I saw this image floating around on Facebook today:
My Rantling when I shared this image:
I’m not sharing this because one group is more beautiful than the other… I’m sharing it because: Why are we focusing on the body type/appearance of these women? How does their body shape/ body type/ fitness level impact our lives? Chances are you don’t even KNOW these people and for all practical purposes – they are all equally lovely people personality-wise.
The women in the top photo work hard to maintain what nature gave them for their JOB; they are naturally thin – don’t be hatin’ on them for what they had no control over.
The women on the bottom may be working equally hard to maintain where they are. They are working with what nature gave them; don’t be hatin’ on them for what they had no control over.
Stop reducing people to their outward appearance; people are more than what shows on the outside.
Recently, Rachel Jay over at Suburban Style Challenge wrote about Thin Hate and it had really touched a nerve with me – so much so that I started to write about my own experiences with hurt over body type – a post for another day. The point is: how dare people judge anyone because of body type.
I may very well be a naturally thin person; I’ve always been athletic and curvy and haven’t ever really seen “thin” (but recently I’ve started to wonder if a variety of symptoms I’ve had for a few years is lactose and/or gluten related – again, another post for another day). If you don’t like the way someone appears on the outside – don’t look at them or better yet, get off your ass, get the stick out of it and get to know them. I know wonderful people of all sizes, shapes and colors; I also know some really awful people of all sizes, shapes and colors.
This kind of behavior, this “hate” of body types, has to stop. Don’t hate me for being curvy, don’t hate Rachel Jay for being thin. Don’t hate the Victoria’s Secret models for working their fannies off for their careers and don’t hate the Dove models for being “real”. ALL of those women are Real. They all have hopes, dreams and feelings. Stop focusing all the negativity and insecurities you have for yourself on others.
I know it’s difficult, and I slip up in this department often (though I am now much, much better), but if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.
Musings of the Amusing Muse 
“Get off your ass, get the stick out of it and get to know them”. I love you! Thanks for posting your thoughts on the subject… looking forward to seeing your post on your own body image issues. It’s something we all deal with, unfortunately, and I think that with more and more people speaking out about everyone needing to worry less about how others look, it may eventually have an effect. Will we see body-hate go away soon? No, probably not. But eventually? I think so.
I certainly hope so! Your post was fantastic and heart-felt and well… seeing this image today got my ire up. 😉
I was like, yea baby! Almost jumping off my ass and cheering. I mean yea..I have a certain taste in women but that doesn’t mean I exclude any other woman. They all beautiful.
Thank you, Michael! And… you ARE allowed to jump up off your ass and cheer.
Hallelujah!! How boring it must be for those cookie cutter people who judge without knowing. small minds with small lives.
Variety is the spice of life, so the saying goes. How boring the world would be if we all looked exactly the same.
You bring up a lot of good points. Beauty is on the inside and the outside. Don’t you think that women hold women more to the physical appearance standard than the average guy?
I actually think that both men and women hold each other to an unrealistic standard; women are catty about other women, men make crude comments about not wanting to fuck one or the other. That’s by no means a blanket statement. What people THINK they’re supposed to look like is often perpetuated via fashion, but saying a fashion magazine gave you an eating disorder is like saying a spoon made you fat.
As Rachel Jay’s post says, it’s confusing to hear from one handful of people that you’re too thin and not eating enough, and then hearing from them that what you’re eating is going to catch up with you. I see and hear a lot of thin women berate curvy gals for being “fat” and then say they wished they had curves. I’ve seen curvy gals berate thin women for “being thin” and then turn around and say they wish they, too, were thin.
I’ve heard men praise one woman’s curves and her equally curvy friend gets called “fat”; while they call thin women “skinny bitches”. The ridicule goes on and on.
I think in this technological age, the amount of bashing is probably the same (percentage-wise) as it was 100 years ago, we just hear about it more often, it’s become more pervasive and unfortunately, acceptable. My own bullying over my body didn’t come from women (at least I never heard it from women) – it came from a male of the species.
All valid points. Very unfortunate about your own story of bullying. It’s disappointing that we can’t accept people where they are and not where others think they should be. But that’s a HUGE societal challenge, to say the least. And big-time therapy.
Unfortunate? Perhaps. It sucked at the time, but helped make me who I am.
As for everything else, yes – it NEEDS to be a huge societal change. I didn’t notice in Europe any of the ridicule that I see here in the US – not that it doesn’t happen, but I didn’t see it, and frankly, my European friends are much more accepting of other people than many Americans. Change needs to happen. Change is constant and so far, in the modeling venue it is happening a little bit at a time like this story.
While I think your post makes a lot of great points on its own, within the context of this image I think it’s missing the point. The issue here is not that the thin women aren’t “real” women in the way the other women are, or that we should all hate on naturally skinny women, it’s that most advertising campaigns take these models (all of whom may be naturally skinny, but many of whom have to maintain full on eating disorders in order to keep their jobs) and STILL photoshop them to make them look even skinnier and more flawless. The problem isn’t that these models are naturally thin, it’s that they HAVE to be.
My issue with the image floating around is that people were ripping on the thin women, just like in the image Rachel Jay used in her post. There are many other issues underlying with the image I used, but ultimately, the verbal assault the women in the top image were getting was the reason for my rantling.
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