Raising a daughter with a healthy body image in an appearance-obsessed world
Protecting your daughter's body image, and dealing with misogynist men
What’s the worst thing you can say to a woman or girl?
It’s that she’s ugly.
And yet every woman hears this multiple times by adulthood. We have devoted much of female socialization to instructing girls on how very, very important it is to be pretty. And then we turn around and tell them they’re not.
One of the most common questions I hear from readers is about girls and self-esteem. They want to know how to raise their daughters’ body image, or how to counter negative diet culture messages, or how to deal with the relative who insults their child’s appearance.
The truth is that this is a cultural problem. It’s not something an individual parent can fix, any more than an individual parent can prevent their child from being raped.
That doesn’t mean we throw up our hands in surrender, though. I don’t have all the answers, but I have spent a lot of time reading research on girls, body image, and self-esteem. My goal as a parent is not to get it perfect, but instead to help my daughters build self-esteem and to hopefully inoculate them against some of the devastating effects of our beauty obsession. We cannot protect our daughters from harmful messages, but we can raise them in an environment that takes the sting out of those messages.
These are the principles I use. Readers, I welcome your ideas if you’ve stumbled across anything that works.
Stop commenting on your daughter’s appearance
For many parents, the reflexive response to a world that tells girls they’re ugly is to constantly tell our daughters they are beautiful. This is a terrible idea. I’ve written in detail about that that is here.
Basically, it boils down to this: If you tell your daughter she is pretty, what’s the hidden message?
It’s that pretty is important.
If someone insults your daughter’s appearance and you say, “Oh, no! You’re beautiful!” what’s the hidden message?
It’s that she should be beautiful, that her appearance is up for debate, and that being anything but beautiful is terrible.
Your daughter is allowed to not be beautiful.
In a healthy society, your daughter can be ugly, or can believe she is ugly, and still love herself 100%.
There is nothing innate to human consciousness that makes feeling beautiful necessary. Indeed, if you think back on the earliest memories of your life, I think you’ll find that you felt better about yourself before you had any idea that society expected you to be beautiful.
If your kid is young, then never introduce beauty talk. Protect her from it as long as possible. And if you’ve already introduced it, stop talking about it. Your daughter’s appearance is no one’s business but her own.
Treat appearance obsession as a sickness
What would you do if someone started bullying your child for not being juice?
You’d treat it as weird and sick, because being juice is not important. Even if the person was really mean, and even if multiple people thought your child should be juice. Right?
Treat appearance stuff the same way. The earlier you can begin, the better, because once the idea that being pretty is important sneaks in, it’s very difficult to vanquish it.
Sooner or later your child is going to encounter the beauty myth and appearance obsession. Begin inoculating her against it by treating this obsession as totally unhinged. Some scripts that can help frame this approach are as follows:
“I do not know why that woman commented on your body. There must be something wrong with her that she thinks your body is her business. I feel bad for her.”
“Grandpa has something wrong in his brain that makes him obsessed with commenting on women’s appearance. It’s weird and sick and we should ignore him when he says things like that.”
“We live in a society where some people are obsessed with controlling how other people look. It’s wrong and weird and you don’t have to participate.”
“It’s weird how Aunt Janet thinks she should get to decide how she looks. She’s in charge of her body, not yours.”
Build up your child’s identity
Girls need to identify as compassionate, curious, as hardworking leaders—not as pretty. If your child identifies as an animal lover, an athlete, a volunteer, a friend, a leader, etc., then she won’t need to identify as pretty because she’ll have a more substantive and valuable identity to lean on.
Praise her for stuff that matters.
And when people comment on her appearance, counter with something more important:
“Man, but you should see this kid write an essay!”
“But her paintings are amazing!”
“Oh, but she’s so compassionate!”
Every time your child hears a compliment from some rando about her appearance, she should hear something from you about the traits that really matter. Every. Time.
On a related note, it’s not necessarily great for your kid to identify as smart, or as any other static trait, either. The newest research on child development shows that it works best to praise kids for effort, because this encourages them to learn more, do more, and keep trying, while instilling strong self-esteem. Praise a child as smart, and the second she struggles with something she’ll think she’s lost her intelligence. Resilient kids value their own effort. Teach them to value effort by praising it when you see it:
"I’m proud of how hard you’re working to learn how to read.”
“It’s not always easy to be nice to everyone. I really admire how hard you try to include other kids.”
“You’re gentle with animals even when it’s tough. I’m proud of you.”
“Thanks for working so hard to control your temper when your sister stole your candy.”
“All of your hard work has really paid off this school year!”
Know that negative comments about your daughter’s appearance are deliberate acts of abuse
In an appearance-obsessed society, it is impossible for a neurotypical adult not to know that: 1) people think appearance is important; and 2) negative comments about a person’s appearance are especially hurtful.
People who comment negatively on any aspect of your child’s appearance are trying to hurt your child.
Do not excuse the behavior, or dismiss it as anything other than the deliberate act of abuse it so obviously is.
You wouldn’t defend someone who punched your child.
You wouldn’t try to educate someone out of sexually abusing your child, or locking them alone in a closet for hours.
Don’t act like attempting to destroy your child’s self-image is any different.
Aggressively defend her against bullies and abusers—and make sure she sees it
Armed with the knowledge that negative comments about your child’s appearance are a deliberate act of abuse, it becomes easier to deal with these comments from adults.
Your child needs to see that you are on her side, and that this matters more than anything else—more than convenience, more than maintaining the peace.
She also needs to know that negative comments about her body are totally and completely unacceptable, and the people who make these comments have stepped well outside the bounds of acceptable discourse.
If you hear someone speaking negatively about your child, your child needs to see you disrupt it immediately.
She needs to know that you are strong enough to defend her. That you will protect her. That her well-being matters above all else, and that you will not mince words.
Some suggested scripts:
“If you ever speak to her in that manner again, you will never see her again. Is that clear?”
“Apologize now for your horrible comments or get out of my sight.”
“Leave my house now. You will not abuse my child.”
In the alternative, it can be helpful to speak to your child about the abuser in front of the abuser:
“Aunt Janet thinks she gets to control other people’s bodies. The comment she just made to you is a sign of how very messed up her brain and values are. I’m sorry she said that to you, and I will not allow her to speak to you that way ever again.”
“What my friend just said to you is an example of abuse. Abuse means that someone deliberately harms another person. I will always protect you against abusive people, even if I love them. You can always come to me for help.”
“No one is allowed to speak to you the way that grandpa just did. Grandpa, you’ll need to apologize for your behavior and commit to never doing it again before you’ll be allowed to spend time with my daughter again.”
You are your child’s only defender. Be their hero. Model what it means to stand up for someone else. Show them what unconditional love means. Do not let anyone bully your child, ever, no matter who they are.
Feminist Advice Friday: What do we do about misogynists who think they’re feminists?
A reader asks…
My soon to be ex-husband is certain that he is a feminist, because he fills all those progressive check boxes. And yet. And yet.... The invisible labor and mental load were impossible for him to recognize. His paternity leave was less than helpful to me following my daughter's c-sections. He felt entitled to sex and was angry when he didn't get it. He was moody and passive aggressive, and of course there was copious gas lighting. So all of that said, I would love to hear your thoughts on misogynists who think they are feminists. I only found your Facebook page about a week ago, and I love it so much!
My answer:
I live in a really progressive area in a fairly regressive region. Everyone white person here talks about how they’re an ally to Black people. And yet, things are just as bad for Black people here as they are anywhere else. I’ve repeatedly watched self-described “allies” in my neighborhood call the police on Black children for little more than existing.
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I don’t know if these people lack the insight to identify how problematic their behavior is. Or if they don’t actually care about racial justice at all, and have merely donned the ally label to fit in. But I don’t really care which it is, because the effect of their actions is the same.
Impact > intent.
That goes for sexism, too.
But also, I question whether the intentions are good with these misogynist feminists.
It is really easy to slap on a feminist label and wait for praise. And when you’re a dude living in a sexist society, pretty much all you have to do is don the label. Women are just so grateful that you’re not vocally attacking them. So what happens is these guys get a ton of praise for little more than choosing the right label.
When the people who see their actual behavior criticize them, they lean hard into that praise.
“No, I can’t possibly be a misogynist! Look at all these women who like me!”
The identity becomes more important than actually listening to women. Because it was never actually about listening to women. It was about getting praise.
The appearance of being a good person is, to these people, more important than actually being a good person. That makes them particularly dangerous. Because not only will they not stand up for women; not only will they not call out misogyny; they will use their feminist “credentials” to actively undermine women.
That sounds like this:
“I’m a feminist. I believe women. But even I think she’s overreacting.”
“Honey, you know I’m a feminist. If things were really unequal don’t you think I’d be doing something about it?”
“Look, I’m a feminist, but she’s just not credible.”
“All of these women think I’m a great guy. I couldn’t possibly have abused her!”
“Why is it that she’s the only woman in the world who thinks I’m a sexist?”
So how can we spot these men before they worm their way into our lives, our beds, our homes? Here are some telltale signs:
They have a cadre of admiring female acquaintances, and being perceived as a good guy by these women is very important to them.
The women closest to him—his wife, his exes, his sister, his mother—appear to have problems with him, while other women adore him.
He spends a lot of time seeking adulation, but very little actually doing anything for women.
He uses feminism to undermine women. The “I’m a feminist, but…” trope.
Things are not equal in his household.
He’s not willing to own any of his own bullshit, admit to any of his own misogyny, or identify the ways in which he replicates toxic masculinity.
Ultimately, we need to call these guys what they are: misogynists. Not a special kind of misogynist. Just the run of the mill dangerous dude we all need to avoid. Anyone can claim a label. Living up to it is another story.
I truly can’t imagine what kind of woman I would be today had I been raised with parents who understood the importance of raising a daughter with a healthy body image. This is so important, thank you, I so loved reading this and I know better now how to talk to the young girls in my life ❤️