Nothing New Under the Sun: The Body Politic
What Lilith publishes really has legs! Just look! Check out this item from today’s news, and then read what Lilith said earlier on this very subject.
ABC’s new family drama, HUGE, has sparked some great out-of-the-box conversations about representations of the body in the mainstream media. As Ginia Bellafante writes in this week’s New York Times, HUGE “stands in some sympathy with a rebellion mounted against so many hours of ‘The Biggest Loser'”–a reality show and weight-loss competition.
Here at Lilith, we’re excited to hear these murmurs circulating because, as Barbara Gingold has written in our pages, “The body itself is a woman’s form of language.” Critical thinking about questions of body image, weight, dieting, and size-ism has long been important to Jewish feminists on the front lines of progressive thought and on the front pages of our magazine. For a sampling of Lilith writing on the subject, check out “Fat Talk” from 2001, and then browse through the treasures in Lilith’s rich archives for related articles. And tell us what you think! What have your own experiences been like?