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! (:

Not surprised.

So, I found this interesting article that related a woman's body image to their sexual satisfaction. I thought I'd share it with you guys! 

Pujols, Yasisca, Cindy M. Meston, and Brooke N. Seal. "The association between sexual satisfaction and body image in women." The journal of sexual medicine 7.2pt2 (2010): 905-916.

Pujols and colleagues' research was conducted in the hopes of finding a correlation between body image and body esteem on sexual satisfaction. They found that negative body image resulted in reporting lower sexual satisfaction, but played no role in having sexual difficulties. A distinction should be made clear here: sexual dissatisfaction refers to one's attitudes towards their sexual experiences, while sexual difficulties are issues such as low sex drive and uncomfortable sex.

Body esteem plays an important role in sexual dissatisfaction because women with distorted body image tend to be more distracted by their own appearance during sex, than the actual sexual experience. The article spoke about women's bodies being more scrutinized in the media and in society than a man's. Their research explored spectatoring-- where an individual focuses on their appearance and body during sexual activity. They think that due to society's standards of beauty, women with low body esteem are found to commit spectatoring more often than men.

Because of these factors, it was found that having high body esteem and good body image allowed for higher sexual satisfaction. These findings can be used to treat women with sexual dissatisfaction, by targeting their issues with body esteem and body image instead of trying to diagnose a medical condition. It offers great insight into how one's body esteem can play a role in other aspects of one's life.

Is it bad that I'm not surprised at all? They mentioned that because the media and sociocultural norms target a woman's body more than a man's, that men don't experience sexual dissatisfaction as often. It's a shame that the media still tries to portray the "perfect woman" instead of just being real. This was meant to be a short annotation, so we'll get more into this next week. Until then, stay beautiful!

“Oh my god, I’m going to be the new Tubby.”

Hi. I’m fat. But I’m also so much more than that. I’m an avid reader, an older sister, a soon-to-be college graduate, a Netflix junkie, a dog-lover, a One Direction fan girl, a frequent napper, and an aspiring body-positive goddess. Okay, I’m only half-joking about that last one (and not joking at all about One Direction), but I am working towards body positivity—which brings me to the purpose of this blog.

I’ve been fat for the majority of my life. I distinctly remember getting ready for school one morning in the second grade, putting on my plaid Catholic school jumper, when I realized that I couldn’t button it as easily as I used to. I ran into my mom’s room and asked her for help—maybe I just wasn’t fully awake yet, or something, you know? Except, she couldn’t do it either, so she told me to lie down on the bed to flatten my tummy, and we tried again. Success! It worked. But I looked like I was about to pop when I stood back up.

In retrospect, I laugh at myself. I was cute. But I remember how sad I was that morning as I was getting dressed. There was another chubby girl in my class named Jessica, but all the boys called her Tubby behind her back. I couldn’t help but think to myself, “Oh my god, I’m going to be the new Tubby.”

To my surprise, I never did become Tubby; and to this day, the only person who has called me fat or said anything rude about my weight has been my little sister, which is typical. I am not a victim of bullying directed towards my weight, and despite that, I still managed to grow up hating my appearance. Why? No one else seemed to care, so why did I? I realize now that I was taught to hate my body through my surroundings and what I saw in the media. I was taught that because I was heavier than those around me, I was less beautiful. That being thin was what I should be striving for. That only then would I be happy and truly attractive.

Well, I call bullshit.

Just because I’m heavier than a lot of people, it DOES NOT mean that I’m less attractive. Being fat doesn’t decrease my self-worth or ability in this world (other than being a slow runner, hah). Being fat just means that I weigh more than you, and that’s okay. I want this blog to aid my journey towards being body-positive. I want to inform myself, and others about body image and self-love, and blah blah blah. But I don’t want to be all preachy and be like “LOVE YOURSELF BECAUSE YOU’RE YOU AND YOU’RE PERFECT” or like super cliché with stuff like “everyone is beautiful in their own way (:” And although both those statements are true, what I want to be is completely honest with myself (and you guys!) about my struggle with my weight, how I’m learning to love myself, how the media is helping and hindering me, and how I’ve been influenced by other’s confidence and self-love.  

Taylor, Mel, and Lyndsay are three bloggers I follow who have taught me vicariously to be more confident in my size. Be wary, some posts are nsfw, but a majority of their personal posts have helped me deal with my own battles. It's weird how through their stories and self-confidence, I am able to feel better about myself.

I’m excited to do my own research about body positivity and body image in the media and how it’s perceived in today’s society. I’m also interested in learning about the progression of the standards of beauty. For example (it’s the example everyone uses), Marilyn Monroe was considered beautiful, and she wasn’t as thin as most models and actresses we see now. What changed between her time and our time? AND OH MY GOD, the definition of curvy. We need to talk about that you guys. Because I can almost guarantee that my definition of curvy isn’t the same as yours, or anyone else’s (I’m looking at you, Beyoncé).

We’ll delve in deeper into the influence celebrities have on us, and how through other’s perception of themselves, you can alter your perception of yourself. We’ll talk about a lot of things that I hope interest you too, and maybe help you with your own struggles. Prepare yourself for this journey, and grab some snacks for the road. (;