"Nobody else knew what to do with me because big women are old"
About this Quote
The quote’s specific intent isn’t self-pity so much as exposure. "Nobody else knew what to do with me" frames exclusion as a failure of imagination on the gatekeepers' side, not a deficiency in her. It highlights how entertainment categories aren't neutral descriptors; they're job pathways. "Ingenue", "best friend", "love interest", "matriarch" are economic roles, and body size can act like a bureaucratic stamp that reroutes a woman away from desirability and toward invisibility.
The subtext is that fatphobia and ageism are fused in the popular gaze. Bigness gets read as a kind of premature expiration date, denying the possibility of youth, sexuality, or narrative centrality. Manheim, who broke through in the late 1990s with The Practice and became a visible advocate for size acceptance, is pointing at the trap: even when you have talent, the system would rather distort you into a type than build a story around you.
It works because it's personal without being private: one sentence that captures a whole cultural sorting algorithm.
Quote Details
| Topic | Aging |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Manheim, Camryn. (2026, January 17). Nobody else knew what to do with me because big women are old. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/nobody-else-knew-what-to-do-with-me-because-big-44829/
Chicago Style
Manheim, Camryn. "Nobody else knew what to do with me because big women are old." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/nobody-else-knew-what-to-do-with-me-because-big-44829/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Nobody else knew what to do with me because big women are old." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/nobody-else-knew-what-to-do-with-me-because-big-44829/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.




