The Perfect Body

In my last post, I went on this crazy rant about how the Victoria's Secret ad was placing an unnecessary amount of pressure on young girls to attain what they advertised as being the perfect body. Here's a little refresher of what that ad looked like. 

As expected, this ad caused a lot of outrage in the body-positive community, and many people spoke out against it-- myself included. Another underwear brand, Dear Kate, decided to make an ad of their own, which they thought was a little more inclusive and honest. 

It shows women of all different heights, weight, shapes, and skin color-- and guess what? They all look fab. Dear Kate's message is clear and simple: all women, regardless of what they look like, are beautiful. Our bodies are perfect because they're ours. 

Dove decided to take part, of course, considering that they are the pioneers of the body positive movement in advertising. 

Again, they are essentially saying the same thing. Real women are beautiful, no matter their size. Everyone is perfect, not just the thin models seen on a Victoria's Secret ad. This is the kind of stuff young girls should be seeing. That women that look like their moms, sisters, aunts, teachers, are all beautiful. Being a model doesn't equal being perfect. 

So Victoria's Secret had no other option than try to appease the crazy feminists of the world, and went ahead and released a new ad. Same models, same descriptive text, same everything. But a new slogan: "A body for every body."

And it works, I guess. It's easier to understand that they are referring to a bra collection. The Perfect "Body" was intentionally misleading, I'm sure. In fact, I can probably correctly assume that they had this ad ready for when the outrage and backlash would start. They were expecting people to get upset. Despite this ad saying that there is a bra in the Body by Victoria collection for everyone, the fact that they only show the collection on thin models doesn't sit well with me. But I am conscious of the fact that for years, VS has used thin models to represent their brand, so it's whatever. 

If it were up to me, though, Victoria's Secret would change their ads to look more like Dear Kate's or Dove's. Not for my sake, or the sake of the older women, but for the sake of the young teen girls going to Victoria's Secret for the first time to buy their first bra. Or to the young girls simply walking past the Victoria's Secret store. Seeing ads like these encourage the thin ideal, which is already so prominent on magazines, tv shows, movies, etcetera. It's unavoidable. 

But I think it's time for companies to just "get it." If anything, the Dear Kate ad makes me more likely to buy their underwear than Victoria's Secret. There's a statistic out there that states that models now weigh 23% less than the average American woman. The gap between the BMIs of the average woman compared to that of models has been steadily increasing for the past decade or so. Models are getting thinner while the average woman is getting bigger. So how does it make any sense to continue using thin women for everything? Doesn't it make more sense to appeal to the masses? Which would mean just using women of all shapes and sizes in your ads. It's really that simple.

I just hope that by the time I have kids, and maybe a daughter of my own, that she won't feel bad about herself because she doesn't look like the models she sees on ads in the mall. Hopefully, by that time, women of more sizes will be represented, and called beautiful in mass media. 

A girl can dream. 

Fox News Can Suck It (so can Victoria's Secret)

The other day, I was mindlessly walking around the mall trying to figure what to buy next. I had walked in to Forever 21 in the hopes of buying some black pants, but they didn't have any in stock. So I left, and made my way over to the Sephora, only to learn that they were also out of stock of Urban Decay's Naked 3 eyeshadow palette, which I have been trying to get my hands on for months. 

I decided that before I left the mall with nothing in hand, and called it a failed trip, I'd head to Victoria's Secret for a new bra and a lotion I was running low on. On the walk there, I passed by a giant advertisement on the outside of their store. THE PERFECT "BODY" was on it in giant letters, and man, they weren't kidding. 

Behind the printed words, were maybe 3 or 4 models... who were very thin, tall, and extremely beautiful. And the ad said "the perfect 'body'"--showing me women with nice bodies... telling me that they were perfect. And I looked at the ad, then unfocused my eyes and looked at myself in the reflection of the display glass, then at the ad again, and then myself. Then I walked in and bought a bra and my lotion. 

And although I was able to walk past it, and buy what I needed, it still made me angry. As an aspiring body positive goddess, I've come to terms with my size, and have learned to love myself. The ad didn't bother me, personally. It just rolled off my back, like "okay whatever Victoria's Secret, get your skinny angels out of my face and let me buy what I need." But that ad is just soooo aggravating for the effect it will have on younger generations, or those still struggling to accept their bodies. 

For those of you who don't know, the word body is in quotation marks because one of their bra collections is called Body by Victoria. So I knew what they were trying to do with this ad. They were simply trying to say that you could find the perfect bra for you.

BUT WHY WHY WHY wouldn't they just say something along the lines of "the perfect fit" or "the perfect bra" or literally anything other than body. Their marketing team knew that this was a bad idea and would spark up controversy, so WHYYYY. 

Now we have little girls walking around the malls with their parents seeing stuff like this-- and they don't know that "body" is a bra collection. To them, this ad is simple. These women have the perfect body; you should strive to look like these women; if you're not skinny, you're not perfect. 

And it pains me so much that impressionable young girls are semi-subliminally being told that being thin is what you need to be to be considered beautiful! It pains me and it makes my blood boil. Because even though this might not be Victoria's Secret message, I'm sure they are fully aware that that is what this ad conveyed. So by making the decision to print this ad and post it in malls nationwide, they are body-shaming, whether they think so or not. AND THAT IS NOT OKAY.

I wanted to see what kind of media news their campaign was getting, and I found this great clip of Fox News correspondent, Pete Heggseth or something. 

I went ahead and transcribed it for y'all. These words literally came out of his mouth:

What do they expect? It's Victoria's Secret. It's Victoria's Secret. I have no issue with this whatsoever. Body is also in quotes, no one will pay attention to that, right? But I believe body is the name of the bra or something. So the perfect "body," they didn't just say this is the perfect body. Obviously they're playing on that. I think they're probably playing on some of this - I'm gonna call it a faux outrage. It's not real outrage. 

Some other lady went ahead to say: 

Listen, shaming is shaming, and I will not shame these skinny ladies. They look great. They look great in their intimates which makes me want to buy their intimates. This is a business, it is not a social movement, okay? You don't like it, shop somewhere else.

Another lady:

But really, get over it. Even if you take the words body away, I mean, look at their bodies. Take the word body away. If it makes you feel bad about yourself, you have bigger problems than words on a billboard. These women are gorgeous. 

And here Pete literally says "Find me an imperfection right now." 

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!  Watch the video and tell me that that is normal. Because I couldn't believe my ears the first time I watched that, or the second, and definitely not the third. 

Absolutely NO ONE is saying that the skinny women on the ad are the issue. So why are all these Fox workers trying to protect the skinny models? Everyone can agree that they are beautiful, and have great bodies. That is known. No one is attacking them, their bodies, their poses, their work-- NOTHING. What the ad does is tell people that they have perfect bodies, even if body is in quotes. Like, I can't stress this enough. Young girls are walking around in malls seeing that ad, and HATING THEIR BODIES BECAUSE OF IT. 

So to Pete, no this isn't faux outrage. I'm furious. I'm mad. I am so freaking upset that some stupid marketing team thought it was a good idea to put out ads like this, that make people who don't look like the women in the picture feel bad about themselves. Young girls already have enough pressures-- they don't need to feel bad about their growing bodies as well. 

And to the second lady, NO ONE IS SHAMING THE SKINNY MODELS. Are you really that dense that you're unable to see the real shaming the ad is doing? The people upset with this ad are not shaming the models, the ad is shaming women who don't look like that. And no, I don't want to shop somewhere else, because VS does have some cute bras, and they make my tatas look fab, but they shouldn't be telling me to lose weight either. 

And to the last lady, I will not get over it. For once, stop thinking about yourself, your fellow skinny coworkers on Fox News and the skinny models on the ad, and think about the young girls seeing this kind of stuff! That's what makes this ad an issue! I couldn't care less about what this ad does to me, a young adult who is comfortable in her size. I'm fat and I'm okay with it, but when you're 12 and 13, and overflowing with hormones and pressures from every which way direction, and super impressionable, this ad hits hard and it hits deep. 

God! In case you couldn't already tell, I'm pretty darn worked up. It's just so upsetting to me that young girls are growing up hating themselves. I used to be that young girl who would skip meals, and cry in dressing rooms. It was a living hell. And I'm so mad that ads like this exist making it so that other girls have to go through that. 

So I will shift this to a happier note- because on tumblr, we have a fabulous bodypos community, filled with fat babes with a sense of humor. And one fabulous member of that community did this:

Look at her! YAAASSSSS, QUEEN. She loves her size, and is essentially giving the bird to this ad. I love this picture so much. It's the biggest "fuck you" I've ever seen. WORK IT GIRL. 

What I want most is for companies to help realize that pushing the thin ideal puts an unbelievable about of stress on a young girl to reach these goals that simply aren't true. We should be teaching them that everyone is beautiful regardless of their size, their weight, their imperfections. I am just so sad knowing that there are girls out there leading unhealthy, destructive lives so that they can attain what they are being told is the perfect body. It just isn't right.

I'm going to go punch a wall or scream into my pillow or something. 

Stay beautiful, lovelies. ~~

The Inevitable Thigh Touch

You would think that in this day an age, a light graze of thighs wouldn't matter much, but let me tell you, it does. (Actually no, it still doesn't. Just keep reading.)

About a month ago, I went to a One Direction concert on my own, and it was freakin' rad. I wasn't too bummed because I had awesome seats - that I probably spent way too much money on - but when you're in love with a boy band, anything goes. 

As I was walking to my floor seat, getting closer to the stage as I'm looking for my row, I discovered that the seats were very tightly zip-tied together. I normally don't sit during concerts so this usually wouldn't have bothered me, but I had gotten there about an hour before the opening act and wasn't particularly in the mood to stand while they were setting up the stage. As I sat down, my thigh touched the thigh of the girl sitting next to me. I didn't think much of it; this is actually super common for me. I have big thighs, and when I sit, they spread out. It happens. Who cares, right?

Well, her mom did. 

She glanced over at me and gave me a dirty look. After about another four glances, I could hear her say to her daughter "I paid a lot of money for these seats, and I deserve to be comfortable." Let me explain something. 1. I was sitting next to her daughter, not her. And 2. OUR THIGHS WERE BARELY TOUCHING. It's not as if I had accidentally sat on her daughter's lap or anything, it was simply that the sides of our thighs were touching- nothing else, not our stomachs or arms or feet or anything, just our thighs. And her daughter wasn't even thin, she had pretty beefy thighs as well, but because I'm bigger this is obviously my fault. Anyway, she glances one last time and asks me if I could scoot over. I very calmly but sternly said, "I'm actually sitting quite comfortably in my seat. I don't see a reason to move." 

"Seriously?"

"Yes, I'm not moving. This is the seat I paid for, and I am sitting in it."

She proceeds to grab her car keys and literally tries to saw between the zip ties so that she can separate their chairs from mine. She quickly gave up after realizing how dumb of an idea that was. What astounded me the most was that as I was looking at the rows in front of me EVERYBODY'S. THIGHS. WERE. TOUCHING. I couldn't believe how this lady was acting. And it wasn't even that her daughter had an issue with it, because every time her mother leaned over or glanced at me, her daughter would tell her to stop. It wasn't until her daughter pointed to the rows in front of us and told her to look at everyone's thighs that it ended.

Right after she finally saw that it wasn't because I was fat, but rather because the chairs were small and very tightly placed, she apologized. At this point in my life, I'm used to the stares and the awkward situations where I have to squeeze past people, or where my butt might knock something over as I pass by it. I get it. I'm fat. I take up more space than thin people. But to be talked to and talked about so rudely for something that didn't happen because I was fat, but happened because of the chair placement was something new. I'm not denying the fact that if I were thinner, maybe our thighs would have touched less. But by looking around, it seemed that thigh touching was pretty inevitable.

Her thin privilege allowed her to blame me for the situation. Quite simply, thin people have it easier in this world. They aren't being constantly judged and ridiculed. And that's not to say that thin people are never made fun of, but it's definitely not as harsh or as constant as it is for fat women. 

Is thigh-touching really that big of an issue? Is a fat girl wearing a bikini at the beach a sight you'd rather not see? Why does a fat person at the gym look like they are out of place? 

There is an excerpt from the Everyday Feminism blog that really speaks to this, written by a thin woman.

“Can a thin person have body image struggles? Can a thin person be at war with their self-image? Can a thin person hate to look in the mirror?

Absolutely.

And does that suck?

Absolutely.

But the difference between these negative feelings and fatphobia is this: The only person worrying about whether or not I’m meeting beauty standards is me.

And that’s not the same for fat folk.

When you’re not thin, other people on the beach actually do take offense. When you’re not thin, people really do think that you shouldn’t be in a bathing suit. When you’re not thin, people really do make your body their moral obligation.

And while your internal struggle is real and significant, the point is: You might hate your body, but society doesn’t.

That’s thin privilege.”

And that about sums it up. The mother made my body her moral obligation, and demanded that I moved. She thought that my size wasn't okay, and I had to do something to make her more comfortable with accepting it. She failed to realize that the reason for our thighs touching wasn't solely my weight. 

I guess this is just serves as a memo to my fellow fat babes that it's okay to stand your ground. It's not okay for other people to make your weight their business. It's your body, and you're allowed to do what makes you happy, even if it makes other people uncomfortable. They're adult enough to look the other way, or find an alternative manner of dealing with it-- they shouldn't have to ask you to change to please them. If you like wearing bikinis and crop tops and skirts, don't let people tell you that those aren't clothes for big girls. If you like sitting in a seat you paid for, don't let anyone tell you to move. ~~

 

Spotlight: Isabel Foxen Duke

As a bigger girl, I've grown up researching a lot of diet trends and exercise routines and all that jazz to no avail. I mean, I'm still a big girl. But the issue wasn't that I failed keeping up with fad diets and exercise plans, it had more so to do with the fact that these articles and lists spoke to me like I didn't have a problem, but rather I was the problem.

That just rubbed me the wrong way. I was being told, "You know why you're fat? Because you aren't doing everything on this list the right way." These articles used this tactic to guilt trip and shame people on the road to healthiness.

On the other side of the spectrum, a lot of bodypos blogs just preach about loving your body, which is great, but I needed more than that. I needed to learn how to make a lifestyle change regarding what I ate, and how I went about eating, without being told that I was doing everything wrong.

I was lucky enough to stumble upon Isabel Foxen Duke's blog, Stop Fighting Food, where she doesn't tell me what I'm doing wrong, but instead what I could be doing right. I don't feel like I'm being talked down to while reading her posts, but instead motivated and cheered on along the way. It's kind of like when you're best friend is like "I have a better idea."-- you're not mad that your friend one-upped you, you're just glad they found a better way.

That being said, I should probably inform you that that's exactly what she does. She coaches people into redefining their relationship with food, which doesn't mean dieting, but rather not being so hard on yourself for what you decide to and to not eat.

My favorite thing about her blog is just how darn relatable it is. For example, I personally find that I'm always either super critical of what I decide to eat, or I'll binge-eat everything in sight. (Don't tell anyone, but I totally binged this weekend-- and it was so worth it.) She has a post where she talks about this phenomenon-- the never-ending binge/diet cycle-- where you oscillate between the two. After binging for the weekend, I'll watch what I'll eat for the entire week, only to binge the next weekend. It never endsss! But let me tell you, this girl gets it.

Her posts are short and sweet, and straight to the point. She doesn't really have paragraphs-- I'm pretty sure she just hits the "return" button like whenever she feels like it. Some of her sentences are split into multiple lines. Take this example:

When you let yourself be controlled by your fear of gaining weight,

because you believe the walls will cave in around you or the Earth will burst into flames if you do,

that’s when the cycle begins.

Okay, let's talk about a couple different things, because I am ~obsessed~ with how she speaks to me. It puts my head back on straight, and it makes me feel empowered.

This is one sentence broken up into three parts. The first part is the intro, it's completely bog-standard, leading up to the main point of the sentence. The second portion of the sentence is italicized-- oooh, exciting. It's relatable through the use of metaphors; her metaphors are so dramatic, but when you're trying to lose weight THIS IS EXACTLY HOW YOU FEEL ABOUT GAINING WEIGHT. Italicizing those metaphors is like "you know you're overreacting right?" It gives a bit of a sarcastic tone. And then boom, the third portion. Not only is it italicized, but it's bold. You thinking the world will burst into flames if you gain weight is the instigator to the binge/diet cycle. The cycle has begun because of your dramatic feelings about food. She puts everything into perspective. She just hits you with the harsh truth - bold and italicized- that you being irrational about gaining weight is leading to your own demise. PREACH.

Another issue I have, is that I'm an emotional eater. When the stress of deadlines and midterms becomes so overwhelming, there is nothing I'd rather do than eat a pint of ice cream and cry to the One Direction movie. Most of us who are trying to get healthy see emotional eating as the devil. We can't help wanting to eat because of our emotions, but we know it's sooo wrong. Duke gets it though. She understands, she knows it happens. And it's okay. She's sees it as a blessing, not a curse. It's not a disease or a problem, but it's heaven-sent.

When we strip away the judgement of our emotional eating, and stop calling it a disease, a defect, a problem in and of itself;

we can finally see it for what it is:

An alert that something in our life needs our attention. Something completely unrelated to food or our weight.

Some people never deal with their problems, because they’re never forced to.

They never leave the job they hate, because they’re not getting fat over it.

They don’t have the tough, but necessary conversations with their partners, because things aren’t “bad enough.”

But emotional eaters have a gift;

a unique opportunity to recognize when some aspect of their lives needs some T.L.C. A.S.A.P.

Emotional Eating is a reminder to love yourself harder, show up for yourself, and give yourself what you really need.

Be grateful for the reminder. It might be saving your ass.  

Here, I see her use of italics as almost a gentle kind of tone. Sort of motherly, serious but kind. Her bold sentence let's us know exactly her point-- that emotional eating is helping you out. It's letting you know that you have an issue at hand, and that after you eat your body weight in brownies, you have some business to take care of. "But emotional eaters have a gift " -- here, she is reminding us that it isn't a problem, it's nothing to be ashamed of; it's something to embrace and be proud of. Emotional eating is "a unique opportunity", a "reminder" we should be grateful for, and it's "saving your ass." Her word choice just makes me feel like she is my life coach. It's sweet, but you know she isn't messing around.

I find that in a lot of her posts, italicizing her words makes her voice come off as being understanding and friendly. Her bolded lines tend to convey a tone of seriousness, without sounding mean or harsh. It emphasizes her main points. All of her words are encouraging and reassuring, never hurtful or rude. By having short lines, her voice comes off as conversational. It stresses different parts of the sentences, that work in her favor, and make a simple message almost twice as meaningful. Her voice throughout her posts is helpful and approachable-- she sounds like someone you could vent to, and get some kick-ass advice out of.

It doesn't make me feel like I'm in the wrong, like so many other articles make me feel. Her blog doesn't make me feel like I have a major weight problem, and that I have to fix it right now or the world is going to end. Her blog reminds me that it's okay to struggle with your weight, and it's okay to have feelings towards eating. I just want to hug her for letting me know that I am doing just fine on my road to body positivity and health.

Spotlight: Weightless

Since I've started becoming more body positive, I've realized that it's a community effort. Through sharing stories, and sharing your confidence and your struggles, you can help out other girls on their journey to body positivity. I follow tons of tumblr blogs that help me feel more body positive, but a lot of the more text-heavy, serious posts can really help inform you about the bigger contexts of things.

I feel like tumblr is a different kind of blogging than a wordpress or blogspot is. Tumblr uses a lot of pictures/videos/short stories to help promote body positivity, but it isn't always really informative. It's a great place to receive a lot of support, though, on your journey to better body image!

I've found that bodypos blogs that aren't on tumblr offer a little more in terms of information, current news, and in-depth analysis of certain body positive issues. One blog that I really enjoy reading is Weightless, and it targets a lot of various issues within the fat community. The majority of it’s readers are female college-aged students in America, however, it has some hits from places like India and the UK.

It's written by Margarita Tartakovsky, who has a Master's Degree in clinical psychology, and is an associate editor at PsychCentral. While getting her MS, she focused her studying on body image and eating disorders. She also co-wrote an e-book with her friend about ways to embrace your curves. How she manages to do this and still update her blog multiple times a week -since 2009- is beyond me.

Basically, she's awesome.

Not only does she have a blog that focuses on body image (aka Weightless), but she also writes on other topics like anxiety, ADHD, couples, and creativity. She's a fan of listicles, usually in offering ways to boost confidence, and loving yourself. She writes to help others feel better about themselves, and offers ways to create a lifestyle change for leading a body positive life.

More specifically, she has a series of blog posts she calls "Self-Care Sundays", which are basically used to share links and sites that she feels can contribute to making you feel better, whether it be in regards to your confidence, stress levels, creativity, etcetera. Her post from Sunday (10/19), for example, offers a variety of links that expose you to different activities that you can try yourself, or that are simply just fun and interesting articles. There are links to how to use walking as a form of meditation when you're having a rough day, a link to a listicle about how to get out of a bad mood, how to deal with painful emotions, and a list of journals (which can promote writing as a method for meditation or therapy). A couple of her other posts in this series provide yummy, healthy recipes so that you can eat food that not only tastes good, but also makes you feel good. Overall, her Self-Care Sunday posts really help someone wind down after a long stressful week and sort of take care of themselves before jumping in to the next week. It’s nice that she shares things that make her feel better as a way to help everyone else feel a little better too. She deserves a hug.

Not only do I read her blog to inform myself how to lead a healthy body positive life, but I also read it when I am in a place of doubt. One of her posts, very fittingly titled "What to Remember When You Feel Terrible About Your Body", is one that I've re-read multiple times as a reminder for what to do when I don't feel so great. My favorite part is when she says

"So if you’re feeling like crap about your body, then you’re feeling like crap about your body.

That’s OK.

It’s something to acknowledge, accept and feel — instead of beating yourself up for beating yourself up."

It just reminds me that my feelings of self-doubt, or disgust with my body are completely normal, valid, and okay. It doesn't mean I'm being bad at being body positive, it means I've hit a rough patch, and that I will get over it just like any other obstacle. Feeling worse about the way I'm feeling - feeling wrong- won't fix anything, but rather knowing that it's okay to feel bad about myself opens up the possibility to feeling better. She says that in these times of doubt, just learn to be grateful, because although you may not be satisfied at this point in time, there are a lot of things that could be different, and maybe even worse. It's important to learn to appreciate the littlest of things. Her tone and voice are very soft and caring, while still being authoritative and informational. It's almost as if my older sister or mother was giving me some serious self-love advice.

Through Weightless, Margarita has helped me, and I'm sure many others, lead a positive self-loving life, acknowledging all the ups and downs you’ll face on the way. It's not always easy to love yourself, but it's definitely possible, and with the support of Margarita and her blog, as well as the other body positive blogs on her blog roll, you too can be on your way towards becoming a body positive goddess.

Good luck, lovelies. ~~

Social Bookmarking Soulmate

So, for this week's post, I tried to find a "social bookmarking soulmate." Essentially what that means is that I've trying to find someone online who bookmarked articles, pages, videos, blogs regarding things that I find particularly interesting (cough - body positivity and body image - cough). Now let me tell you, it wasn't easy. I was using a site called "citeulike" and was searching through the tags for "body image" and I found tons of articles tagged with either "body" or "image" or both. It seemed pretty easy so far, however, I struggled finding the users that posted these articles, or the users that liked them. 

Then, as I was playing around with the search options, user bjbraams was offered as a suggestion. I was so excited. I literally thought to myself "that wasn't all that hard." Turns out though, that after looking through his articles, they all had to do with physics and something called "three-body resonances and imaging." Boooooo. Not the kind of body image I was looking for.

So I tried again. And still nothing. I decided I'd try out another site, Diigo. It had a more friendly user interface, and I found it a lot easier to navigate around. I was trying different things, clicking random buttons, typing new key words. And then I found him. My soulmate. Well, my social bookmarking soulmate. His name is Adam Clark, and he has a list dedicated to stuff he finds on body image. Now, it's not super extensive, but out of all the other users that were provided, he had the most on his body image tag. 

It was refreshing to find a guy who found body image and body positivity interesting. I feel like, normally you find women and feminists advocating for body positivity and altering the media's perception of beauty, but Adam definitely had articles like that on his page. He had such a wide range of sources, that I found it almost endearing-- I just wanted to hug him for being so body positive! Not only did he have scholarly articles, but he also had youtube videos, and articles from Seventeen magazine. He even had a body positivity article from a blog that I follow, EverydayFeminism. I think I might be in love. Joking aside, I was really happy to find someone like Adam.

He reminded me that body image and body positivity is not only a woman's issue-- that men can struggle with body image as well. And I mean, I've been aware of that, because obviously women aren't the only ones who come in bigger sizes, but it works the other way around too, and sometimes I forget. I forget that being skinny can bring along self esteem issues. 

I recently watched a youtube video about a guy discussing his biggest insecurity-- and it was that he felt like he was too skinny, and that people took him less seriously because of it. It struck a chord with me because being a bigger girl, I constantly feel judged for my size, and felt envy towards skinnier people because they have it easy. And, you kind of have to admit that they do! But that isn't to say that being thin means you're going to be happy, or like your body. It just means that you're skinny, and more accepted by others and the media. 

But stuff like finding Adam and watching that youtube video give me a friendly nudge reminding me that body image issues aren't specific to gender or size. So thanks, Adam. It's inspiring to me that not only are you a thin white male (aka perfect to society), but that you understand and support body positivity and feminism (I peeked at your other tags, hehe.) And even though you have no idea I exist, we are officially bookmarking soulmates. xoxo

Beauty Standards: A Timeline

A little over 100 years ago, in 1908, a statuette now known as the Woman of Willendorf was found, and is dated back all the way to somewhere between 28,000 and 25,000 BCE. She's faceless, naked, and round.

It is said that she was made to represent fertility, as her belly might mean she's pregnant, and also because of her wide hips and large breasts. And apparently, there are a lot of other statuettes being found like her all around the world. Now, that's not to say that this was the ideal body for a woman back in those days, but it may simply indicate that this body type was common.

Fast forward quite a few centuries and we have paintings with somewhat fuller-figured bodies, compared to what we see today. Here's a painting titled Venus and Adonis, by Peter Paul Rubens from 1635.

We can see that Venus has a little bit of belly fat and thicker thighs and arms than what we are used to seeing today-- surely, they would have been photoshopped away. 

Then, fast forwarding some more, we have "The Gibson Girl" in the early 1900s, which was classified by a thin waist (achieved with a corset) and big bust. Next, there were the 20s flapper girls-- thin and exposing her arms and legs, and no emphasis on her waist. 

Moving along, women during the war went back to "normal" and practical looks that didn't emphasize their curves, but rather subtly highlighted them. And post-war, women like Marilyn Monroe and Grace Kelley were idolized. Curves were in! But not for long-- in the 60s, models like Twiggy gained popularity, and so did the thin ideal. The 70s brought fad diets and diet pills, an increase in anorexia, and thin actresses like Farrah Fawcett. The 80s were the decade of big hair and small waists, as supermodels became more common, and the bony appearance was in. And by the time we reached the 90s, we had actresses like Pamela Anderson, Kiera Knightley, and Natalie Portman representing beauty, and they all were very thin. 

As time progressed, waists just got thinner and the BMIs of those in the media decreased, while they increased for the average woman in America. But it's hard to tell why that happened. However, studies very clearly show that the ever-so-present thin ideal in today's society plays a hugely negative role in women's body perception. 

And although I can't necessarily answer why the thin ideal became ideal, I can definitely shed light on the fact that this is not what should have happened. 

Some people say that thin models and actresses are preferred because clothing fits them better and being able to see the bone structure of the face and of the body allows for better-looking angles on the TV screen and magazine covers, etcetera etcetera. But that doesn't mean that "real" sized women can't be used in movies or magazines. What's the harm in making the average woman feel good about herself? That's why I applaud the brands I mentioned in last week's post about "real women" campaigns. They showcase real, attainable beauty. Anyway, I'm digressing.

Backtracking for a second, I'd like to mention that I kind of glossed over something when I mentioned the 50s and Marilyn Monroe and Grace Kelly. This was a time when there were ads that literally told women to gain weight, otherwise men wouldn't like you. Women were told to gain a few pounds to fill themselves out. Apparently, a few extra pounds gives you sex appeal! Who knew!? (read:sarcasm)

Can you believe that? Imagine seeing that around now. You'd think it's some sort of sick joke. Women were encouraged to gain weight. But what bothers me about this is that they were told to gain weight so that they would be attractive to men. And this is where the feminist in me gets angry. Being told to change your appearance for the male population is not okay. 

Media and advertisements play such a huge role in the self-esteem and body image of women, and being told to gain weight in the 50s and being told to lose weight now is sending the same message: you are not good enough the way you are.  

And yes, most of us want to be considered attractive, but the beauty of it all, is that if you love yourself, others will learn to love you too. And that's what matters most--that people love you for the right reasons, and that you love yourself because you are able to recognize the beauty in your flaws and uniqueness.

The progression of beauty standards in America hasn't been the best, and in all honesty, it's always been kind of wrong. But it's good to see that more brands and mass media outlets are progressing into using real-sized women, and that will always be right.

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[Disclaimer: a lot of information was gathered from this article.]

Standards of Beauty vs. Real Women

Hello friends! The past couple of posts, I decided that I would try to define a couple terms (curvy and body positive) so that you would not only get to know a little more about me, but also a little more about those terms and the purpose of this blog-- which is, I guess, helping others understand body positivity and accepting their body no matter their size.

Today, I'd like to focus more on society's standards of beauty. Not necessarily the progression of them, that's being saved for a later post, but rather what these standards are. In other words, what are we expected to look like if we want to be considered attractive.  I found this gifset on tumblr very simply called "Standards of Beauty" that depicts an animation of a drawing (of a woman) undergoing various treatments to make it beautiful in the eye's of society.

I'll take you through a run-down of what she gets done so she can represent beauty. She starts off pretty much fully nude, other than a skirt covering her bits and pieces. She's lookin' cute, with short red hair, no makeup, and an average-sized body. Firstly, they remove her skirt, and all of her body hair is removed, but they focus on her underarm hair and her pubic hair. Next, fat from her neck is removed, and injected into her cheeks. She's then given brand new, bigger, browner eyes, along with eyeliner and mascara. Her hair is removed, and she gets a new wig, dark brown hair with a side part, giving off a 50's vibe. Her lips are injected, and she gets red lipstick. Her eyebrows are filled, and she's lookin' cute as heck. I should probably mention here that there are giant hands with gloves performing all of this magic on her. They suck out the fat on her arms, and give her a boob job. They rip out a couple ribs to make her waist smaller, and make her hips look bigger (but no adding more fat there, or else she'd have love handles, which is obviously a no-no). Some of her thigh fat is sucked out, she's made taller, and into a tanning bed she goes. And tada! She's beautiful. Nice hair, made up face, big boobs, small waist, round hips, skinny legs, no body hair, and glowy and tan.

Who would have thought that after a few short, painless, effortless, free procedures, anyone could be that beautiful!? Because, you know, that should be your only goal in life -- to be picture perfect 24/7 because we want everyone to find us attractive and blah blah blah. But why? Why do we care so much about people's opinions about us? It's because of the media's portrayal of what beauty is. And what the media doesn't realize (actually it probably does realize this) is that it's putting down everyone who doesn't check off everything on the list of beauty (refer to the last sentence of the previous paragraph).

(((((Side note: Plastic surgery is an entirely different discussion, but the reason behind it has to do with body positivity. Do you want bigger boobs for yourself, because you've just always wanted fuller boobs, or do you want them because you think being flat-chested isn't attractive to anyone? Which, by the way, isn't true. People are attracted to the weirdest things, and being flat-chested isn't even weird. If it's for your own confidence, then by all means, go for it BUT the issue begs to ask where did that lack of confidence due to your breast size even stem from?!)))))

Luckily, for us bigger girls, and girls everywhere who don't look like what's on TV and in magazines, a lot of brands are finally hopping on this body positivity train. Most popular is probably the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty, which started in 2004, after a study found that only 2% of women worldwide would use the word "beautiful" to describe themselves. This campaign strives for the widening (lulz, puns) of the definition of beauty. They photograph women of different shapes, sizes, colors and capture them looking like what they refer to as "real women." Which is pretty great because this is what women actually look like! Stretch marks, rolls, cellulite, sags, wrinkles, everything! So yay Dove for not excluding anyone, although I do wish to see even bigger girls, but I'll let it slide.

Next, we have Aerie, which is American Eagle's line for intimates and lingerie, who decided that they were not going to photoshop the women in their ads. Now, I'll be the first to say that the Aerie women are definitely a little more fit and less "flawed" than those in the Dove campaign, but hey, they're real! Go Aerie!

Moving on, we have H&M using what they call "an average sized girl" to model some of their clothing. She has a belly, but she's absolutely stunning. Her hair is mess in the beachy wind, yet she's gorgeous. Woooo! Progress!  This makes me so happy!!!!

Lastly, we have Marie Claire Magazine's "Body Issue" where they showcase people of all shapes and sizes, and they had this picture in it. YESSSSSSS!

Finally, despite all these "real women" campaigns, Marie Claire actually included an overweight/obese woman. They show off her rolls and cellulite, and she looks beautiful! And it's stuff like this that really helps women love themselves. It's stuff like this that really helps redefine what society thinks is beautiful. It's stuff like this that needs to happen more often! And progress is slow, but it's steady. Here's to hoping more people see her beauty, and the beauty of "real" and "bigger" girls everywhere.

Stay beautiful, lovelies!

Becoming a Body Positive Goddess

So way back when I wrote my first post, I mentioned that I'm working my way towards becoming a body positive goddess. But I don't know how many of you actually know what that entails. It's not easy. It takes a lot of time, depending on your starting point, and a lot of perseverance.

Being body positive is loving your body despite what you think is flawed or bigger than it should be. It's loving you for you, despite your flaws. It's not necessarily thinking you're the hottest girl in the room. It's not pretending you're flawless. It's acknowledging your flaws, accepting them, working with them, and not being afraid of them. Even if you're a body positive goddess, you're not going to be satisfied with your body 24/7, 365 days a year. You'll have your off days. You'll have days where you absolutely hate your body. Everyone does. That happens to the best of us. And that's okay. What matters is how you deal with it afterwards-- do you let these feeling bother you for a while, or do you stand in front of your mirror naked and look at yourself and say "I know I have my flaws, but my flaws don't define me. I'm beautiful."

It isn't easy. Being body positive requires a great amount of confidence and self-esteem and self-love that doesn't come overnight. But with time, you'll start believing yourself. After calling yourself negative words, you began to really believe it, didn't you? Well, luckily for you, it works the other way around. I need to find some like research to support that, but for now, you're going to have to trust me on this one.

Some pointers-- in the process of becoming body positive, don't shame other body types, regardless of whether they are bigger or smaller than you. Being body positive is recognizing that all bodies are beautiful, every shape, height, size, color, everything. Every body is beautiful because it's unique. (ermahgerd, y'all, I'm getting mega cliche.)

Piggybacking off that idea, some people believe that you can't be body positive if you are aspiring for the thin ideal. However, here is where a couple clarifications should be made. Do you want to lose weight for yourself? Or is it because of society's beauty standards? Is it because you just want to have an easier experience when shopping for clothes? Or is it because you want to "fit in"? It is possible to be body positive and wanting to lose weight, you just have to make sure the reason you're doing it is for your own personal happiness, and that you aren't succumbing to the thin ideal. That's, like, the opposite of what body positivity is all about.

Body positivity is loving yourself despite what society has told you is "beautiful" and body positivity doesn't always have to do with weight. Do you not remove your body hair? And do you love yourself for it? Well look at you! You're body positive in terms of body hair. If you accept everyone and yourself regardless of weight or appearance, you're the ultimate bodypos goddess! 

One day in class last spring, I may or may not have been distracted and not paying attention... so I was looking around the room, and I noticed a girl in shorts. Which, I mean, is normal. We're in a sunny state and literally every girl where's shorts in the spring, but what struck me as interesting was the fact that she didn't shave her legs. 

I haven't seen a girl with hairy legs since I was like in the 6th grade. 

It was weird at first, and I'm not going to lie, I was kind of disgusted. But then it occurred to me that she was stronger and more confident than I'd ever be. I was so proud of her when I made that realization. I honestly wanted to like give her a standing ovation. She didn't shave her legs for her own personal reasons, whatever those may be, but the fact that she didn't let society tell her what to do was so inspiring to me.

I encourage everyone to try and become more body positive. It's a little difficult to get started, considering we grew up with these ideas all around us of what beauty is. But trust me, once you're on you're way, you're just more accepting and happy and loving, and man, it's pretty rad.

Skinny, Chubby, Fat: Where Does Curvy Fit In?

A simple google search for "curvy celebrities" ended up giving me a lot of different results.

Among the 9,610,000 results, I noticed Christina Hendricks, Beyonce, Adele, Gabourey Sidibe, America Ferrera, Tyra Banks, Queen Latifah, Kate Upton, Marilyn Monroe, and Sofia Vergara. 

Doing a search for "curvy women" gave me somewhat similar results, where I saw a lot of different body shapes. 

(I know Miranda Kerr is a "celebrity" but I added her in because the 

pictures of the other thin women in the results were too small to use.)

I also saw two pictures that I thought were kind of offensive. I get the feeling that these were created by men, who wanted "fat" girls to stop using the term curvy to describe themselves. 

So apparently, according to the first picture, I'm a dumb feminist, because I believe that both thin and overweight women can have curves. And according to the second picture, a woman with a little extra tummy chub is fat. Since when did that happen?

Anyway, what was I talking about? Oh yeah, what exactly is curvy? Both google searches provided me with a multitude of different answers. I see skinny, and I see chubby, and I see overweight. So what's what? One entry on UrbanDictionary said it's a "euphemism for 'fat' or 'chubby.'" So then why is it that I see thin women as part of my google search? Who determines what curvy means? 

I guess it ultimately comes down to personal ideas about weight, and body positivity, and such. Most women are curvy, in the sense that they have breasts, a butt, and their hips are wider than their waist. So I can see why there are many google image results showing me all different kind of women's bodies. But there are some people who strictly believe that curvy is a reserved word for bigger girls (lookin' at you, dumb feminists!), whereas others believe it is just used to describe the shape of a woman's body, regardless of size. 

Being a bigger girl myself, I guess I'm a bit biased and prefer that the word is used towards bigger girls. However, I am fully aware that even thin women have curves. I totally get it. I tend to find that magazines and tv and movies describe women with a small waist and a big butt and/or boobs to be curvy. I disagree. Would I call Miranda Kerr curvy? Probably not. She has curves, but she isn't curvy (to me at least). Kim Kardashian? Nah. She has a bangin' body, with a big butt and huge boobs, and definitely has curves, but that's that. Not curvy, in my opinion. Gabourey Sidibe, curvy? Nope. Although she's overweight, I think she's past the point of curviness. She's beautiful regardless, but not so much curvy as she is bodacious. Curvy, to me, is embodied in two pictures above: the one of the woman in the red dress, and the other of the woman in the bathing suit with a sarong. NOW THAT'S CURVY. Look at those hips, gurrrrl. Yaaaassss!! But I feel like I should reiterate here that I do recognize that most women have a curvature to their bodies. It's only natural. We were biologically made to have more lumps and bumps and wider hips and all that jazz. Women have curves. But not all women are curvy-- to me.

It's a little difficult to try and define my own personal definition of curvy without offending anyone in the process. Regardless of whether you fall into my definition of curvy, or a "dumb feminist's", or Cosmopolitan's (they use the term to describe J.Lo and Kim K), you're still beautiful. If you're a woman reading this, it's probably safe to assume that you have curves. Are you curvy? Who knows. Not me. But I think it's open to interpretation. So you decide how you feel about your curves, and whether or not you will embrace them or hate them (please choose the former). 

I'm curious to know what curvy means to you, let me know! (: