On Instagram last week, Anne Hathaway addressed the conspiracy-minded comments: “Fake hair, real bump,” she wrote.
Pregnant with her third child while on a press tour spree, the actor wore one of many belly-baring ensembles on a red carpet event—and a flood of questions (and implications that it wasn’t real) ensued. Hathaway is just one of many celebrities facing overwhelming body scrutiny online within the last month. Kate Beckinsale was accused of having an eating disorder by commenters who claim her grief-fueled weight loss had gone too far. Jenna Ortega is facing backlash after appearing in an Esquire video, as viewers say she looks too thin. And of course, Ariana Grande announced a retreat from public life, citing intense criticism around her appearance.
The 2000s were filled with sometimes-anonymous conversations about women’s bodies, which seemed to momentarily quiet with the body positivity and #MeToo movement. But body talk has once again taken center stage again with the rise of weight loss medications that have made thinness more accessible than ever.
But it’s not just celebrities whose bodies are under the microscope: The rise of body scrutiny is one element of a growing socio-political environment where women’s bodies are being constantly surveilled, threatening everything from our conceptions of health and beauty to our careers and our very freedom.
Weight bias has long been present in both work and romantic settings. Research has shown that thin women make 6% more money than their larger colleagues, who are also more likely to face wrongful termination and negative stereotypes that limit their potential. We don’t need a study to know that weight stigma plays a role in dating, but they exist anyway. New research found that GLP-1s might level the playing field—but it comes at a cost (if not to our bottom line) to our understanding of our inherent value. According to the study, being on a GLP-1 for a year and a half increased an unemployed woman’s chances of getting hired by 26.9%, as well as that that single women on a GLP-1 were more likely to get married or move in with a romantic partner. It wasn’t that women who lost weight felt better about themselves or had more energy for work or dating, researcher and economist Rebecca Diamond concluded. Their newfound success seemed to be a direct result of their weight loss—a stark reminder that women’s appearances seem inextricably tied with our success.The body police, in these cases, aren’t a horde of nameless Instagrammers, but our bosses, our Hinge dates, our peers.
Too much or too little weight isn’t a woman’s only crime in the court of public opinion, though. Beauty has a long history as a function of control, a way to police how women look and act in public. “Beauty has always been a tool of fear and respectability politics, a language of ‘passing’ in a system of surveillance and judgement,” Arabelle Sicardi, author of The House of Beauty, explained to Dazed. “[It’s] a way to keep us desensitized, hyper-critical, and focused on individualism rather than collective response and community building.” In this case, we’re wrapped up in criticizing celebrity bodies while the right to govern our own is taken away.
During her confirmation hearings, new CDC director Dr. Erica Schwartz promised that abortion surveillance was “absolutely a critical component” of the agency under her watch. Her comment comes amid years of growing restrictions around women’s bodies and reproductive rights, from the overturn of Roe v. Wade in 2022, to the increasing abortion criminalization that followed. As of 2025, more than 31 million women of reproductive age lived in a state that banned abortion. While most of these abortion bans don’t criminalize the person receiving an abortion, 21 million women of reproductive age live in states that have proposed bills that would, according to the National Partnership for Women and Families.
