Exhibit A in the misogyny of the ‘yummy mummy’ mythology:
Just eight weeks after giving birth to Hank IV, Kendra Wilkinson Baskett shows off her stunning bikini body and opens up to OK! exclusively about her life as a new mom, how she regained her curves and whether she’ll ever pose for Playboy again — all in the new OK!
From here.
“I had my friends over, and it was bad timing,” Kendra, 24, tells Us. “They were really hot and had really nice bodies,” she says of her visitors, which included former Girls Next Door costar Holly Madison and Playboy model Tiffany Fallon.
“I was just hoping Hank didn’t look at them! Having a different body was such a culture shock. I’m so used to being hot and fit.” Although “it wasn’t that extreme,” the reality star says, “I did go through some depression.”
From here.
She said she loves her legs and butt. Everything else? “I hate!” she told Us.
“I’m insecure about the size of my boobs, which went from a 34C to an E,” she said. “They grew bigger than I thought during pregnancy. But now that they’re going down, they’re a little bigger than I want. I don’t want to look too top-heavy. I want to even out my body a little.”
Asked if she would be open to breast reduction surgery, she told Us, “Yes, but [my husband] Hank is antisurgery. I explained to him that it would make me happy. And he says, ‘In that case, it’s OK.’
From here.
Ah yes. That most wonderful of double standards, the yummy mummy. The only way you can have children and still be seen as holding on to your “individuality” is if you are really really patriarchy-compliant. I first learned about this when a plastic surgeon wrote a book called “My Beautiful Mommy.”
I can’t even begin to wrap my brain around the many layers of awfulness here.
Deeply creepy. It kind of blows my mind that anybody would talk to a magazine in that much personal detail about their body, but then the whole culture screams at you non-stop that you’re an object and – if you’re hawt enough – rewards you for treating yourself like one.
the whole you must look hot as a mum is not good, I have managed to lose heaps of weight since having my first 6 years ago, but i sure as heck wouldnt ever consider going under the kinife to get my boobs or tummy made to look “right” and I think as along as I think I am hot and so does hubby then thats what matters the most
I wonder if Kendra has a nanny? A housekeeper? A personal trainer? A cook?
Not that it’s any excuse in the misogyny around women’s and especially, mothers’ bodies, but these articles always fail to mention that these women generally have levels of support available to them that most of us can’t dream of!
This website is something you might appreciate: http://theshapeofamother.com/.
I wrote a review of it with similar sentiment to your post which will appear in phem.org sometime soon.
The lady who runs shape of a mother writes something about how a mom body is our best kept secrets. I could not agree more.
Kendra is a Playboy model/reality tv star. Selling stories about her body is how she makes a living. Why should other women be expected to fit the celebrity standard?
“See Kendra reveal her stretch marks”? Is that supposed to make other women feel like she’s normal and average “just like them”?
This whole thing baffles me. I have never paid attention to those “post pregnancy” celebrity stories, because they’re flawlessly created to make women feel bad about themselves. If I summarize, they all go like this:
1. Look at how I was nothing more than me with a bump while pregnant. Don’t you wish you were as stylish as me? I was still wearing size 4 jeans.
2. Now look at how skinny I am again five minutes after giving birth! Back to my size 0 jeans in no time!
3. But don’t think I didn’t work for it! Oh, yeah. I worked. I lived on whole wheat crackers (two a day!) and celery for three whole weeks and worked out for eight hours a day while my wet nurse and three nannies watched the baby ’round the clock so I could sleep and get the Brazilian wax job I needed for this photo shoot.
4. But I’m not perfect. Look! A teeny stretch mark. Look closer. CLOSER! See it? No? Oh. I swear it was there yesterday before my plastic surgeon husband zapped it with a laser.
Shut up, already, Kendra.
I just read a depressing book along these lines. It was called ‘Bodies after baby’ or something, and was interviews with semi-well-known australian women.
It sounded interesting, but unfortunately the author was a fashion mag editor, and all her friends who she interviewed were models, or connected to the fashion industry, and they were obsessed with their figures.
One lamented that she was no longer a size 8, but when she used to be she was only eating one meal a day, and dancing all night, but that life style just wasn’t compatible with a baby (ya think?).
The last couple of interviews with some boyfriends was even more depressing. they universally talked about their partner’s bodies in terms of having sex, and nothing much else.
So it isn’t only an American playboy type issue unfortunately.
I have an unreasonable love for Kendra after watching her show. I could go on about it, but I won’t. I do want to mention one thing that bothers me: she has been very open in interviews about the fact that she is breastfeeding, but this is not depicted on her show – her baby is only shown bottle feeding. So the the producers of the show were happy to show her non-lactating boobs, but now???
Claire, that is a very interesting observation re. Kendra and the breastfeeding!!
I don’t feel like Kendra is the problem, I feel she is just as much hurting from the message she is being used to deliver as any other mother is – a woman who hates her body that much, who lives in fear that her husband will not be able to stand her post-pregnancy body for even a few weeks before she has time to quickly restore herself to sexbot status, who has to look hot in a bikini before her baby has been born long enough to even develop neck muscles.. is hurting.
Has no-one told the poor lass that breasts settle down a bit if you persevere with breastfeeding?
And yes, it is a pretty sad kind of world we inhabit where just as you think some progress is being made vis a vis giving the patriarchy the bird, something like this comes along!!
Did you know that is a photo shopped image? As in they have put her head on a different body than the one her head was attached to when the photo was taken? It may well be her body but it is her body PRE baby.