Body hostility wins on the internet yet again

Arielle Andrews, Contributing Writer 

This article is not about Lizzo. However, we can’t start a discussion about body hostility without mentioning one of the most famous faces of the body positivity movement. Until fairly recently, global popstar and body positivity activist, Lizzo, was at the forefront of empowering messages of self-love and led a hearty attack against toxic diet culture. 

Unfortunately, this opened her up to vicious online attacks and comments about her weight and health. This would only take a turn for the precarious when news broke that the singer was being sued by former dancers for creating and participating in a hostile work environment.

I’m not interested in Lizzo’s lawsuit — as disturbing as the situation is. As I said, this article is not about Lizzo. How people used Lizzo’s alleged misbehavior as a means to justify online fat shaming not just towards Lizzo, but to the body positivity movement as a whole is what interested me about this case. 

While some can argue Lizzo’s backlash was vindicated, it’s hard to make sense of the blatant hate and fatphobia that rampaged in the aftermath. 

That is until you consider what we will call, “body hostility.” 

It’s a term I like to use to describe the malicious and persuasive social movement aimed to attack, demean and destroy non-aesthetic bodies. 

With body hostility, not just fat bodies are shamed — it’s also bodies “too thin,” disabled or unconventional. Any body deemed unholy to look at is up for ransom. 

 That “unholiness” is at the root of body hostility. 

If body positivity encourages the love and acceptance of all bodies, body hostility encourages the opposite. If diet culture is the social expectations of how you should look, and body-shaming is the criticism you receive if you don’t meet them, body hostility is the rampant and persistent ideology and movement urging people to hide and destroy bodies that don’t meet desired aesthetics. 

It’s the devil in your ear telling online trolls to write mean comments on a disabled person’s posts or to wear the baggy sweatshirt to hide a few pounds. 

Body hostility not only tells you that your body is wrong but that it must be destroyed in order to achieve social harmony. It’s not just that, though — body hostility creates immorality with non-aesthetic bodies and demands that upright citizens eradicate them. 

Lizzo can and should be held accountable for her actions if they are found to be true, but the effect body hostility has had on the downfall of her career is fascinating. In the body hostility phenomenon, not only will you be punished for breaking norms, you deserve to be punished. Your punishment will be painted as an act of grace. 

Proponents of body hostility find righteousness in beauty and appealing to the designated beauty standards. If you dare to look different than what is deemed appropriate, then you are owed hostility and shame. Hence the term, “body hostility.” 

Body hostility is not just external. It’s the internal guilt and rage people feel against their own bodies for looking “abnormal.” It is what leads people to feel like sinners in the mirror and to constantly apologize for their own existence. 

Body hostility is so present and so persuasive in our culture that most people won’t see anything wrong with it. Beauty is our magnum opus, it’s what all humans should strive for. It makes sense, then, to the unrefined mind, to attack those who “evade” it. 

In doing this, some people feel justified in their hate campaigns, feigning that they’re just helping others out. 

The internet was quick to remind Lizzo, and others like her, that she was far from beauty standards, and body hostility was swift to punish her. 

I often wonder if we will ever move far enough away from the grip body hostility has on the modern consciousness, or will we always feel the need to justify our own bodies’ right to simply exist? 

In this life, it’s a sin to be ugly, apparently. Or, rather, it’s a sin to have someone find you ugly. Body hostility looms ahead, reminding us insistently we all have the potential to be sinners.