Lucrative Perks: The Man Repeller on Eating Disorders

Leandra Medine is an icon. The 27 year old of Turkish and Iranian descent describes her self-aware blog, Man Repeller, as “a humorous website for serious fashion.” Its accolades stand up to the description – combining Medine’s signature cheeky humor with the blog’s incredible clout when it comes to educating the fashionably elite. In 2012 Medine added recognition as one of Forbes’ “Top 30 Under 30” and a “25 Best Blogs” TIME’s nod to her list of accolades, alongside besting Anna Wintour, editor of USA’s Vogue, for Adweek’s “Fashion Power 25.”

Medine, however, has long been heralded as more than a mere fashion celebrity. Her spunky, occasionally crude, and perpetually hilarious articles simultaneously ridicule and exalt fashion in all its glory and ugliness. Even the title Man Repeller distills her opinion that women’s fashion is for females, not for men, a perspective that manifests itself in content that invariably celebrates non-sexualized articles including turtlenecks, high-waisted jeans and muumuus. She is adored by a large and influential mass of adolescent and young adult females – their days livened by her staff’s diction and their wardrobes shaped by her recommendations. So naturally when her autobiography, Man Repeller: Seeking Love. Finding Overalls. hit the stands I couldn’t wait to see what she had to say. Finally, Medine would articulate her personal insights into life, love and hardship and I would be able to glean a deeper understanding of her profoundly influential character.

Imagine, then, my internal battle when upon reading the second chapter, I was immersed in a narrative about her teenage eating disorder. My struggle did not concern my comfort with reading such material, nor my surprise at its existence. Instead, the way in which Medine discussed her anorexia deeply disturbed me. Here I was reading a manuscript centered on a woman who had over 800,000 Instagram followers, who occupied the epicenter of impressionable female fashion culture and who even publicly stood for feminism and individualism – and in her autobiography she flippantly describes and dismisses her eating disorder.

Medine’s weight troubles began when she gained 30 pounds away at sleepover camp. She describes her parents’ mortified reactions as they processed “the sight of [her] stomach” and asked “how did she get so fat?” Medine’s response was to dismiss this criticism and bask “in the calorie-free glory of living a decadent life.” She traveled to Italy and instead of following the emaciating diet of her female peers, she describes her vacation as the “trip most girls should dream of: tomatoes, mozzarella, the beach – bliss.” She confidently asserts that she was living in a world where “weight was just a number.” So far Medine was penning a manifesto to females across the nation – a healthy mentality that focuses on experiencing life not thinness. But once her brother makes a disparaging comment about not wanting to go out with her, she switches gears, declaring, “I would be so thin he’d go into cardiac arrest.” While this hyperbolic statement has the possibility for humor, the underlying sentiment she expresses, and continues to express reveals much darker truths surrounding females and eating disorders. She goes on to say:

How many girls vow to lose x number of pounds for the sake of utter shock value from … womp, womp, their brothers? A repulsive concept indeed, but it’s only fair to mention, I did expect to see an ex-boyfriend around the same time.

Here she validates changing oneself in order for male approval from both her brother and ex-boyfriend. There is no denying that many women would read Medine’s above statement and relate to it – would laugh and nod and say, “I’ve been there too.”  Her approachability is a key ingredient into her unique persona and her wild success. Yet I find this statement completely contradictory to her “man repelling” ideology. She at once embraces clothes that cater strictly to her own aspirations, but others’ approval and desire control the body underneath. Medine continues her story by saying she “adopted a very strict and rigorous dietary routine.” After describing her exercise and dietary routines she mentions nearly as an afterthought that struck her after reading the post that explains in detail what muscles do recumbent bikes work and what wonders it provides to the one who uses it continuously in their routine. “I’ll admit I wasn’t all that healthy all the time.” A doctor’s visit proves alarming as he states, “you could have lost the ability to have babies” due to the severity of her regime.

At this point I was waiting for a shift to occur – for a light to go on above Medine’s head and her wise, reflective self to re-evaluate her younger actions. I was waiting for her to deliver a valuable message for her readership, demarcating fashion from physiology. Instead she says, “I had almost forgotten that I had done all this for Haim; there were far more lucrative perks to consider.” Thirty pounds heavier she had expressed frustration that none of the clothes available in the department store she liked were flattering on her figure. But now? Clothes “finally looked good physically, too.”

I made another friend read this chapter. I could not believe that this was Leandra Medine, the spunky, feminist, disruptive icon with which I had come to align myself. Instead of tackling the structural flaws within the fashion industry, she authorized their existence. Instead of finding fault with the department store’s stock, she found fault with her figure and so continued the entrenched trajectory of changing oneself not the institution. If this were a layperson’s memoir I would nod my head and sympathize. But Leandra Medine, whose online fan base amounts to millions? Whom Forbes, AdWeek, TIME and Fast Company recognize as one of our leading contemporary creative minds? For her, I set the bar a little higher. At the end of the chapter she recounts an experience of rejecting a bite of cake at the dinner table in front of her brother. That denial prompts him to demand their mother’s intervention yelling, “[her] skin is turning yellow because you’re not eating enough and you love that cake.” When Medine continues to deny the cake he continues saying, “She’s anorexic! She needs help!” At this point Medine storms out of the restaurant, leaving her family in her wake.  Yet Medine observes:

It was a decidedly dramatic approach to take for an experience that hadn’t even really been that upsetting for me. I was quite pleased that Haim now not only cared for the preservation of my well-being, but also thought I was too thin. I may not have been anorexic but I was certainly a little… sick.

While Medine’s signature prose centers on humor, the above three sentences focus on something far darker. It is unclear whether or not Medine is poking fun at her own ignorance or if she truly is unaware of her actions and the negative repercussions on her physical health. She is entitled as every individual is, to determine how much a situation or interaction affects her. Yet saying her brother’s confrontation “hadn’t even really been that upsetting” belittles the severity of the conversation. Her surface level treatment of her weight loss discredits others’ more emotional reactions and more crucially – provides a template for others to handle their experiences with insufficient levity.

Because of Medine’s cultural position as role model and fashion icon, I believe she has an inflated obligation to her readership. While I am not suggesting that great power necessitates moral commandeering, I am arguing that attention to the gravity of the subject material and sensitivity to others’ experiences should have been taken into account in this chapter. The fashion industry’s complex relationship with eating disorders, body dysmorphia and media portrayal is both grossly underestimated and glamorized by the industry’s elites. I finished this chapter disappointed that Medine had missed an opportunity to alter or raise awareness about this relationship. Embedded in a book defying other fashion norms, this narrative supports one of the most traditional and frightening tropes of contemporary fashion culture: skinny is here to stay.