The TV presenter suggested the influencer is ‘selling us self-consciousness’ in a recent podcast
TV presenter Jameela Jamil has been criticising diet brands that use girl power to sell appetite suppressants for some time. In particular, she’s taken aim at Kim Kardashian, calling her “a terrible and toxic influence on young girls” last May in response to an Instagram post promoting Flat Tummy Co’s infamous “Appetite Suppressant Lollipops”. And now, Jamil has spoken out again, suggesting Kardashian – among others – is “benefitting off, profiting off, and selling a patriarchal narrative to other women”.
These “double agents for the patriarchy”, Jamil says in the interview for Channel 4’s Ways to Change the World podcast, build money on “the blood and tears of young women who believe in them, who follow them, who look up to them like the big sister they never had”.
"You're selling us self-consciousness." Jameela Jamil explains why she thinks the Kardashians are "double agents for the patriarchy", in the latest Ways to Change the World podcast. pic.twitter.com/NWHfGH2wNs
— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) August 31, 2018
Of course, this being the internet after all, the comments have proved pretty polarising. Some have lauded Jamil on social media, calling her the “hero the UK needs” and agreeing that the Kardashian’s peddling of diet products is harmful.
Jameela Jamil was right though. Why are the Kardashians STILL promoting and selling appetite suppressant lollipops & flat tummy teas? They don’t need the money. It’s sick & harmful AF.
— Nereyda (@TwittaHoney) September 1, 2018
Jameela Jamil is the hero the UK needs, not the one it deserves
— Shona Graham (@shonalucy) September 2, 2018
Some, however, have criticised her for allegedly targeting the Kardashians (and other people deemed to be having “the wrong kind of sex”) disproportionately and unfairly labelling them a tool or perpetuator of the patriarchy.
Thinking abt that Jameela Jamil video that’s been everywhere- I don’t luv Kim K but I also hate accusations that a woman is an ~agent of the patriarchy. It’s only used at people who are perceived as hypersexualised or having ‘the wrong kind’ of sex + it’s a rly ugly feminist tool
— Bert (@bethanyrutter) September 2, 2018
I shan’t be joining in with the Jameela Jamil lovefest as I’ve often found her brand of feminism to be oppressive & limiting. She has, historically, very readily slut-shamed other women and seems to pile on the Kardashians at every opportunity for being hyper-sexual.
— Martha Moore (@marthajosephine) August 31, 2018
In the podcast, which was published August 29, Jamil also discusses her own eating disorder in her teens, her #iweigh campaign, and the whitewashing practices of publications she’s appeared in.