The world is a strange place – and not every country equates slimness with beauty. The Islamic Republic of Mauritania presents an opposite viewpoint to the West:
To men here, fat is sexy. And in this patriarchal region, many Mauritanian women do everything possible – and have everything possible done to them – to put on pounds.
The fascinating feature in the NY Times explains how female obesity is a measure of power, wealth, and beauty.
In years gone by, families would undertake the practice of “gavage” – a cruel system of force-feeding.
Girls as young as 5 and as old as 19 had to drink up to five gallons of fat-rich camel’s or cow’s milk daily, aiming for silvery stretch marks on their upper arms. If a girl refused or vomited, the village weight-gain specialist might squeeze her foot between sticks, pull her ear, pinch her inner thigh, bend her finger backward or force her to drink her own vomit.
Nowadays – the government is trying the undo the culture – by pushing a “slim-down” campaign. However, old stereotypes are hard to change in an environment that it is not swamped with mass media.
Nearly three-fourths of Mauritanian women do not watch television, and an even greater share do not listen to the radio.
this article is first and foremost about men torturing women. Women are tortured all over the world, including our country. The most violent torture is done inside the home, and is not as public as in other countries. The less violent tortures are pressuring women to be a certain weight, treating us as property, raping us with umpunity, keeping us barefoot and pregnant (taking away our rights to birth control, abortion, and paying us 33 cents to the the dollar that males make) and our entire culture supporting our these ideas.
“Robyn said:
The idea of thin=attractive is a fairly new concept. Through out history the female form was always represented as being bigger and more velouptous. This made sense as women who were fatter could have and carry children easier.”
Respectfully, I disagree:
[1] “Thin=attractive” is NOT a radically new concept. Take for example, Nefertiti, the queen of Egypt in 1350 BC, who lived not too far from present-day Mauritania. Her name was synonymous with beauty (then and now), and she was depicted in multiple images as being quite lithe and graceful (and sometimes as actually skinny). There are countless other instances of slender women embodying beauty, from the muscular Greeks to the attenuated northern Europeans. Unless we define thin as anorexic, which is a relatively modern social phenomenon, I do not think that slender (ie BMI of approx 19-24 or so) is at all unhealthy, and really should be a good goal.
[2] Women who are ‘fatter’ do NOT have children more easily. Obesity has a causal association with all sorts of endocrine abnormalities such as diabetes and PCOS, which can make it very difficult to conceive and carry a healthy child to term. Again, it depends on how you define ‘bigger’, but for women who are more than a little overweight, fat does not equal fertile.
[3] Moderation is key. There is no need to hate on anyone for their body size. It’s true that some women make poor decisions that lead to extreme shapes (both too large and too small), and it’s true that many of us want to be a different shape than what we are.
i eat tons of fatty foods and never work out, or gain weight.
i’ve been like this my whole life.
it would be terrifying to think of being forcefed to gain weight…
for one like me, eating enough to do so might kill me.
this is a horrible practice. yes, western beauty ideals are skewed.
but to forcefeed someone is just as bad as starving someone.
I would be very unnattractive there.
Living in East Africa is not easy for those who have an American ideal of a healthy body image (i.e., normal BMI). I don’t know how many times I cringed, knowing I was overweight but hearing a Kenyan talk about my “strong body.” Being large is a sign that one has enough wealth to have plenty to eat.
When I was in the process of losing 40 pounds, I had Kenyan friends who wondered if I had the slimming disease (AIDS).
Beauty and the appearance of health (not necessarily the same as being truly healthy) are culturally determined.
I would be so hot there.
Yeah, the kid, good for them that they are making their women obese.
Good for them, the west is always pushing their ideals on the rest of the world. We don’t know everything.
Now that’s an interesting post…
I can’t believe those children have to drink 5 gallons of camel milk per day…yuck
Thank you
This is very similar to the Polynesian nations. Fat used to be beautiful. Some committed suicide, then face the horrible life of living thin, by throwing themselves to the sharks…
I totally agree with your entire post.
Their life expectancy is in their early to mid 50′s.
Just sayin’
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/mr.html#People
The idea of thin=attractive is a fairly new concept. Through out history the female form was always represented as being bigger and more velouptous. This made sense as women who were fatter could have and carry children easier. I do not agree with the comment that it is a forced chasity on women. This argument does not even make sense when looking at what the article here is discussing. If the larger body is the most desired then it would make sense that the larger a woman was the more sexually desired she would be. Not the other way around. You seem to be falling for the myth that a fatter women would be lazy and once again less attractive which shows your biased western viewpoint. The actual culture of the Islamic religion is what forces women into docility, weight has nothing to do with this as we can look at the other countries in the world that have Islamics in them to see that while not every Islamic woman is fat they all must follow the guidelines set by their religion. This is no different than Chinese foot binding, Beauty schools from the 50′s or modelling agencies telling young women to stop eating, remove ribs or shave bone. This has to do with becoming what society has deemed attractive at any cost to find a mate. While this culture does it in their way and while we may find their practices disturbing we also have to look at our own culture and see where and what we are doing to our young girls. Is it any less barbaric in nature? NO and by tricking ourselves into believing that it is, is what is allowing us to keep propegating the same ideas and behaviour behind it. Before we critize another culture we should be making sure that we are not being hypocritical and blind to the same behavior that is prevalent in our own society.
@Lily T – The line about women not being reached by ‘mass media’ was actually more troubling than ‘nice.’ The point was that reaching OUT to these women is exceedingly difficult since women predominantly spend their entire lives in the domiciles, unable to be reached by government campaigns or even given the potential to share experiences with other women to make changes.
Needless to say, this is not ‘new’ and isn’t only tied to wealth and prestige, a fatter women is easier to monitor and is deemed less likely to have the energy to engage in sexual activities before marriage and less likely to have sexual affairs with other men. The forced obesity is wielded as a chastity belt in a way.
It’s nice that this country is not inundated with mass media (yet), but what they do is cruel none-the-less. The pressure to look a certain way sucks no matter where you are.
Michelle,
If healthy were in, healthy people wouldn’t be trying to lose weight to fit into smaller sizes.
I wouldn’t necessarily say that thin is in, but rather healthy is in. Everybody’s perceptions of healthy are different.
The “slim-down” campaign will not work in Mauritania anymore than the “Fat is beautiful” movement will work in Western cultures. If food becomes scarce in the West and Mauritanians become swamped with junk food, then we will see a change. Until then, we have to accept that in our world, thin is in.
I’ve seen footage of Africans clapping people because they’re fat. You can understand it in areas where getting enough to survive is a daily problem.
Not sure if that’s the cultural background here.
Cheers
Mike.