Bitch, please.

The Devil Wears Prada meets a drill sergeant in this best-selling diet book, Skinny Bitch. Does that recipe sound unappealing to you, too?

Blech. It smacks of chick-lit friendly marketing with that totally hip touch of sass (read: swearing). So what is it really? A vegan diet book. Apparently it’s light on the recipes because it’s chock full of “tough-love for savvy girls”. Huh?

Look, I’m cool with veganism. And I’m all about eating less-processed foods. But it is a bald-faced lie to tell people that veganism will make everyone—no matter their body type or genetic profile—skinny. There can be health benefits that come along with cutting out meat and dairy, but that does not automatically result in elongated torsos, designer sunglasses, and a Hollywood-ready little black dress (right, front cover?).

Also, reading the title feels like chewing on tinfoil to me. There’s a lame smugness to it—it assumes that all non-skinny women are jealous of skinny ones, that all skinny women are bitches, that becoming skinny automatically lends you an air of superiority. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

It’s dumb female-to-female hostility dressed up as faux empowerment, and to me, that goes down worse than last night’s barbecued seitan.

-A.I.

2 comments March 25th, 2008