There’s a particular kind of question that gets asked about women’s bodies that sounds simple on the surface, but reveals something much deeper when you sit with it. “If you’re not going to use it, why keep it?” It’s the kind of logic that seems tidy—efficient, even—but underneath it sits an old and persistent idea: that a body only has value when it is serving a function defined by someone else.
That thinking doesn’t exist in isolation. It echoes a much older framework—one that ties worth to usefulness, discipline, and visible productivity. A kind of moral accounting system for the body. In that system, to be valuable is to be useful, and to be useful is to perform in ways that align with cultural expectations. For women, that has often meant reproduction, caregiving, emotional labor, and compliance. The body becomes something to be evaluated, measured, and, if necessary, corrected.
That same logic shows up in quieter ways, too. When someone says a person will be “healthier” or “look better” after losing weight, it can sound like care—but it often carries an unspoken judgement. It assumes that smaller bodies are more disciplined, more controlled, more acceptable. It suggests that worth can be calculated by size. And when a body doesn’t fit that ideal, it becomes something to fix.
But this is where the contradiction begins to show itself.
If a person has fibroids, or undergoes a hysterectomy, there is often empathy. The body is understood as something beyond control, something that needs care. But if weight is involved, the conversation shifts. Suddenly, assumptions appear: lack of discipline, lack of effort, lack of control. The same body can be met with compassion or criticism, depending on the story others choose to tell about it.
That story, however, is rarely complete.
Conditions like polycystic ovary syndrome or endometriosis can shape weight, energy, and daily experience in ways that aren’t visible from the outside. Hormones, pain, fatigue—these are not things that can be measured by a glance or corrected by willpower alone. Yet the cultural script often ignores these realities, preferring a simpler narrative: try harder, be better, conform.
This is where the idea of control becomes a moral test. If a body is perceived as something you can control, then it is treated as something you are responsible for controlling. And if you fail, that failure is often read as a personal failing. But if something is framed as outside of your control, then suddenly empathy appears. The value judgement doesn’t disappear—it just changes shape.
This contradiction becomes even more apparent in public spaces. Consider the backlash when a major athletic brand introduced extended sizing. The reaction wasn’t about fabric or fit—it was about visibility. About who is allowed to exist in spaces associated with discipline, movement, and health. For some, the discomfort came from seeing bodies that didn’t match a narrow ideal occupying those spaces without apology.
And yet, those bodies were always there.
The idea that people in the past were universally thin or that certain body types are new is another myth shaped by selective visibility. Bodies have always existed in a wide range of sizes. What changes is which bodies are shown, which are hidden, and which are allowed to take up space without scrutiny.
There have also been broader systems of control over who is visible in public at all. Laws regulating loitering and public presence shaped who could occupy space freely and who was pushed out of sight. These weren’t about appearance alone, but they contributed to a wider pattern: regulating bodies, controlling movement, and deciding whose presence is acceptable.
Across all of these examples, a pattern emerges. The body is treated not as a lived experience, but as something to be evaluated—measured against standards that are rarely questioned. A moral calculus is applied, often without being named as such.
But the question remains: by whose standards?
If a woman undergoes surgery, removes a uterus, or lives in a body shaped by hormones or illness, is she less of a woman? If she is not, then what, exactly, is the standard being used to measure her?
The answer is not biological. It is cultural.
And cultural standards can shift.
What remains constant is the person living in the body—the one experiencing it, making decisions about it, and moving through the world in it. No measurement, no assumption, no external judgement can fully capture that lived reality.
The problem, then, is not the body itself. It is the system that insists the body must prove its worth.
And once that system is seen clearly, it becomes harder to accept its terms.
I think about all of this in light of my own health. It sits with me in a way that is hard to ignore—because this isn’t abstract. It’s not just an idea to analyse, but a body I live in, a body that sometimes needs care, attention, and decisions that aren’t simple. And yet, even in that space, there are still voices—subtle or loud—telling me what my body should be, what it should look like, what it should prove. It can feel heavy to carry both the reality of my health and the weight of those expectations at the same time. But maybe the point is this: my body is not a moral project. It doesn’t have to justify itself through usefulness, or discipline, or appearance. It only has to be lived in, and cared for, and understood—on its own terms.
