EXACTLY. With Florence Given. Episode 15: BODY IMAGE: Living Unapologetically with Stephanie Yeboah

Floss: [00:00:00] Hello. Thank you so much for listening to exactly with me, Florence Given. I've been going on a real journey on the podcast through subjects, such as feminism, the internet and social media sexual empowerment, activism, and advocacy. And what I've learned is that nuance is everything. That's why I wanted to this podcast in the first place.
I absolutely love people and I love that our lives don't exist in the back of my binary's and find the social media. We will assist a gray area and I love people. I love talking to people, I just want to have honest conversations with fascinating guests. And if you're just joining me welcome, and oh my God, what a treat you have in store for you today?
I'm joined by the absolute icon by Stephanie Yeboah. We're going to be speaking all about body image and beauty standards. And as always in the fourth episode of this mini series of bodies. We're going to be opening up the conversation to you. You can send me a message or a voice note by our podcasts WhatsApp app, plus 4 4 7 8 9 0 3 0 2 6 [00:01:00] 6 5.
And just real quick, I want to let you know that I have announced my first ever live show for this podcast. Exactly will be going live in London on may the 26th. My guests will be the one and only Munroe Bergdorf. We'll be live in conversation, taking your questions and having the right laugh. You can go to www.thepodcastshowlondon.Com for more details and to buy your tickets.
I'm so excited to speak to Stephanie today. We've been following each other on Instagram for a few years. Not only is she so fucking smart with such empowering content, she's written a book. Uh, she's incredible. She's also just an absolute Ray of sunshine on my instagram feed. And there's no more gorgeous sight than Stephanie in her colorful clothes doing the most outrageously amazing poses on the street. It lights up my day and I just highly suggest you follow her for that alone. And then of course, all the incredible content that she [00:02:00] does. In her book Fattily Ever After: a Black Fat Girl's guide to living life unapologetically, Stephanie shares stories of how misogynoir, the experience of both misogyny and racism interact with fatphobia.
She discusses the role of black women throughout history, while touching on fetishization loneliness and how black women have been marginalized in the media, even within the body positivity movement that they started. I couldn't do a mini series on body image without acknowledging the unique and pernicious role, the white supremacy plays in the anti-fat discourse.
Stephanie also talks a lot in her book and on social media about eating disorders and her relationship with food. I read an article where she said that her doctor and her parents put her in weight Watchers at 13. Absolutely wild and 14 years old is around the age where I started to develop my eating disorder.
Being a teenage girl is when you first really kind of become aware about your body and its role in the world. A woman's body as she grows up, becomes farther away from the ideal and a man's body gets closer. And I think [00:03:00] it's such an odd time. It's such a crucial time as a teenager when you. So much importance on your, on your body image and in high school and with social media, it just kind of heightens that competition to the point that you never really escaped this beauty pageant that no one really consented to enter.
I'm. So looking forward to peeling back some of the layers with Stephanie today, and I think I'm going to learn a lot from her, I can't wait. 
Stephanie. Thank you so much for coming in today. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to chat to you properly today. Before we get into everything I want to talk to you about, I'm going to ask you my five questions, just quick fire.
So the first thing that comes to your mind, okay. The first one is what's one thing that sets your soul on fire. 
Stephanie Yeboah: Um, Jason Mamoa. I am obsessed. 
Gorgeous, man. 
Floss: Okay. Okay. 
Stephanie Yeboah: What about him? He's you know what, when I, anytime I describe it, I just, I can feel the feminism just leaving my body. Cause I'm like, he's just so manly, and he's got a beard and he's six foot six.
He's just so cave man-ish, [00:04:00] he's just a beautiful Adonis of a man. Yeah. Gorgeous. 
Floss: Second question. If you could wear one outfit for the rest of your life and look that would define you forever, what would that outfit be? 
And it doesn't have to be comfortable.
Oh, okay. So the outfit that I think would define me would be, um, a corduroy Navy blue boiler suit. Oh, I love overalls. I love jumpsuits. It's easy to wear and yeah. That and some polka dot converses.
Can we get the details? Is it cap sleeve, long sleeve? 
Stephanie Yeboah: cap sleeve. Yeah. Cap sleeve. 
Floss: Gorge. Love it. Okay, next question. What's something that people frequently misunderstand or get wrong about you if they don't know who you are, if they don't know your character, like first impressions.
Stephanie Yeboah: Oh, do you know what first impression is? I always get the, I am intimidating or aggressive, which you know, that is its own wormhole to kind of go down. But I have received that a few times, like, like events and stuff, and I'm just like, oh ok, I'm just in the corner, just one of my own business, but okay. Let unpack that later.
Floss: Yeah. I think almost all the black women that have come on my show have said that. Yeah. Yeah. We can get into that in the main [00:05:00] part of the interview, which I really want to go into. Um, so the next question is finish this sentence. I'm still a work in progress when it comes to:
Stephanie Yeboah: when it comes to self-love. Um, as much as I, you know, talk about it online and advocate for it, it is an everyday thing.
And it's something that I'm still trying to work through, especially now that I'm in a relationship, I'm finding that a lot of old insecurities are coming up. So. 
Floss: Yeah, because they're your mirror when you're single, I find that it's actually easier to not have to face yourself because you're not being reflected back to yourself at the time.
Stephanie Yeboah: Absolutely. It's wild. So I'm like, Hmm. I've got, still got some more growth to do here. Yeah. 
Floss: Okay. Another thing I really want to get into, I'll just go to the next one. Uh, when was the last time you majorly cringed at yourself. 
Stephanie Yeboah: Oh, I wouldn't say cringe. I'm actually quite proud of it, but a couple I was showing out at a steps concert. I love steps. And when they put 5, 6, 7, 8 on, I was dancing in my seat, I [00:06:00] remember every single bit of choreography. And at the time your body memory and muscle memory, muscle memory was like, yes, from like eight years old. And then, but when I looked back the next one ID stories, I was like, I must've been the only black person there, I was like oh my god! 
That's actually 
Floss: just brought me a lot of joy.
Stephanie Yeboah: So love, steps, and love them.
Floss: okay. So I want to get straight into the interview. How do you feel talking about your experiences with your body on social media? Because I think there is, there is a huge payoff in that you liberate other people, but it it's really fucking vulnerable to talk about your body because you do put yourself out there.
How does that feel? 
Um, in the beginning, I was incredibly nervous. Um, not only, you know, putting myself out there as a darker skin, fat woman and talking about all of these issues and highlighting issues that really make me feel vulnerable and scared and afraid, but there were a few intersections that made it quite difficult.
So one coming from, you know, a west African background where you're kind of, you know, vulnerability and being [00:07:00] open about stuff like that is not. Encouraged, you know, we're kind of encouraged to keep it inside and to not talk about stuff and not go to therapy. And so, you know, um, being so open online, knowing that like family members are going to read what I'm saying and 
what you've been taught.
Small and not, not 
say anything. And then the second thing is this trope of strong black women. So nothing has to phase us nothing, you know, always keep stiff upper lip, all of these kinds of things. We don't talk about our mental health and the issues that we have within our social communities and things.
And so being very open and saying, look, I have depression and I have had like eating disorders and all of these things was very. New. And I think I was more scared about how people would respond to it, as opposed to me just talking about it. On one hand, it was very freeing. Actually, when I started writing on my blog to just let go of every single feeling.
Just put it all out there for everyone to read. But then on the other hand, [00:08:00] it was like the reaction was what I was really nervous about. But what I've learned is that there was so much strength and being vulnerable, um, online and talking about the things that you wish you could change or talking about the things that you kind of want to.
Grow in and it's bittersweet because you start realizing that there are so many other people that are going through the same thing. So you don't feel as othered. You still feel othered, but as a marginalized community, you feel a sense of like collectiveness. Um, but then it is also upsetting that there are so many people that are going through these things and not the standard of beauty is what it is.
But now I'm just like, yeah, just stretch marks on Instagram. 
Yeah, I love your fit picks in the middle of the street and I fucking love your poses in the middle leg up. 
Stephanie Yeboah: Absolutely. Don't give a shit, don't give a shit. Love it. 
Exactly. I love it. I love it.
Floss: You've said before that you've had eating disorders, I've had eating disorders as well. And yeah, I was wondering what your [00:09:00] experience with how people reacted to you even saying you had an eating disorder except I've seen, it's quite different with, with women 
who have fat. Yeah. 
Stephanie Yeboah: Oh, it's wild. You get mocked, you get laughed at people don't believe you because they're like, I think with some disorders, people still see it as like the physical thing. Um, they have to like realize that it's also a mental health issue as well. So with me. It took me a long time to kind of realize that I had an eating disorder because for me, I just saw it as doing what was right.
Doing what was best for my body. So I went through in my late teens, early twenties, I went through this whole thing of trying to lose as much weight as possible because I thought this is what I needed to do is that parents, do you know what? It wasn't so much parents, it was family members had aunties and uncles.
I had aunties ordering me things from other countries. That weren't regulated, like medically and say, oh yeah, take these, take these pills. Um, it w uh, appetite suppressants, you know, these things that will help you do X, Y, Z, and I just took [00:10:00] them. And as I started losing weight, I started being complimented, oh my gosh, she looks so good. Whatever you're doing, keep it up. And then from there, I graduated on to doing other things within the eating disorder, kind of spectrum bulemia, things like that, but it didn't clock that. I had the disorder because to me it was like, well, this is what fat people need to do. Like we, when it comes to dieting and exercise in my head, I was like, well, because I'm because I'm bigger.
I just have to do more. I have to push myself more to lose the most weight. Um, and what, what I was doing. Uh, essentially damaging my body. Like I always tell the story of, um, I think it was my 23rd birthday and I wanted a bikini body quote unquote, and I decided to lose like four stone for my birthday, so I could go to Barcelona and for my birthday and I lost it in four months.
And the ways that I did it was so terrible, but in my head, I was like, this is fine. 
Floss: This is what I have to do. This is why I have [00:11:00] power. This is strength. Yes, exactly. Like determination. 
Stephanie Yeboah: This is, you know, discipline and. I remember being quite nervous, you know, late, like years down the line. When I started talking about it, I was very nervous about saying that I had it because I didn't feel like I would be believed.
Um, and yes, there were trolls and there were people that came out and they were like, how like first of all, black people don't have eating disorders, which is false. We, we absolutely do. We are just not countered or represented. Um, and fat people can also have it as well, but it's disguised as a detox or it's disguised as like weight loss and all of that kind of stuff.
And it was one of the reasons why as much as I absolutely love her, I was a bit disappointed in what Lizzo did regarding her detox shakes smoothie thing, because while she had good intentions and I know that she wasn't going down that route, using smoothies and detox, detoxing things is such a gateway [00:12:00] way to go into the eating cause that's how I went into it.
I started doing that thinking, you know, um, This is good for me and not knowing, you know, basic biology that stipulates, that the only thing that cleans your body is your liver and your kidneys. You don't need, you don't need super greens, that kind of stuff. 
Floss: It's those words isn't it- the detox, the cleanse that make it sound like you're purging yourself of all sins. And that's, what's interesting. Weight Watchers and all that, that kind of stuff. And slimming world is I think calories are actually called sins. And it is, it is, um, Naomi Wolf in the beauty myth does compare it to a cult because we're all talking about what are you eating? What are you watching? Uh, and it's when we all kind of keep each other in this. And even like the ritual of being weighed at a slimming world, it's like a public shaming. So everyone looks and it's like, it's yeah. It's, it's very odd. 
Stephanie Yeboah: It's horrible. Like the last time I was in that group was 2000 and, uh, 2016. And I remember joining slim in world and it was one of the most toxic [00:13:00] environments.
Like after three weeks I stopped going because I was like the shaming, the fat phobia, people are saying oh, are you going to buy. Uh, slimming world veggie mail, you know, that has less calories than that. Maybe you shouldn't do that. And I remember one group I finished and I just cried because it was like, I think I put on like two pounds or something and there was this kind of like unspoken, shaming type thing. And it's just, it's the, oh, it's absolutely horrible.
Floss: I feel it like, even you saying that and then, and then measuring that on your worth is just horrible. And then the stuff that you do to like to compensate for that shame, you be, you, you bend you parch, whatever.
It's self punishment with your body. It's all about control and it's all about controlling. If I can control this suit that I live in, then that's reflective of my worth. And it's just, it's, it's so hard to when you're in it to see it as something that's damaging you because it's just [00:14:00] reflected everywhere, even in.
Like how we see different people experience the world. And I feel like thin people, sometimes we just like to pretend that everyone's like, oh no but you're beautiful. Of course. It's just this it's just that. But then actually, how would you feel. Um, you, and it's almost like in knowing that you wouldn't want to be treated the way fat person is treated. You have to acknowledge that there is a difference there. That's where it comes into place. That we can pretend that, um, looks don't matter and all of this stuff, but they fucking do. And there is a hierarchy and I think women know inherently that they are treated differently when they are bigger. 
Stephanie Yeboah: Yeah. It's really shit. And I think it gets very frustrating when the people that are affected by it the most seem to be silenced the most as well. It almost feels like we're being. Um, a bit of a problem. If we bring up things like fatphobia, like, there are so many people that still don't even believe that that is a thing because treating fat people like shit is so normalized and it's so ingrained within the fabric of our being that the very possibility that it [00:15:00] could have anything to do with hatred or any kind of prejudice is like absurd. The ways in which harm is targeted at fat people is like one of the last acceptable forms of hate crime, because there are loads of situations where if you speak about people that exist in different bodies, it's seen as really horrible. You can't say this, you can't say that. But when it comes to fat people, it's like, it's free reign.
It's like open season. 
Floss: Yeah. Do you think that's because we assigned morals to it. So if you are, um, if you are a fat person, then you, you chose this. This is who you are. You are a bad person because you make bad choices about your daily habits. And I don't do that. So you deserve it. 
Absolutely. We make characatures out of fat people.
Stephanie Yeboah: Yeah. Yeah. We deserve it because this is how we've chosen to show up. We are, we lack discipline. We, um, Uh, I mean every single excuse for people to justify their fat phobia, they don't consider the fact that a lot of it might be to do with medication. They may not [00:16:00] understand that a lot of it may have to do with poverty and the fact that cheaper food and chicken and chips and all of these kinds of stuff, when people have grown up on it, because they can't afford to buy fruit and vegetables as often, or as cheaply as the, like the greasy food and stuff that comes into it as well. People don't realize that a lot of it has to do with like mental health. So like we keep seeing all of these targeted ads and, you know, um, things that the government are trying to do to tackle obesity and all of that kind of stuff, not one, uh, suggestion has been made to tackle mental health and maybe, you know, the ways in which you speak to fat people.
The ways in which the, you know, unable to process things that they're going through can lead to, um, eating or over eating, to fill a gap. Like it, it is an actual thing, and it's just annoying that mental health isn't taken into account. Um, because the more that you try and shame people into losing weight, like that's not proven to work. Like it will have the opposite effect. It will probably. [00:17:00] Allow us to kind of like eat more because it's an emotional thing and eating is very emotional. And that is one of the things that is never really spoken about when it comes to tackling obesity. It's like, let's just focus on this physical person and let's not give a shit about actually what they're going through, how this makes them feel.
Um, because you cannot shame someone into losing weight. Um, and have it be healthy. If you do want to lose weight, that's fine. But you always have to approach it from a place of loving yourself. Because if you approach it from a place of like hating yourself, like I did you wake up every morning, you look in the mirror, you hate your body.
You want to lose that fat as quickly as possible, which then goes down the dangerous obsessive mode. But if you already love yourself and you're like, oh, let me just lose a few pounds. Cause like, I don't know, my knees are hurting or something. You there's no time limit. You don't have to do it within a certain amount of time.
You can treat your body well when it's healthier self care. Yeah. 
Floss: Yeah. Well, that leads me onto my next question. When [00:18:00] was your bubble burst moment? Did you have a bubble bath moment or was it slow and gradual? Because like you're saying you've, you've been through all of this horrible stuff and the bullying and having eating disorders and being in the cult that a slimming world.
Um, when was your bubble burst moment when you were like I'm going to change something. 
Stephanie Yeboah: Yeah. So my bubble burst moment actually was when I went to Barcelona because I ended up losing that weight. I lost like four and a half stone and four months doing terrible things. And I actually remember, I bought this like pink bikini and I wore it and I had like, my stomach was flattish. I think I was probably like a size 14 and went onto the beach. You know, I was expecting to have people looking at me coming up to me, staring, heads turning... I was on the beach for four hours. Not one person even noticed that I was there and I was like, it's like, I've done all of this work. And that's when it clicked. I was like, I didn't do this for me. I did this because I wanted people to notice me. I did it because I wanted to be seen as attractive. I wanted men to like me. I wanted [00:19:00] to fit in, but I went onto that beach and nobody cared. I was just one out of like a thousand people on that beach or whatever. And I remember going back to the hotel room and at that time I was very, very ill because of the stuff that I had been doing.
Um, like I had like stomach issues and like throat issues and I was so ill and I just remember being, looking in the mirror and I was like, what have I done to my body? Like, I have put my body through all, all of this trauma and all it's ever done is try and keep me alive. And that was when I was like, do you know what?
I need to apologize to my body for putting it through all of this stuff. And instead of apologizing on behalf of my body to other people, I actually had to apologize to my body and see it as, see it as its own entity. Like see it as an entity that has its own brain and has its own heart. And you know, is the recipient of all of this abuse that I've been giving it.
And that was when I came back to the UK, after my birthday, I was like, I need to learn how to love my body because [00:20:00] my body is struggling. I'm ill. It keeps trying to keep me alive. And all I'm doing is pushing, like putting it down, punishing it, and it doesn't deserve it. And I remember writing a letter to my body and I was like, look, I'm I treated it like it was his own person. I was like, I'm so sorry that I've been abusing you and doing this and doing that. And that was kind of like the light bulb moment for me, where I realized that I had like so many issues, I realized. The weight loss was not fun. Like losing weight is not fun. I'm sorry. It's not, I hate the gym. 
Floss: It's your control and then you feel awful. When did I stick to these ridiculous regimens? Yes, 
Stephanie Yeboah: it's disgusting. And like it's so, yeah, but losing weight is not fun. And I was just pushing myself through that all the time. And. I had to kind of acknowledge that I wasn't doing it for me because whether I was slimmer or bigger, I was still going to be the same person with these like issues that I had.
I was doing it for the approval and validation of other people. And that was when I [00:21:00] had to kind of put myself first and choose me. Um, and prioritize my feelings and my existence outside of who I wanted people to see me as.
Floss: So I've seen a lot of writers talk about the link between racism and white supremacy and fatphobia, um, and you've spoken a lot about this yourself with the tropes of the fat black mammy and all this, all of this kind of stuff. Um, can you talk about more in depth about the link between racism fatphobia.
Stephanie Yeboah: Yeah, it's such an interesting one because I think it goes back like centuries at this point.
So one of the first sort of instances I remember seeing it and reading about it and was during the European Renaissance era, a lot of people don't like to, for some reason they don't think that this was a thing, but black people have been around in Europe during like the Renaissance era. So like pre slavery, black people have been in Europe.
We had artists [00:22:00] such as Rubens, he's known for painting voluptuous woman and, um, you know, these beautiful, gorgeous paintings. What not a lot of people knew it was that he was basing them on the African slaves that were around at the time. There were a lot of slave women who were brought in, the phenotype, I guess of Africans, generally has always been that we've always been a lot curvier and things of that nature.
And so it was seen as foreign, um, in, in Europe at the time. And, you know, still to this day, but back then it was seen as like, oh my gosh, like they've got big bums and we've got wide hips and, and all of these things. So we were seen as these kind of foreign beings with weird kind of contorted shapes. And so you had the disgust, you had the beginnings of like, fatphobia there, but then you also had the fetishizing of these bodies. So artists like Rubens would, um, create these very beautiful, like voluptuous figures, but they would paint them as white women because it was like they wanted to remove the blackness [00:23:00] from, from things that they considered hyper-sexual and beautiful to them at the time.
And, you know, like we say, we see this kind of replicated today. We also have people such as Sarah Baartman, who I've spoken about at length who was a south African, a woman who was taken from her tribe and brought to the UK. The tribe that she was from in South Africa, they're known for having like, really really big bums on also they have, um, their labias, uh, were quite long, so they were quite prominent and this white guy went to South Africa and like, Kidnapped her brought her to the UK and then put her in a zoo and that people would pay to come and see her poke her, prod her, like grab her labia, laugh at her, all of these things she had to perform at monkey dances and things like that. She was a victim of sexual trafficking as well. So she was made to become a prostitute. And then unfortunately she died when she was like 23. So when she died, [00:24:00] uh, her body was taken to France and put in a museum and she was mummified and put in a glass thingy for people to come and visit. And she was only sent back to South Africa to be given like a dignified burial, like in 2012.
Floss: Was that the mummified body?
Stephanie Yeboah: Yeah. So they gave her like a proper burial and you know-
Floss: It's like she was a product it's horrible.
Stephanie Yeboah: Basically. Yeah. And it's just this thing. Well, fatness has been a thing that has been again with blackness, it's seen as something so alien and because with African phenotypes, our bodies are a lot more curvier and, and because it was, so it was seen as so foreign in Europe, that was kind of where the seeds were planted when it, when it came to things like fatphobia.
And so we see it now, you know, and in today's day and age where people assume like, for me, for instance, when I used to be on dating apps and stuff, men would always assume that I was a dominatrix or that I was like, [00:25:00] um, sexually aggressive. It was literally because I was fat because fatness unfortunately is seen as the, the antithesis of femininity. When you add to being black and having those stereotypes imposed, such as being federal and animalistic and aggressive. People just assume that you're this super kind of hyper-masculine ish type of product and 
Floss: I imagine it was really hard to then be soft when people expect that of you. That must be wild. 
Stephanie Yeboah: Yeah, it's, it's a really horrible thing to have to, to have to deal with all the time. And people assume that you are this specific way, but there is such a huge tie within sort of the fatphobia and the racism, because not only are we having to deal with people dehumanizing our bodies. It's so closely linked to. The ways in which especially darker skinned black women are made to feel masculine or made to be masculine because of the dark skin, you know, implying that we are [00:26:00] dirty or that, you know, we come from poverty and, you know, the fairer the better, or the fairer, lighter, the more feminine kind of thing. So when you kind of put those two together, it's just a whole fuckery, basically. 
Floss: I've I've had experiences with, um, One of my friends who's a dark skinned black woman when we've literally been together in public and people have physically re responded to us in completely different ways. But that's why when you see it in real life happen like that next to each other. Yeah. Because you hear about the different experiences, but when they. Put together, and it's also that we react differently to things as well. And it's, it's, it's really interesting. Um, I just wanna say thank you so much. You've shared so many personal anecdotes today.
When it comes to fatphobia and all the stuff like you're describing, it's gone back so long and obviously the onus and the responsibility on sorting this stuff is just on people to not be fucking [00:27:00] fat phobic, not be racist, not, you know, do both at the same time when it comes to women like you who are fat and black, but what can people who have bodies like yours do in terms of boundaries, because people are unavoidable. We can't avoid people. We can't stop people. Um, do you have any tips for people to navigate the world? Because I think it's so frustrating when you want the world to change, but it's, it's not changed yet and it's not yet.
Do you have any tips for people? 
Stephanie Yeboah: For me, it's like, So one thing that I'm trying to really live by is stop waiting for the world to accept you before you start living out your dreams or the things that you want to do. So, one thing that I like, so for me, I always, I was bring up this example because it still pains me in my chest.
Sometimes it's like, okay, say when I was younger, so I love to sing. I'm a huge singer. One of my dreams was I wanted to be in west end. I wanted to do musical theater and I applied for the Brit school and everything. Cause I lived around the corner from it at the time. And I was doing my application because I [00:28:00] didn't see people that look like me, that I convinced myself that I was so fat and so dark, and I would never see anybody like me on west end that I took that opportunity away from myself and I continued to go to the other secondary school that I was at sort of 10 years later. I sort of think back and I just think, where could I have been if I had actually had the confidence to pursue that? Um, and yeah it still pains me sometimes every time, like a new musical comes out or something, or like when Hamilton came out. I was like damn that could have been be me, you know, kinda thing. Um, and so for me, it's like, we need to start live- I mean, it's easier said than done. There was a lot of work that needs to get to that until we get to that point that I find it so beneficial to kind of live in the, now do the things that you want to do now don't wait for society's approval or acceptance when it comes to how you look physically, when it comes to outfits, things like that. You're fat. We're fat. When we go outside, our fatness is the first thing that people are going to [00:29:00] see. So if I'm going to be fat, I am going to dress in a way that makes me feel good about myself. If you're going to look at me, I'm going to give you something to look at. I'm going to serve the kids and give you what you want to see. Hence me wearing a lime green suit today. I'm fat, and you know, you're going to perceive me as that. If I'm going to be fat, I'm going to dress it in a way that makes me feel comfortable because regardless if I wear all black, if I wear a smock, if I wear something that tries to hide me, if I wear things that are considered flattering, you're still going to see me as fat. So why, why am I caring?? Why, why flattering? I hate it. I hate it as well. Yeah, it's just like, I'm not trying to hide. I don't want to hide. So whether I'm trying to wear things to make me look smaller or not, you're still going to see how big I am. So why not just then wear whatever it is that I want to wear.
And I say that to when it comes to like going on holiday and wearing bikinis and swimsuits, it's like, even if I cover up, you're still going to see [00:30:00] the flab and the rolls. So. I'm just gonna wear a bikini and feel amazing. Um, so for me, it's like also issuing boundaries as well. So not being scared to tell your friends or family, if they say something fat phobic to call them out on it.
Because the only way that we can kind of change the conversation is to hold people accountable. So when people say things like, oh, you're not fat you're pretty. Um, both I can be pretty, I can be fat. This does not mean that you are ugly at all. Fatness is just a body shape. When you tell me that you think I'm pretty. When I say that I'm fat, you're equating fatness with, with ugliness. And when you say to yourself, oh my gosh, I feel so fat. Or I feel like this it's like fatness is not a feeling you may be, feel bloated, or you may be, feel uncomfortable when you have friends or family who obsess over, oh my gosh, I've put this on. I feel like this. I feel so ugly. It's like, okay, I get it. You do not want to look like me. Like you don't have to keep hammering, hammering it. And every time you say [00:31:00] things like that, what you're telling me is that your worst case scenario is to some day or somehow end up with a body similar to mine. And I don't need to be hearing those messages. So for me, it's just showing up being unapologetic in your body and taking up space both physically and metaphorically.
Floss: Thank you so much for sharing with me today stephanie.
I want to move on to the lesson of questions that people have sent in. Can you give me a go at answering them? 
Stephanie Yeboah: Yeah I'll try! 
Floss: Okay. Question number one, I feel as if I can't be in a relationship because of. This just something that makes me put a barrier and that I feel like nobody would ever find me attractive especially if the person in the question is a lot thinner than myself. How can I deal with this? Is it normal and how can you get over it? 
Stephanie Yeboah: Did I write this? Bloody hell that is me! 
Floss: First of all, follow Stephanie Yeboah on instagram. That's all I'm going to say, because you're going to an, all of your content and your book, because that's, that's all I'm going to say is just [00:32:00] read that because you, you talk a lot about it.
Stephanie Yeboah: Thank you yeah, because that sounds like me, me pre January, or pre 2021. It is quite a normal feeling. Unfortunately, the desirability politics is such a big thing and we just live in this world where people are just so consumed with looks and equating certain body shapes and attributes to somebody's worth.
And I found that. For the longest time, I try to switch myself off of the prospect of dating, like to turn myself off it, because I just thought to myself, do you know what? I'm never going to find anyone. Every single experience I have has been terrible. And you do tend to put up walls.
Floss: Like the Brit school thing.
Yeah, you want to kind of take yourself out of the game, but before somebody else has the opportunity to hurt you, you kind of want to take yourself out of it. Um, I don't want to be one of these kind of, wishy-washy kind of like, oh my gosh. Just know, hang in there kind of thing. Because when people told me that I hated it. Sometimes [00:33:00] advice when it comes to dating woes can be so condescending, especially from people that are in relationships. I will say that like I was, I definitely was you. I had some of the worst dating experiences that had to do with like fetishization humiliation, you know, people being really, really horrible.
And I just thought to myself like being darker skinned, black and fat and larger fat, I felt so far removed from femininity. I felt so I felt like I was at the lowest of the lowest of the low and that nobody would ever, ever, ever find me attractive. And so I switched off to the prospect of dating, but I think if dating is something that you want to do and that you still have, you know, in your heart, you want to kind of have those feelings of feeling valued and feeling loved and feeling, you know, going through all of the motions you you go through when it comes to love. I do believe that you don't need to close the door all the way. I [00:34:00] think some of what you may need to do is focus on strengthening relationships with those around you, in terms of friends and family. Investing into those relationships as well. Erm not centering men as well.
Like men don't need to be centered in anything. I'm sorry. They need to be on the sidelines. Like when we start centering men and our identity and who and our worth that's when it goes downhill. So I think continue to just keep living your life. Um, you are worthy of being loved. Everybody is worthy of love regardless of the body type that you are in.
Um, there is always going to be someone that will find that will see you for who you are. And I'm not sure how old the listener is, but like for me, it took me until getting to 32, to actually, you know, be in a, like a proper healthy relationship for the first time. And so you know, it may not happen at the age that you're at now, but I would, you know, keep working on yourself, keep trying to heal, keep trying to develop [00:35:00] your confidence as well.
And just try not to make dating or men the center of your identity. Because when you start forgetting about that and working on yourself, then naturally, and again, this is so sorry, this is so condescending, but people are attracted to confidence, and so it will start to emanate from you and draw people in.
And so. Yeah, I would just say just don't shut your heart all the way off. 
Yeah. And put romance on the back burner. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing advice. Thank you so much. Okay. So the next question here, when I see cellulite and bigger bodies on other women, I think they're so beautiful and that they look amazing.
But when I see it on myself, I hate it so much and I want to get rid of it. Why can I not accept myself? I read something somewhere. A while ago that said the reason we can view other women as beautiful and not ourselves, regardless of the differences between our bodies is because we look at women through our gaze.
We look at women through the female gaze, but when we look at ourselves, we have the split [00:36:00] the male gaze and ourselves. And it's almost like the surveillance that we have on ourselves. So we view ourselves through a more critical lens. And when we look at other women, we're like, she's glowing. She's we see the qualities of the woman other than her body.
And we see a person as opposed to a split, like. Another woman on the podcast called it self objectification. And that's, that's the only thing I really have to add to that is that perhaps it's that you view women as full human beings other than their body parts. And maybe?
Stephanie Yeboah: That is that it's so true. Like I do feel like we do we're so used to being seen through the lens of the male gaze that we see ourselves as body parts. We don't even see ourselves as, as full human beings. So like, we are so used to kind of looking in the mirror and, but what's going to. Super self critical. That's just who we are as human beings, unfortunately. And unfortunately, you know, if you are somebody that doesn't, that isn't hypercritical of yourself, then you're seen as being like narcissistic or like self-absorbed.
Floss: You can't win as a woman. 
Stephanie Yeboah: You actually can't. [00:37:00] But I think we are just so critical of ourselves. Like so critical. Like sometimes, like there are aspects about myself that sometimes I'm just like, I really don't like, so for instance, I really don't like my eyes or how they look. But every time I bring it up someone's like, oh no, your eyes are really pretty. Your eyes are this.
And I'm just like, no, but when I look at it, I just see Steve Buscemi eyes. I'm just like, oh, okay. 
Floss: That's like eye dysmorphia. Because honestly you have the most gorgeous eyes. 
Oh no, thank you!
It doesn't help me fucking saying that you still go home, not liking your eyes, compliment your friends. All you want. I have a friend who is, um, like one of the most gorgeous women I've ever seen in my life. And she is the most self-critical. Person I've ever met. And I had to, I had to turn around and tell her, please, can you catch up with how the world sees you? Because everyone else around you is benefiting from you, not knowing how amazing you are apart from you. You do not benefit from this. And it's so it's so infuriating just on this topic of seeing women as [00:38:00] beautiful and not yourself. It's so infuriating for me to see women talk about themselves that way. And there is nothing you can do to help your friends when they're in that it's I think you can be supportive and ask them why, and maybe sit there with them and help them flesh it out. Because I think one of the beauty, the beautiful things about female friendships, when you contrast your female friends and you feel like they're safe is that you get to talk about this stuff. A lot, men don't have that. I don't know a single man that has actually, um, We can go into depth with each other. And I think that having people around you to voice that stuff and someone going, oh my God, me too. And it's like, what? I didn't know. I said to one of my friends a while sometimes I don't feel not in a, not in a way that I feel trans, but I don't feel like a woman in my body sometimes, because the way that women's bodies are spoken about repulses me. And so I don't feel like in my body, like, I feel like a woman, like that just feels weird to me. She was like, what you feel the way I felt that way I have boxier shoulders than you, I feel very masculine and [00:39:00] all of this stuff. She's like, I view you as the epitome of women. And I was like, I know because I'm feminine, but this is how I feel. And you almost have this, the idea of who you are and the way that you're perceived is very different in your head saying out loud sometimes to your friends, I feel has helped me reshape my view of myself. 
Stephanie Yeboah: Yeah, definitely. I think speaking to friends and friends that care about you, friends that, you know, sometimes just having. As much as we shouldn't rely on society. Uh, opinions of our bodies for validation, um, because we all know standards of beauty and that there are certain hierarchies that are in place. Sometimes when you have people close to you that love you, um, you know, hearing their point of view, like I always get something different from each friend that I speak to regarding how I look. So sometimes I'll have days where I feel like terrible, but then someone will be like, oh my gosh, no, you look like this, you look like this. And sometimes it is good to see yourself through the lenses of other people who actually love and care about you. You might be the only one who was noticing like the whole, the cellulite thing.
And [00:40:00] it's not, you know, there's nothing wrong with cellulite like at all. It's a natural thing that happens, but also kind of acknowledging that cellulite and things of that nature, like nearly everyone has cellulite. It's not a marker of being unhealthy. It's not a marker of night. Like even fatness. It's not a marker of, or anything. Like nobody is meant to be like, you know, smooth Android, airbrushed...
Floss: Yeah because it's fake. No one even looks at the people in the ads. Cause it's all airbrushed. 
Stephanie Yeboah: The people in ads don't even look like an ad. You know, like we shouldn't be measuring ourselves to standards that don't even exist. Perhaps they following people who looked like them, who have these things and to normalize it in your everyday consumption of social media, you will start to see.
Relax a bit and, and begin to kind of enjoy and appreciate the fact that you have these things because you're seeing them all the time. So for me, like when I was trying to love my stretch marks and things, I followed loads of accounts of people that just have loads of stretch marks. And then it just became so normalizing and like, oh, this is just a thing [00:41:00] that somebody has.
And now I love them. 
Floss: I love seeing women in their bodies. I love seeing women dancing. I love seeing women on bike rides. I love seeing women. Uh, holding hands with a partner in the street and laughing. I love seeing women in themselves not watching themselves. Another guest I had on this podcast they're called beauty redefined, they said that your body is an instrument, not an ornament. And that changed- yes. So good. Isn't it? The body is an instrument, not an ornament and almost using it. Like you said earlier, your body has been trying to keep you alive and you've been punishing it. So you wrote that letter to apologize to it. And I just think that's that phrase, instrument not an ornament, it's just sums up power. I love seeing other women. I love seeing them light up when then not thinking about when women talk about things they're passionate about when women are dancing, when they're cooking or doing whatever the fuck it is that they love.
I love seeing that in women and I love seeing them being in their bodies as opposed to like from watching them. Oh, I love that. 
It's so nice. Isn't it? He's an instrument, not an owner. I know. 
Oh, [00:42:00] thank you so much, Stephanie, for joining me today, you can follow her on Instagram at Stephanie Yeboah, I can't wait like with all of my guests, I can't fucking wait people to listen to this episode, but especially with the history that Stephanie went into today in the. I think it's so important to know that this goes way back, um, before or the conversations that we're having now and also her personal experience as well. I just, I hope that people listening to this episode feel less alone in the way that they talk about the bodies, because even someone like Stephanie who was so proud and loud with talking about her body, I think it's really important to know that everyone started at the same place, um, which is essentially hating your body, which were bred to do to buy into products, buy in to diet regimes, to keep fueling this myth that our bodies are to be looked at and not lived in. 
And please join me for my first ever live show of this podcast. My guest will be the one and only Munroe Bergdorf. We'll be live in conversation, taking your questions and having a [00:43:00] right laugh.
You can go to www. the podcast show london.com for more details and to buy tickets. And if you've enjoyed today's episode, don't forget, I'll be answering even more of your questions on the bonus episodes that are available to subscribers of apple podcasts. You can ask me absolutely anything. If you want your question answered by me, you can drop me a text or a voice note on WhatsApp on plus 4 4 7 8 9 0 3 0 2 6 6 5.
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