Post 5: Feminist Work

Jameela Jamil is a British-born actress, television/radio presenter, and writer of Indian and Pakistani descent. She plays Tahani Al-Jamil on the NBC show “The Good Place,” has produced her own fashion collection, and has written columns for The Times, Cosmopolitan, and Huffington Post. Her website, entitled “Diary of a Goon,” along with her Twitter account, are both showcases of Jamil’s hilarity.

Not feminist, just funny.

While her humour is infectious, it is not distinctly feminist work. Instead, it is her campaign against body shaming, which has manifested as an Instagram account, @i_weigh. (While social media is not traditionally seen as a mode of storytelling because of the inundation of selfies and filters, it has a great potential for curation). As an eating disorder survivor, she has felt very strongly that society has a toxic view towards women’s bodies and has long been against airbrushing, but it was not until February of this year that she began her self love movement, after coming across a particular photo of the Kardashian sisters.

Value beyond our flesh and bones.

The offense in question.

Jamil has spoken out against Kim Kardashian because of the appetite suppressant lollipops and has called the sisters “double agents of the patriarchy.” In a post on her website, however, Jamil detailed the photo that made her take action. A snap of the famous Kardashian clan popped up on her Instagram Explore page, and each sister was labelled with her weight in Kg. She wrote, “What kind of crazed toxic nonsense is this? What is this post trying to achieve other than to induce anxiety into young women about something so entirely irrelevant? What are we teaching women about our value?,” before responding with her own photo of ‘weight.’ She went on to discuss the fact that men would never be featured in the same way, and this connects to Judith Butler’s argument in “Subjects of Sex/Gender/Desire” when she wrote, If gender is constructed, could it be constructed differently?” (10)

Jamil does believe gender, or at least attitudes toward it, can be changed. In response to the Kardashian photo, she decided to post her own ‘weight,’ but instead of a number, she wrote “I weigh: lovely relationship, great friends, I laugh every day, I love my job….fucking kg.” Women quickly began sending her their own versions, and Jamil was both overwhelmed and inspired.

She weighs everything but a number.

She has posted many of the women’s versions on the page, which is dedicated to making people “feel valuable and see how amazing we are, and look beyond the flesh on our bones.” The account also includes powerful quotes by women and features voices of women of color and women in the LGBTQ and disabled communities. The array of photos show women with all different body types, as well as all different things that punctuate each woman’s life, be it their job, their hobbies, or the trauma they have overcome. The process is pretty simple: Jamil and her team review posts sent in by followers to assure they aren’t attacking themselves or others, and then post them. Jamil stated that the purpose of the account is to “ step as far away from the conversation about our bodies as possible and make acclaim, integrity, achievement, contribution to society and kindness: Values worth shouting about again.” 

Jamil explained that she does not want the account confused for body positivity, not because she disagrees with it, but because it is not about the weight or size of the body, but the sum total of the life of the person, who just happens to have a certain body. This relates to Lindsay King-Miller’s post for Bitch Media, in which she wrote “while I’m in favor of encouraging women to feel confident and happy, I worry that today’s body positivity focuses too much on affirming beauty and not enough on deconstructing its necessity.”

The blog features daily reminders.

As well as different women's views of themselves.

The “I Weigh” account has over 200 thousand followers so far and there has been a slew of articles supporting Jamil’s movement. Jamil has been lauded for unabashedly calling out ‘toxic bullshit’ and was called a ‘force to be reckoned with.’ The comments under the 2000+ pictures are overwhelmingly positive, and there is a real sense of community.

It's all love.

There are also people who criticize Jamil. In 2014, she tweeted critically about Miley Cyrus with an air of slut shaming, which is just as bad as body shaming. Some acknowledge that the tweets were years ago and people can change, but also note that she came off as self righteous in an interview with Channel 4, during which she criticized the Kardashians. There is fair argument for the stance that women shouldn’t attack other women, but at the same time, there is a need for women to call out patriarchal systems.

 I have listened to the interview, and while she does at times come off as the woman with all the answers, she also acknowledges her own complicity in the patriarchy, citing her work as a model and her habit of purchasing trashy magazines. Jamil has more work to do in recognizing her role, and my mind is drawn to a quote by Danielle Dash; “if your feminism is exclusionary, start again and come correct. This ain’t it.” 

She is in no way perfect, but neither is anyone else. She has admitted her own past indiscretions and ignorance on Twitter, and this connects to bell hooks’ idea in “Understanding Patriarchy” that “we cannot dismantle a system while engaging in a collective denial about its impact in our lives” (30).  While the artist cannot be fully separated from the art, I do not believe Jamil’s imperfections take away from the story of @i_weigh. Jamil has created a platform for women to share what makes them, them. The account highlights marginalized voices and works to combat a societal pressure that has policed women for years, and is this way it is an example of a feminist work.

Works cited

Butler, Judith. (1990). “Ch. 1 Subjects of Sex/Gender/Desire” in Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. Routledge: London, UK.

hooks, bell. (2004). “Ch. 2 Understanding Patriarchy” in The Will to Change. Atria Books: New York, NY.

King-Miller, Lindsay. (2014). “Pretty Unnecessary: Taking Beauty Out of Body Positivity.” Bitch Media. https://www.bitchmedia.org/article/pretty-unnecessary-beauty-body-positivity