On Kim Kardashian and Her Pregnancy Weight
It’s no secret that I love Kim Kardashian. I love her so much I made a nickname for her: Kimmy K. I love her so much, I check her Instagram up to 50 times a day. I love her so much that if she doesn’t leave the house, I know it, and want to call 311 in New York to ask them why.
I know that my love of Kimmy K is irrational. I know I’m supposed to say that she’s vapid. I know I’m supposed to say she does nothing. I know I’m supposed to be like, “oh my god, isn’t it weird that Kimmy K makes half of her money from, like, making appearances in Arabic countries that are oppressive to women?” I know that I’m supposed to get angry when Kimmy K has an entire hour of television devoted to her online shopping habits. But I can’t help myself, and the truth is, I don’t want to.
Unlike Kate Middleton, who has to be thrifty with her wardrobe and pretend that she gives a shit when a terminally ill cancer patient gives her a teddy bear, Kimmy K is not bound by country or honor or decency. She is not a public figure. No one expects her to be a role model. She can get married for 90 days, and then get divorced, and then release a sex tape, and then wear a fur coat made from an animal on the extinction list, and then say something ignorant about poverty, and everyone will be like, “Oh, fucking Kim Kardashian, why is she famous? She’s such a piece of trash.” But they will still look at pictures of her.
Kim Kardashian is modern-day America. What does Kim Kardashian stand for? Everything. What race is Kim Kardashian? Unclear. What are her thoughts on gay marriage? For it. What are her thoughts on the war in Afghanistan? For it. What religion is Kim Kardashian? For it. What are her thoughts on women? Love them. What are her thoughts on men? Love them. What did Kim Kardashian eat for breakfast this morning? A bacon cheeseburger. What does Kim Kardashian drive? What you aspire to drive. What does Kim Kardashian look like? The hottest girl you’ve ever seen. She’s like a non-stop, 24-hour a day advertisement of the American dream.
If Michelle Obama flounced around in a new $10,000 outfit every day, the media — and by extension, the country — would be outraged. “Who does she think she is?” we’d ask ourselves. “Above the rest of us?”
But Kim Kardashian can tweet a picture of herself, and be like, “Top Lanvin, skirt Givenchy, bracelets Chanel, diamonds from Africa, shoes Giuseppe Gianotti, OMG I LOVE MY OUTFIT TODAY XOXOXOXO” and we’re like, “Doesn’t she look so fat now that she’s pregnant?”
Which brings me the only form of criticism that Kimmy K herself doesn’t seem immune to. And that’s criticism about her body weight, especially now that she’s pregnant.
Yesterday, a friend sent me a video in which TMZ tried to ascertain how much weight Kimmy K has gained since she started showing her pregnancy. He thought that I would find it hilarious; I was shocked by the vitriol. “She says she weighs 140 pounds?” asked some hippie looking dude.
Then a terrible human being with blonde hair cackled, “That’s HA-STER-I-CAL. Does she not know that we have eyeballs?”
My first thought was a selfish one. Usually, I weigh somewhere around 135 pounds. I’m not a stick figure, but I’m certainly thin. If Kimmy K is a whale at 140 pounds, what does that say about me? It says that I am fucking angry as hell about the way that women’s weight is portrayed in the media.
Because look, at 30, after years of feeling pretty badly about my weight, I’ve finally settled into a comfort zone with it. It’s one of the benefits of no longer being a hormonal lunatic. I exercise regularly, and I eat, within reason, pretty delicious food. There are times when I feel like a hefer — mostly when I’m in a dressing room with my mom, my sister, or one of my aunts, all of whom are complete waifs — and there are times when I still punish myself for not being impossibly thin.
But there are many nights when I wake up, and my boyfriend is cradling my big ass, and murmuring in his sleep, “Mmm, this is nice.” On those nights, I fucking feel like a queen. I buy clothes that actually fit, rather than clothes in the size I’d like to be; when I’m comfortable in what I’m wearing, when things aren’t cutting into my side or bunching around my thighs, my weight becomes a non-issue. I spend a lot more time thinking about my career than what I’m eating.
But the messages women get from the media, even in this wave of “new feminism,” are just as horrible as they’ve ever been. Like who the fuck are these people sitting in a room, telling us that a pregnant woman looks disgusting and fat, and making us compare ourselves to them? Kimmy K might have gained a little bit — or maybe even a lot — of weight, but she’s fucking carrying a child. Women are supposed to gain weight when they’re pregnant. That’s like a biological imperative.
The problem with absorbing these messages, I think, is that it pushes us women in two directions. We either starve ourselves, or we diet and binge, fluctuating wildly in weight. When someone tells you that you can’t have something because it will make you fat and disgusting and the object of ridicule, you want it even more.
You start to set up a reward and punishment system in your brain based on food. If you get through this week, you can eat pizza on Friday night. But mmm, the pizza tastes so good. So you eat six slices. Then the next day, you try not to eat, because you feel so guilty. By the time you do eat again, you’re so fucking hungry that you binge. Or something like that. I don’t fucking think this is a good example, but I think you know what I mean.
But what if we choose to reject not the entire media — which would be impossible — but at least, to start small, the way the media is reporting on Kimmy K’s pregnancy? What if we took the reports about her weight, and looked at it like dead data — like the name of the designer she’s wearing that we can’t afford, or the car we can’t buy, not a number that applies to reality? What if we hear a man talk about how fat she looks, and respond by asking them how many inches long their penis is? And what if we demand that the women on TMZ, while they report on Kimmy K’s size, are required themselves to divulge their own weights. Then you’d be hearing a lot more, “fuck you, even six months pregnant, she’s still 10 pounds skinnier than me.”
I personally think Kimmy K is really embracing her pregnancy weight. She is stepping out in these super tight dresses that show off every bump, ever curve, every roll of fat. I don’t know if she’s intelligent enough to realize what she’s saying to America, but I think we women should be intelligent enough to hear it. “Look at me, bitches,” she’s saying. “I’m gaining weight, but I’m still fucking as beautiful as ever. I dare you to tear your eyes away from me.” And we won’t, I can guarantee it.
