Girls never took off in my house. Granted, I only watched two episodes but can’t deal with the show’s hipster shtick. Yet I do like Jemima Kirke. She has a fantastic, level head on her shoulders and isn’t afraid to wade into controversial territory. She only does so for a purpose and not for attention. Jemima seems like someone cool to hang out with.
Jemima talks a lot about body image in a new interview with Refinery 29. She discusses the nudity on Girls and how Lena asked her to take it off (again) this season. She says Lena requested “to see some cellulite, please.” Jemima “was tempted to say no” but decided to forge ahead. She introduces the journo to her trainer, Cadence Dubus, who focuses on functional fitness.
The best part of this interview is about how Jemima’s mom passed on her dieting habit, which is interesting. A lot of daughters pick up on this stuff at an early age. I was crestfallen when my girl (at age 4) looked in the mirror and happily said, “Mommy, I look thin.” She heard the term from a relative who shall not be named. Jemima has some perceptive takes on how women treat their bodies in the mirror:
On body image: “I think a lot of women see themselves like Mr. Potato Heads. Like, if they could take this part away, if they could eliminate this part, they would look better. They don’t see themselves as a package. They see themselves as pieces.”
How she started working out: “We need to take the shaming out of the fitness world. I wanted to stay thin while pregnant. That was the thought. That was what I walked in for, and it didn’t stay that way. The first thing I noticed about Cadence was her body. I was like, Oh, she’s not skinny, but she looks so sexy, and she’s so fit. I was like, maybe I can do THAT. Maybe I can just be the fittest version of this.”
Her mom’s mixed messages: “My mom used to say to me, ‘I think you’re beautiful. I think you’re perfect. I just want you to be happy.’ That’s such a mixed message, though … even though she was saying she wanted me to be happy, it still came off as bullying.” She recalls going out to dinner with her parents, her mom ordering that the bread be taken away. “She would say, ‘Listen, you can have it if you want it. I just thought you didn’t want it.’ She knew I wanted to be thinner…and she was always on a diet herself. I think she meant well. I just think she wasn’t equipped … I think it’s important for women around children, whether you’re a mother or not, to never talk about not liking yourself.”
How she looks at her own body: “This sounds so cheesy, but it’s true. I try to look at myself as if I were a man who was really hot for me. I’ll see all the things that make me me, and [I’m] like, that’s hot. That’s how I look at other women. I look at them like, If I was in love with this person, I would love every bit. And, I tell my friends. I’m not doing it to make them feel good. I really mean “
[From Refinery 29]
Jemima also talks about her daughter eats healthy and flexes like Popeye after she finishes eating, which is cute. Body image is such a trigger subject for many women (and men). I feel like girls have a hard enough time growing up without parents passing on their own food issues. Jemima has a healthy attitude. She’s still dealing with stuff her mom said to her about weight, but we’re all works in progress.
Photos courtesy of WENN
She’s just gorgeous; her attitude and intelligence only highlight this even more
I’ve never watched Girls but her comments on body image are spot on in my mind so, I think she’s great. I was nodding reading her comments where her mother unintentionally was passive aggressive about her body image…. been there!
@ track smile, Same here. My mom was always on some weird diet and drinking TAB, the grossest diet soft drink from the 70’s and 80’s. She wasn’t over the top, just little things, that stay in your own head.
Been there, too. I’m ok with my body even though my mom has been dieting her entire life, despite the fact that she’s never been more than a couple pounds overweight. Even now in her mid-70s she talks as if she could just lose 5 or 10 or however many pounds, she/life would be perfect. She’s been chasing this idea her entire life and it makes me sad that she just can’t see that ideal weight doesn’t automatically equate to an ideal life.
My mom was never on a diet, but she was always skinny. I got a thyroid issue in early puberty and gained weight. She always said she wanted me to be happy. Be happy, don’t eat bread. You’d be so pretty if you lost weight. All day every day. That hurt much more than all the comments I got at school.
Families do sometimes give off a confusing message when it comes to physical appearance with preteens and teens. On the one hand they tell their girls, “You’re pretty and we want you to have good self-esteem. We don’t want you trying to be all skinny and feeling like you have to look a certain way for others.” But then at the same time there will be some sort of little obesity and health risks lecture lecture almost every time you eat junk food, drink soda, or don’t want to eat a vegetable with dinner. Or even, one time, the dreaded, “If you’re not careful you’ll become too developed at a young age and grown men will be looking at you!” or Great- Grandma’s, “Don’t come back married next summer!” When you’re 13. (Although that comment was more funny to me than anything else).
When I was overweight, kids at school never bothered me about it. That’s probably because I wasn’t very overweight and there were several kids who were as big or bigger, and maybe it was because sometimes preteens are slightly more mature and polite than usual. Pressure to be slimmer didn’t come from mean kids, it came from my family’s concerns about fitness and health risks, and me hearing others constantly criticized for their weight by either themselves or other people.
I think that if people are going to care about their weight, the concern should be “What’s a range that’s healthy for me and that I can feel comfortable with? And if I’m going to watch my diet and exercise, what’s a routine that works without making me MISERABLE and deprived?” instead of angsting over not being able to wear the exact outfit that the skinny mannequin is wearing or not having the ideal curves. I don’t like seeing people get attacked for their bodies.
She is so right. We need to look at ourselves as a package. I also 110% agree about looking at yourself through the eyes of alone that thinks you are hot. I do the exact same thing!! And, having a daughter that age, I would be shocked if she even registers thin or cares. Last night, after snack, she proudly told me she couldn’t walk because her belly was too big and pushed it out further. It makes me think the four year old is picking up on other clues about weight and self worth even if words like thin aren’t being thrown around.
Really like her, what a great attitude!
Every time I hear comments like this I realize how blessed I was to grow up with a mom who never dieted and always liked herself, her body image and how she looked (not in a peacock kind of way, just confident and happy on her own skin to paraphrase a great French saying.)
The sad thing is that kids today are so inundated with messages about how thin is the only way to be beautiful that they cannot escape it. My son has never heard the word diet at home. Never heard me talk about weight issues. Yet he came home at the ripe old age of four and asked me if he was fat!! (For the record he isn’t, but that is so not the point… Unless children are so overweight and/or inactive that it affects their health, they should never be subjected to this crap.)
What we do try and teach him is to eat healthy (real food not packaged), how to drink water, not sugary stuff when thirsty, how to cook and make sure food is not a mindless diversion while watching tv. But he still hears all around him at school how you must be thin, you must have a six pack to be attractive… scary! But at the same time he asks why he cannot have the nasty prepackaged lunches they sell for kids (I think they are calked Lunchables or something) like other kids in this class. Ironic that some of the parents who are teaching their kids, directly or not, to obsess over diets, are probably the same ones teaching them terrible eating habits. Le sigh….
I absolutely agree about the first paragraph. My parents never dieted or made a huge deal about my/other people looks, but encouraged a healthy lifestyle and to this day it does wonders. When it comes to self-image the foundation is layed so early.
My mother still makes comments about what I eat and how I look. She swears that eating mindfully is an indication of an eating disorder. She doesn’t realize how damaging her comments can be.
And I find myself looking at my body in third person, too. I need to do it more often.
I can relate to that last bit, about mom not meaning to put pressure but doing so.
I get the comment “you’d look good in a potato sack” which I take more as a compliment now, but my mom especially has been saying this to me for a long time, and while I know she meant it in a good way, it made me think ‘then why don’t I like the way I look?’ it made me feel like I SHOULD look good no matter what I wear (according to Mom), so why do I hate myself in this outfit or that outfit?
I don’t feel that way as much anymore because I sometimes try to look at myself in the same way Jemima says she does: I try to think that I have a fiance who is attracted to me (because he tells me so and shows me so), so I look at my non-photoshopped, not-so-fit body and pick out little things I appreciate, instead of poking at the mr. potato-head parts I wish I could pop off and replace.
Question – do the English pronounce the name Jemima with a long “i” the way we do here or is it a short one?
I’m stuck between two cultures that celebrate the extremes of body size. My parents’ culture is from the ‘big is beautiful’ as the ideal culture and I live in ‘thin is beautiful’ as the ideal culture.
Doesn’t help that i’m naturally skinny so depending on where I am, i’m either too skinny, possibly ill and need to be fattened up OR my skinniness is the envy of my friends who are always asking me for ‘skinny tips/secret’.
Thank goodness for sports. Helped me develop a healthy body image.
I really like what she says. As a new mom, I realized I don’t want my girl to even think that her body isn’t the way it’s supposed to be and I’ve decided I will never comment on any parts of myself in any negative way or ever mention I need to lose anything while looking In a mirror. I’m actually finding it tougher to do in practice but as Long as I nip this bad habit in the butt by the time she’s 2 I’ll be happy.
Body image and kids is so hard. My 6 year old is gorgeous, leggy, and thin while I am a slowly shrinking obese woman (size 16). I make a huge point to never mention weight around her and talk about food in terms of healthy fuel and being fit, healthy and strong. And yet. I was recently put on am extreme elimination diet for autoimmune purposes. We sat down with the kids and explained this was about health, so Mommy wouldn’t always be sick and could do all the fun things again. But she’s focused on the weight loss and told me she wants me to be skinny so I can be pretty. No matter how much I tell her that’s not the point. Sigh…
Kids get very strong messages from their peers. It sounds like you are working very hard to counteract the negative body talk. You are doing a great job and unless you can find a hidey hole to keep her in for the next twenty years, this is going to be something to continually work on/through.
My ma did a NUMBER on Us Growing up and continues to do so, she was very hateful of herself and obsessed with weight and looking like x,y,z she never shies away from a Shitty Remark for her peers( Wow Doesn’t she look Old and Badly kept?), her kids( my Little sis who is GORGEOUS butchered her body behind the ellusive skinny look more favored by my mom) or even trying to shade a chubby newborn ( as she did with her last grandkid who THEN turned out had cerebral Palsy and she kind of had to walk back all the awful sh!t she said) me and my sister always try to insulate her kids from that nastiness and even work on ourselves because we got some really really awful messages as kids about our bodies, our color, our mate suitability etc etc Self Love Is HARD so it encourages me when I see women having a great self image
Damn, QQ..that is rough. But you turned out to be awesome. I really think girls learn fIRST from their moms, and if your mom is screwed up, oh, man. That can affect a little girl for life. I wish parents would think before they opened their traps about that stuff. Endng up face down in a toilet staring at your own lunch is no way to be.
kri Oh That is 100% true! My sister has an Uphill battle with herself cause she no longer feels good about herself but she also doesn’t want to transfer any of that to her little girl so is almost going against every belief that has been put in you
I immediately liked Jemina for the first time I’ve seen her, maybe because she looks like Fiona Apple. But now I know that when a person is intelligent with a cool personality, it shows.
Sometimes we give the wrong message in spite of ourselves. After I had my second child, I started my quest to lose all the baby weight plus 30 pounds more; it took six years. During that time, I was very proud of myself and my husband was quite supportive.
But that support came by way of me running from my room saying “look at this, my pants are too big!” or my husband constantly telling me how much I had “slimmed down” and how proud he was of this accomplishment. I dieted with a healthy diet and running but when we spoke of it, it was all calorie counts and “I’d better go running if I want a glass tonight.” Without the 35 years of body issues and struggles with weight loss prior, all my children heard was how much a value their parents put on “thin” bodies. We have been trying to undo that for 2 years now; replacing “thin” with “healthy,” speaking of the balance in a diet, not the calories, pushing exercise because of my cholesterol issues and for both physical and mental health, letting the kids know Mom and Dad just want to be healthy and you can’t measure that with a tape measure – that health comes in all shapes and sizes.
It’s slow going, though. We are a long way off from undoing it.
Her Mom was clearly loving and supportive. It boggles my mind that those comments could be raised as negative. She seems too sensitive.
That’s the point kids are sensitive. Her mother asking for the bread to be taken away was a clear negative message regardless of the excuse she made.
My mom also did a number on my sister and I. Looking back, I’m a bit disgusted in her attitude towards not only her body but ours too. She’s constantly making comments about how we look and are eating. I’m nearly 30, married and just had my own baby girl…I don’t need someone monitoring my body and food intake unless they also happen to have an MD behind their name.
My mother also commented that I shouldn’t feed my exclusively breast fed 3-4 week (at the time) daughter anytime she wants because she might get fat. At that point, I just had to laugh. She is so out of touch.
I’ve found that since having my baby that I see my body in an entirely different light. I’m a lot kinder and accepting of it. Hopefully I don’t ever make my daughter feel insecure about her body.
I love her attitude! I’ve actually never seen Girls (really!) but I think I’ll check it out.
Boy do I wish my parents had been so accepting and appreciative of our bodies, instead of the constant shaming. I was always thin as a kid – played soccer, ran, and danced ballet from second grade. And my mom was very controlling about what I was allowed to eat, and when (no sugar cereals, afternoon snacks were cucumbers or frozen raw corn & peas, etc). She loosened up as my sisters got into grade school, but I was the oldest and the experiment, I guess.
The worst though…my dad, fat-shaming my mom, at dinner in front of the family. He was very thin and athletic; mom always had a weight problem. He’d make cutting comments about how thin people have self control and control their portions…ouch. My mom would just be silent.
I remember worrying about my belly sticking out when I was 5…was vomiting and starving myself for 2-3 days at a time by 12…hospitalized for anorexia at 18. I don’t date now because I feel like I’m a few pounds too heavy (though I’m not, on any height-weight table; I’m 42 and a size 4) . Feeling like my body’s being judged is just too stressful, it’s not worth it.
I so, so want my son to grow up with a healthy body image!! I wear swimsuits (my mom never did), never insult people’s looks, say he’s beautiful and hansome but that who he is inside is most important…I just hope I don’t inadvertently screw things up :(.
My mom said these actual words to me many times: “If you ate too much just go stick your finger down your throat.”
Needless to say, I’ve had a raging eating disorder and body dysmorphia for my entire life.
I wish that it looks played less a role in general when raising girls, while telling your daughter she is beautiful / perfect is better than telling her she is fat and ugly, it still focuses and highlights how she looks. Why can’t the focus be on their hobbies/ interests, being funny/ clever, whatever really fits? So that something else can be encouraged which has the power to overshadow or take away from the dominance of how a girl or woman looks?