TV
Just when we thought Egypt’s outdone itself, it goes at it again. This week, 8 female TV anchors were suspended from state TV for being “too fat”.  The generous Egyptian Radio and Television Union (ERTU) is giving them a month to rectify their bodies to appear “more appropriate” for the screen. So far, only women were the victims of this discriminatory body-shaming project. As if we need more fat-phobic body shaming this summer… 

State TV hasn’t been doing half as well as private TV stations and satellites. In an attempt to get more views, they think the solution is to make their anchors “more presentable”. TV Chairman Majdi Lasheen, unaware of the implications of this decision, continued to defend it by saying that the decision was applied to “restore the beautiful image of all official TV stations”. There’s nothing uglier than body-shaming and sexism, Mr. Lasheen.

Even more outrageously, the head of the ERTU and the one responsible for issuing this decision was a woman. Despite Safaa Hejazi’s supposed understanding of the hardships of being in the industry, she set women steps back. Judging the anchors with their bodies rather than their competence is a life-long pattern for women. Hoda Shaarawy would be so ashamed after highly advocating for women’s rights, and so are we.

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Safaa Hegazi, head of the ERTU.

Even some of the statements from the suspended TV hosts had body-shaming undertones. Khadija Khatab, one of the suspended eight, wanted people to watch her latest appearances and judge if she was too fat or not. She wanted people to decide whether she deserved to be suspended. Ms. Khatab, your statement did more harm than good. The point is that no one should judge you based on your weight or appearance, and you encouraging people to do so makes things worse.

We try so hard not to let globalisation and Western trends take over our cultural identity, often calling people who participate in Western traditions as “kuffar”, yet we only seem to hold tight to the harmful parts of the Western world. TV anchors and hosts should be representative of the public. They aren’t required to be stick thin or fit into some arbitrary standard of beauty to do their job. Their job is to inform, host guests well and entertain their audience, and surely the number on the scale has no effect on that. Even modelling agencies are trying to move away from the “skinny is beautiful” stereotype and encourage positive body-image, so even an industry based solely on appearance is trying to challenge fat-phobia.

Mr. Lasheen’s statement was very telling. He wanted to restore an image of “beauty”, yet beauty is subjective. Whether we like it or not, TV and mass media impacts how we view beauty. It’s similar to the dilemma of the chicken or the egg. Do we base our beauty standards on what we see on TV, or does TV base its image on what people find beautiful? Even if we already have preconceived notions of beauty, TV can perpetuate or challenge it. It has that power. Instead of promoting body-shaming, TV can actually expose it’s audience to an array of diversity and challenge euro-centric and skinny-normative standards.

We’re appalled that Egypt’s media hasn’t improved one bit. Still body-shaming, and with no shame. We cannot stand still and quiet whilst this happens. Share, comment and make a riot, because this isn’t something that should be ignored.