Women are made to feel inadequate or ashamed for all manner of things: the way they dress, the way they speak and behave; the size they are. While men are also similarly shamed for a variety of reasons, women experience this much more; being held up to much higher, often unrealistic expectations. So women are sometimes fat shamed or they are slut shamed and now apparently they are mom-shamed as well!
Women, particularly celebrities and others in the public sphere tend to be examined minutely and found wanting for any number of reasons. They may be fat shamed, called overweight or ugly or lazy for not working out enough. Apart from celebrities as well, there tends to be a broad anti-fat bias in society where overweight people are presumed to have certain negative traits; men as well as women.
Women are also shamed for being too thin or slender; fit-shamed for being underweight or for having 'gym bodies'…and a terrible, unrealistic role model for young girls who look up to them. Fit shaming is also seen as a backlash from overweight people who accuse fit or thin people of being on unhealthy starvation diets or being vain and obsessed with their looks and so on. Men are also frequently fit-shamed, but probably not as frequently as women who may be labeled ‘too muscular/masculine’ or ‘too skinny’ or ‘without womanly curves’; particularly if they are particular about working out.
Then women are slut shamed for behaving a certain way, being at certain places at certain times and particularly for wearing certain types of clothes. Females may be slut-shamed for any behavior that doesn’t conform to conventional expectations; particularly with regard to sexuality. Women are criticised for what they choose to wear (or not wear), wanting access to birth control and so on and are frequently blamed for being the victims of sexual assault (You're inviting trouble if you're dressed that way, is the argument put forth).
When men engage in the same type of behavior or wear revealing clothing, they are never subjected to the sort of slut shaming women are subjected to. Here the double standard is quite glaring. A man who plays the field is a slayer/stud to be envied, a stud, a woman who does the same is labeled a slut to be reviled.
Recently Kim Kardashian, who is famous mainly for being famous was mom-shamed for artificially straightening her daughter's hair. She was criticized for subjecting her child to a procedure that could damage her hair, for putting wrong ideas in her head and so on. Those who think this was bad parenting or whose mom-shamed her would do well do remember that in many cultures, piercing the earlobes of little babies would be viewed with as much disapproval!
Women are shamed for choosing to have deliveries via C-section. They are shamed for losing their baby weight and appearing in public too soon after their delivery. They are shamed for carrying too much baby weight post-pregnancy. They are shamed for not breast-feeding or for breastfeeding in public. They are shamed for returning to work too soon after childbirth and are also shamed for choosing to give up their careers for the sake of their families. Moms are shamed for not making enough effort after their child’s food habits, education, extracurricular activities and so on. They are also shamed for making too much of an effort.
It’s actually exhausting… Trying to live up to some mythical ideal that someone has of what a woman /mother should be like; which incidentally is quite the opposite of the woman /mother ideal that someone else has. It would appear that whatever we do, we’re going to piss someone off. So why bother with all the shaming and criticism and the how-to advice? People are not going to stop shaming anytime soon, because खुछ तो लोग कहेंगे as the song goes. Since we cannot please everyone, how about trying to please ourselves for a change? It’s a novel thought!
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