Why are most female classical music icons thin?

By Hattie Butterworth

CW: Eating disorders

Daring to ask questions about thinness comes with a bravery, only present at 10pm on a sober Saturday night in late October.

I have never been thin. I have always had my body criticized- either internally or externally by a society concerned with me being too big.

Growing up, I was so acutely aware of the women of classical music. I have loved the internet for years and in the beginnings of my cello education, the contemporary cellists I would watch on the internet fascinated me. At first I didn’t think about their bodies, because the music I was listening to was always my first priority. Then it came to visiting concert halls and buying CD’s of musicians and consuming the media. I came to realise that being a female musician was synonymous with a level of impeccability. A thinness, glamour and allure that I couldn’t relate to.

Criticising women for what they wear and how they look is not something I want to add to. This isn’t a question about whether it should be ok to dress how you like - that question is being marvellously challenged by many of my friends. A question not challenged enough, however, is why so many of those in the classical music media are thin.

It was only so evident to me because of the male cellists that I looked up to. Their appearance was never shown to me as something to strive for. Their appearance never appeared to impact their career, but I became more and more aware that women musicians were certainly expected to look a certain way. I remember a teacher grilling me about what I was going to wear for a recital and if it was ‘a pretty enough dress’. The musicians that did well were, of course, those who worked hard, but I couldn’t help but notice that they also lived up to this unspoken expectation of thinness.

Are the thinner female musicians taken more seriously and given greater opportunities? Often the judgement is that to be thin is to work hard, and to look like you’re taking something seriously. I often felt that being overweight meant that I looked lazy and a bit foolish. I moved a lot when I played and was very tall, big and went red and sweaty. I didn’t feel I fitted into what they were looking for.

This reminds me of being in nursery and at primary school and remembering how teachers would often discard me, subtly or not, because of my size. I was a very tall and overweight young kid with a (outrageously) huge personality. I wanted to be cute and adorable and acceptable and pretty and hated that I couldn’t be the small, shy one that the older girls looked after. I often felt I had to go it alone, using my personality to convince the world that my body didn’t matter.

In music college I decided to change my body and went on a path to find thinness. One of many attempts to shrink myself. And how it backfired as my beautifully broken brain created an eating disorder with a hefty load of positive reinforcement. I don’t remember thinking thinness would make me a better cellist, or a more desirable musician, but hindsight shows that the subconscious rhetoric was there. People did notice me more.

I look at the music world today as we celebrate women and watch them thrive. The ones promoted in their thriving - either in terms of performing career or media coverage - are mostly thin. They aren’t all thin, but not many of them look like the average size 14/16 of (the British) women. So much of what I feel is a strange anger. An anger that diversity is so hard to come by in classical music and we only seem to tolerate it in short and tokenistic bursts.

Is it jealousy that I feel? It could be a jealousy that to look like 90% of those in the press I would be deep in an eating disorder. Be under no illusions that we are a society still obsessed with thinness and aesthetic and capitalism dictates that these people sell well. The thinness of beautiful women saves the image of a ‘dying’ classical music world. We might be dying, but at least we are thin and pretty and in able bodies.

Consider this a criticism without a solution. The image I have from the sidelines of the music world, desperately wanting greater inclusivity but seeing the same old shit. ‘Busy, thin’ musicians reign supreme over the ‘fat, lazy’ or unwell ones.