DECEMBER 2016 womenshealth.com.au 129ISSUETHE#stronghealthyyou“I love your jacket!”
“Oh, this? It was like
three dollars and
makes me look like
an elephant.” “You’re
glowing!” “It’s just
the five layers of
concealer and
foundation I’ve got
on. It’s a horror show
underneath!” Sound
familiar? According
to integrative
psychotherapist Hilda
Burke, “Culturally, it’s
prized for women
to be public about
self-criticism. It’s
a badge of funny
self-awareness to
crack jokes about how
much you hate your
thighs. It’s like an
unspoken expectation.
And if a woman were
to say, ‘I actually like
my thighs’, it’s like a
[horn] goes off and
she’s out of the gang.”We know that women self-
deprecate more than men. In
her 2012 study, linguistics expert
Dr Judith Baxter found that while
80 per cent of all male humour
at work comprised witty banter
directed at colleagues, 70 per cent
of the jokes women made were
at their own expense. Beyond
the workplace, women seem to
use negative talk as a bonding
mechanism in a way that men
don’t. “Women simply share more
in group interactions, which may
mean they’re sharing self-criticism
more freely,” says Dr Denise
Martz, a psychology professor
at Appalachian State University
in the US, who has led numerous
research studies into so-called
‘fat-talk’. “They’re also more keen
than men to [...] get along with
each other. So it’s a case of ‘I’m
going to show you that I empathise
and that I’m a kind person and
I’m willing to reassure you if
you’re willing to reassure me’.”By Catherine Gray
YES, YOU CAN
BREAK THE
SELF-DEPRECATION
HABIT WITHOUT
SOUNDING LIKE
AN UPPITY DICK