (I don’t find it misandrist, although, strangely, I’d have a tendency to find “women suck” misogynist, not sure why). (and as a sidenote on tshirts – I’m actually reading Pietra Rivoli’s account of the “travels of a tshirt in the global economy” right now. It’s different from the economic literature many people have come to ignore. Really interesting read.)
Choosing between a modeling gig that might mean four figures for a few hours work and busting your ass for tips six hours a night when you have rent to pay and you need to study is not a real choice.
Oh, this is just staggering. Jaw-dropping. I mean, it’s true, just not true in the way you mean it. It’s “not a real choice” because it’s not a choice that’s offered to any but the extremely privileged few. For normal people, it’s “work or starve,” not “work, starve, or model.” It’s nice that you find it unimaginable to have to work your way through school with no shortcuts, but lots of us did it.
Women who aren’t lanky or pretty work their way through college every god-damned day, Hugo. Women who are lanky and pretty and hate humiliation more than they hate student-poverty work their way through college doing any of a hundred non-modelling jobs every day too.
If she’d be good enough for the top agency if she lost fifteen pounds, she’s good enough for second- and third-tier agencies right now. This is a bullshit dichotomy. And even if it weren’t, if waitressing and retail isn’t beneath ugly girls, it’s not beneath pretty girls either. Period.
She can do whatever she wants. She can still be a feminist, even if she hurts herself losing the weight and gets spit back out by the industry. But your vicarious horror of normal work, and your insistence that it is just too hard for any principled woman to maintain her principles in the face of it, is ridiculous.
I have carefully read over not only Hugo’s blog, but also the several responses to it. I do believe myself to be a feminist, and several of the responses to this specific blog have jingled my feminist bells a bit. I have been in the modeling world for quite awhile now, and there are so many hands on as well as hands off experiences I have come to attain, witness and deal with. I do not agree with the pressures that the modeling industry puts on individuals. I also disagree with the magnitude of effects it has on women and oftentimes men socially, physically and personally. The idea of capturing an unrealistic idea of beauty and utilizing it to sell a product is not the ideal that should be sent out into the media, or onto the laps and television sets of people around the world. I hope to some day work to change some of the awful effects this industry has on the self-esteem and health of women (and men). But for the time being, I cannot create that change to the degree I want to. Though as stated by a few of you, making the choice to not model would perhaps ‘show them’, in reality, it would not create a difference of the same caliber as I intend to someday work towards. Once I have an education and further drive to create real change, the real goals I have for not only my future, but for the future of women and the industry will come into play. Realistically, for me in my current place in life, modeling offers good money in a short amount of time. I am weighing not only myself, but my future here… and though I don’t necessarily want or need to lose 3 inches I have come to realize that putting that work in and dealing with it will create more time for me to concentrate on changing the negative later in a very real way. I am giving myself time to go to school, pay for school, and have time to study as well as volunteer and help others. Not to mention keep a little sanity. I am justifying any hypocrisy I may feel for myself at the moment by looking at the bigger picture and seeing how my life and the lives of others come into play and I am doing my best to stay as healthy as possible through it.
And a quick note to sophonisba, I agree with you on the fact that not everyone can get into the industry which makes it a monopoly of competition among women and their self esteem. I am also aware that there are students every day who work full time and go to school full time in order to support themselves. I think you may have misinterpreted the point of Hugo’s post. He is simply asking if someone is presented with options that can completely affect morals and belief of an individual but do provide an easier option, does it make more sense to follow those morals or take a route that can emphasize the greater point later. I don’t see any form of insistence towards the idea that normal work is too hard or that the easy way out is better. I see a problem being presented in a concerned and non-biased way
Sophonisba–I agree with you. Well put. I waited tables and worked back stage at our auditorium to put myself through college, but I am fairly sure I would have preferred to have been a part-time actor in big productions or something similar. Sadly, that option was unavailable.
Hugo–if you do not want us to be critical of your students, using such strong language as “whining”, don’t put “grey” stories about them on your blog and then open that blog to commentary to us members of the unwashed masses. I do not engage in ad hominem or cursing on your website, unlike others, but I call them like I see them. If the student in question is so frail, perhaps it is not a good idea to offer her up as a case study on your website.
She does have choices. Waiting tables to get through school is a viable choice, and so is looking at second tier agencies, one or another of which might be willing to take her at her current weight (I’m sure they all want skinny to some degree, but differences in degree may still be enough to matter to her). The reason I’d encourage her to remember that she still has other choices, though, isn’t that I think she so horribly betrays feminist principles by taking the modelling job. Feminist though I am, and feminist though I considered myself in college, I’d have taken such a modelling job happily if I’d thought I was remotely pretty enough to try, for any weight requirement that allowed me to weigh at least 105 pounds (at 5’5″ – and I wouldn’t have gone lower than that out of selfish concern for my own health, and not out of broader concern for what standards I might be setting for others). It’s in the gray area where I might not like all the practices of the industry I’m in, but would be willing to compromise to get the money I need, not in the black area of jobs I’d hope I wouldn’t take for any amount of money. No, the reason I’d encourage her to remember that she has other choices is that if she *does* find that the weight loss asked would actually be hurtful to her, she should feel free to tell the agency good bye.
He says that you should at least wait until you get the engagement ring.
Engagement is a mutual promise, not a ring (diamond or otherwise). If it’s OK to sleep together with an engagement ring, it’s OK to sleep together with a promise (and, heck, in your case a planned wedding date and the purchase of a gown, right?). I think mythago’s right that he’s probably already slept with his fiance and is trying to justify to himself why it’s OK, and I think it’s a bit sleazy of him to make up the rules so that his engagement counts and yours doesn’t.
Actually believing that you should wait till marriage and holding to that belief is one thing – easier for some than for others, sure, but still an application of principle up front. Making up ad hoc rules to give yourself, but not other people, a pass, that I don’t respect.
” if waitressing and retail isn’t beneath ugly girls, it’s not beneath pretty girls either. Period.
She can do whatever she wants. She can still be a feminist, even if she hurts herself losing the weight and gets spit back out by the industry. But your vicarious horror of normal work, and your insistence that it is just too hard for any principled woman to maintain her principles in the face of it, is ridiculous.”
Hear, hear!
She can be a feminist model. I’m not going to take awy her card. She can do any kind of work she wants.
But acting like she doesn’t have a real choice is patronizing to her and offensive to the rest of us who aren’t beautiful enough to model.
re: the engagement ring stuff
Engagement may not be contingent on marriage, but marriage is. Without being financially solvent, it’s pretty hard to get married. This is part of why people mostly frown on college students or high schoolers getting married, I’d think. Engagement rings, blah, I’m uninterested in those personally.
Mermade, I think back to the friends I had when I was in high school. Missionary Baptists all, who got married so young. I feel like getting married fast is something they did just to finally have sex. I feel like premarital sex is the lesser evil between that and getting married to someone you don’t know that well when you’re young so you can have sex. Either way, you may not be together in five years.
Contingent on money, I meant. Blargh.
Feminists face issues of compromise in their personal lives throughout their lives. Just visit some of the LONG threads on changing ones name upon marriage or staying home with the kiddies. You will always have choices in which you stand to personally benefit from going along with patriarchal norms/expectations/industries, and you and only you can decide for yourself whether it’s “worth it.” But I would caution against “I’ll make this compromise now, so that I can do more in the future.” There are some choices you make, having money being among them, that can suck you in and make it hard to do anything differently in “the future.” Again, only you can know whether you will be tempted to put off your ideological dreams indefinitely, or whether it really is a short term compromise. (Or whether there are ways for you to do the modeling thing in a less compromising way). But I think you need to be realistic about it being a compromise, and ask if it’s a compromise that you feel comfortable with now, without any guarantee of an increased ability to do something else later.
I would also suggest that whether you can meet their standards and look and feel healthy may be the determining factor in this case. If you can be healthy, then you can “model” that to the world as well. If it causes you to be unhealthy, or less strong/intellectually capable (due to under-nourishment), then it’s a pretty damn big compromise. Can you be 15 pounds lighter and still the strong, thinking person you are now? If you wake up one day modeling and you’re hungry and can’t concentrate on your classes, are you going to be able to quit?
Living in this world, we will all make “unfeminist” accomodations to our culture and society. Is this one worth it to you is really the only question.
Pingback: Values : Elaine Vigneault
What Emily said.
I would only add this: in some fields (computer engineering, for example) you have to learn specific skills (and learn them and learn them and learn them…), and universities can offer the best way to do that. On the other hand, you can learn a lot about society and social activism by going out and simply working with people. Particularly with the looming economic problems, a person may well learn more from getting out there and doing the work than from staying in school.
I suggest this only as a possibiliy to consider, given your expressed discomfort with your choices. I have no desire, and certainly no right, to judge you, and I don`t know what you want to do. I only mention this to suggest that you have this option; that if you choose to spend some time, say, teaching literacy to women in trouble with the law, many parts of the feminist and left movements will hold your work and experience in high esteem.
Whatever your choice, I wish you well.
I did a little bit of modeling when I was in high school, mostly for friends and some “trade-for-print”. I thought about going farther with it, but got the same sort of message Carine has gotten. I was told that I had to lose two waist sizes and “tighten up my stomach”". I’m 5’10″ and 130 pounds, and I’ve played sports (basketball, soccer, track) since I was a small child. I knew that losing that weight would mean I cou;dn’t play sports with the same intensity, because I’d have to give up the food to fuel me in order to lose the weight.
I also believe that some of the hostility directed towards Carine is that she is obviously a very pretty girl. When you are perceived as beautiful, it is as if any suggestion on your part that you are having trouble, or that you are struggling in any way, is immediately going to inspire anger in other women. They don’t believe you have a right to complain when you look like you do. Whatever — Carine has a right to pay her bills and pursue that autonomy you always talk about. And real feminists wouldn’t criticize another woman for trying to make it.
i understand what everyone is saying …but we need to be realistic here. just because someone decides to do some modelling to HELP with payments that they were previously struggling to pay does NOT mean she is a feminist. and i dont mean to say that modelling is the right way to go about it… but it is the individuals choice and i think it is great theat carine is taking advantake of her looks and oportunities to eventually make it in her chosen career with the money she is earning esas a model. she is simply speeding up the process of paying for university and other payments. therefore she will not be in debt after she has finished university.
i hope carine has a great future. good luck to her, i hope she makes the best of her modelling career, and hopefully it will be over soon so she can get on with the rest of her life.
thanks for putting this story on your blog, it has influenced my decisions-whether to be in debt for a few years, or strive to be on top of payments as well as have some experiences in other industries i would not usually accept.
it would be great to hear more about her carine in the future!!!!!!
Ashley, Carine has decided not to pursue the modeling at this time, and is making decent money waiting tables. But she’s keeping her options open, and is pursuing commercial acting on the side.
I think it’s possible for a feminist to be a model, but I’m not sure being a model is automatically a feminist choice. Some choices are feminist: choosing to pursue a career in the face of opposition. Some choices aren’t, like choosing to trash other women behind their backs. And some choices are neutral, like modeling. It’s not feminist or “not-feminist”, it just is. I’d have to lose like thirty pounds to model at the weight they want for girls our age anyway, and I’d never do it, but I don’t judge those who do.