My Eleven “Extra” Kilograms Are Heavier than My Master’s Thesis

Living in South Korea as a Young Woman (4):

The Experience of Having a Female Body

By Do Yeong-won

Published: May 10, 2016

Translate by Marilyn Hook

Editor’s note: To begin a new feminist discourse in 2016, Ilda is running a series on “Living as a Young Woman in South Korea.” The series receives support from the Korea Foundation for Women’s “Funding for Gender-Equal Society.”

“Wow, why have you gained so much weight?!”

Let’s start with what I’m doing these days. I wake up around 9:30 A.M. every morning. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I do weight training for about an hour and a half and ride a bike for an hour. Then I come home, shower, study French for about an hour, attend French classes at a private institute for two hours, review what I learned for another hour or so, come home, and end the day’s activities with dinner.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I go to an Oriental medicine weight-loss clinic and spend two hours getting carboxytherapy (the injecting of medical carbon dioxide to treat various ailments, which is now used to remove cellulite) and anti-obesity acupuncture. I attend a feminism seminar every Tuesday evening, and occasionally do volunteer work at a human rights organization.

Considering that I’m a person without a steady income, my lifestyle is quite extravagant. But it isn’t fun. When I was in grad school, my life was a passionate political and academic battle in opposition to certain gendered or racialized powers-that-be monopolizing the discourse about human rights. But these days, my main opponent is the 11 kilograms that I gained while writing my thesis. How petty I have become!

I record what I eat in a diet journal ⓒ Do Yeong-won

Last December, my parents flew out to Glasgow to attend my graduation and travel around the U.K. with me as a guide. When I came to meet them at the airport, the first thing my mother said when she laid eyes on me was, “Wow, why have you gained so much weight?!”

What I felt was almost culture shock. At that moment, I felt like the reality of Korea, which I had been carefully avoiding, was hitting me like a tidal wave. Unfortunately, my intuition had been correct. The strongest message that my reunion with Korean society has given me over the past three months is exactly that: “Wow, why have you gained so much weight?!”

A society that tells you to be ashamed of gaining weight

In February of this year, I came back to Korea in time for a relative’s wedding. The first thing I did when I arrived was go to a department store to get clothes nice enough to wear to a wedding. It was quite a stressful trip. I couldn’t find anything that fit, besides oversize coats. In every store, my mom and the clerk would put their heads together and try to figure out which style would best hide my chubby legs. The situation was awkward and embarrassing. It is true that I’m plump. But is that something I have to hide? It seemed strange to me that no one doubted this for a second.

Like a person who had collected debt here and there and then run away, I went around getting scolded—from the department store to the oriental medicine clinic, from the oriental medicine clinic to the gym. When my mother dragged me to the oriental medicine clinic, I had an InBody analysis and then sat down in the doctor’s office. While explaining the areas of my body that have fat and how much I have in total, the doctor kept repeating, “The problem is serious. You must lose weight.” I wondered if this was necessary to say to a person who had come all the way to a doctor’s office to lose weight.

I also resumed weight training with the personal trainer I had been working out with before I went to the U.K. Perhaps because she was someone who knew what I used to look like, she teased me from the first time she saw me in my workout clothes. I should explain that, after spending 2 years in U.K., lighthearted jokes about appearance always seem rude to me, and I don’t dismiss them as jokes. Maybe because I put on a somewhat serious expression and called her out on it, the trainer said something a few days later that has stayed in my memory for a long time: “You don’t seem embarrassed at all about having gained weight.”

With my aunt at the wedding, after I finally borrowed some clothes. ⓒ Do Yeong-won

There are a few reasons why I think I have to lose weight. As a person who wanted to be sinewy and aimed for toughness, but whose body swelled due to bad habits for a long time, it was natural for me to want to lose weight and build my muscles back up. My health was quite poor by the time I finished my thesis. Sitting down for 16 hours a day caused the skin on my thighs to turn black and gave me such serious pain in my arms and legs that I couldn’t sit straight. You could call the impulse to begin exercising and lose weight a kind of survival instinct.

Of course there are also less important reasons. I can’t wear some of my favorite clothes, and when I buy new ones that fit, I don’t like the way they look. And it is unpleasant to see pictures with my friends and be surprised that my body looks awkward, which is not how I felt when the pictures were taken.

But I should add something here. There is a difference between saying that I want to lose weight and saying that I don’t like the way I look. I must confess that I didn’t understand this either for a long time. Luckily, I came to think like this because I had the opportunity to live in a completely different way.

Female college students seen only as “pretty younger students”

Glasgow, the U.K. city where I attended grad school, is a cold city. In the height of summer the temperature barely gets over 70 degrees, and in winter it hovers around freezing and there is a lot of windy rain. Most people wear a hooded jacket and heavy clothing all year except for summer. It’s hard to guess people’s gender by their clothing. When you go on a date, even if you dress in heavy layers, no one complains that you’re not trying hard enough to be feminine.

Korea’s winter is at least as cold as most countries, but its busy streets are still full of women wearing miniskirts and thing silk stockings. When I explained this fact to Glaswegians and showed them a picture of Korea’s street fashion, they said, “I wouldn’t be able to stand it. Maybe they don’t feel the cold because they’re from a cold country? It must be nice to be Korean!” Of course, people have the right to wear what they want regardless of the weather. But it seemed hard for Glaswegians to imagine a coercive social atmosphere that makes so many women wear miniskirts even in the biting cold.

Luckily, the academics weren’t a problem for me. I would leave my room in the morning and not come back until the library closed, so I didn't bother with the annoyance of makeup. I started to leave my purse at home and carry my books and papers stuffed into a hiking backpack. (Actually, most students wore backpacks. The books and papers they had to carry around were too heavy otherwise.) There was no cause for me to hear comments like “You could be pretty too if you tried” from anyone.

The first meeting of graduating and new members of a University of Glasgow human rights group. The author is on the far right. ⓒ Do Yeong-won

Graduate study and intellectual exchange with my peers were slow-going for me, but did motivate an awakening. My decision to study human rights and international politics were a wise choice in this respect as well. Without exception, all of my peers were non-mainstream women, non-white people, LGBTQ people, or human rights activists who were once refugees, and each was fighting an important fight just like mine against sexism and gender roles. Neither before nor since have I seen people so tireless and passionate in their pursuit of ideals. When we met up, we would talk all night, and we founded a human rights club, and hosted seminars. They trusted me and understood my struggle. And they gave me unwavering supporting in my process of drawing out a new self that I had not even known about because of the oppression I had faced as a woman and a part of the LGBTQ community. As long as people have the freedom to pursue their own values, and there’s no telling how strong they can become.

At this moment, how many talented female college students are being forced into the role of “pretty younger girl student”? The fact that in my undergrad days I was expected to play the role of “cute youngest girl student” in the student club I was part of - this was always clear to me. When I wore clothes that showed my figure I was complimented, and one older student once told me to do [pop group] Kara’s “butt dance.” I was exempted from certain tasks because I was the only female member. At the same time, when I complained that an older male student’s suggestion that I “take away the V-card” of another male student before he left for military service made me uncomfortable, I was scolded for being too sensitive.

I’m not stupid. I knew at the time that all of this was unfair. But at the same time, I think it was hard for me to imagine how I could be with the freedom to explore all possibilities, as a student who wasn’t pressured to conform to sexist gender roles.

How did beauty become the first priority for women?

Most of my work involves writing, and I have an easier time concentrating at night. The oriental medicine doctor has repeatedly ordered me to change my sleeping patterns, saying that it’s only possible to lose weight if I go to sleep early. When I showed her my diet diary full of light lunches and filling dinners, she told me I had to eat large lunches and small dinners to lose weight. Though I explained that I couldn’t change my habit of eating light lunches because that ensured I could concentrate in French class, she said in a firm tone, “Be that as it may, you have to change it.”

I understand that she should give me advice on what kinds of eating and sleeping habits are most effective for weight loss. But all lifestyles have their own reasons for being. Is losing weight so important that it must come before all other considerations? Is losing weight women’s only real “job”?

The funny thing is that you hear this kind of comment everywhere. Trainers emphasize, “Only people who put their diet first are able to lose weight.” A life in which weight loss is the first priority sounds pretty empty to me. Of course, individuals have the right to decide their own values. But why is it that a majority of women are not allowed to prioritize anything other than beauty?

I’ve decided to lose weight and am controlling my diet in order to this, but it is very difficult to maintain a strict dietary regimen when you are writing something that requires you to think deeply. If my diet interferes with my writing, I will of course prioritize the latter. In that way, my trainer’s comment that I “don’t seem embarrassed at all about having gained weight” is completely true. If I could go back and do it again, I was would still choose to focus on writing my thesis instead of maintaining my weight.

Suddenly, I miss my friends from Glasgow. Here, there are only people who care more about the 11 kilograms I gained than any accomplishments I may have. What kind of encouragement would my Glasgow friends be giving me?

My studio apartment during grad school in the U.K. Not having a mirror helped me concentrate on studying. ⓒ Do Yeong-won

I want to be true to myself more than I want to be beautiful

It isn’t only the mass media that propagates the tiresome message that you’ll love yourself more if you are thinner. On Internet communities and social networking sites, people who’ve successfully lost weight and have found their self-confidence raised recommend weight loss to others with total sincerity. I want to ask them: isn’t it a problem if you can only love yourself when you’re thin?

“Jibangi,” the cute animated character who symbolizes fat in the advertisements of one obesity clinic, has become quite popular. But what is clever about these advertisements is, by showing Jibangi clinging to various parts of thin women, they only show thin women even though the commercials are about overweight women trying to lose weight. And these are very symbolic ads. In their world, even though there are medically obese women, there are no visually obese women.

I wonder if this worldview isn’t part of a context that endlessly emphasizes that “If a woman is fat, it’s because she doesn't take care of herself,” or “There are no ugly women, only women who don’t pretty themselves up as they should.” It’s the idea that a woman is naturally a being who is beautiful and thin, and anything that makes her not thin is not really a part of her, but something else (that must be shed). Maybe, in Korean society, the problem is not so much the dislike for fat people as it is an effort to deny that fatness is a natural attribute of some people.

When I decided to lose weight, people took that as me declaring war on my surplus weight. But my 11 kilograms is not a foreign enemy. It is a part of me, and my physique is the result of me faithfully pursuing the life I chose. And now I have chosen healthy eating habits and regular exercise, and if I successfully maintain this, my body will be, in the same way, a reflection of my lifestyle.

If I have to choose a way for my body to exist, I want to be true to myself more than I want to be beautiful. Why wouldn’t I? After all, beauty standards are made with no regard for my will, and fulfilling them will never be easy.

*Original article: http://ildaro.com/sub_read.html?uid=7462