Body Positivity. Oh look, there’s a hot button issue that gets people mad. Let’s poke it.
So I should preface this. The meat sack I inhabit happens to roughly approximate the arbitrary standards of beauty set by the time and place in which I live. For some, I am the problem with the body positive movement. And I get that. The last thing I want is to read about how hard life is with round, perky breasts and how to overcome such hardship with the power of mind. So instead, I’m just going to comment on a few things I’ve noticed with this growing trend.
- It gets hijacked to sell shit.
Advertisers got wise to this a while ago. “Look, we’re the good company who isn’t going to make you feel bad about yourself in order to make you think you need our product to be worthy of love. We’re your frieeeeeeeends.” I mean, I’d rather have this than the alternative, but still. Much side eye.
- “They’re promoting an unhealthy lifestyle arglbrgl!”
People seem to think that having happy, positive representations of curvy girls will make people complacent about health. I don’t know how it is in other countries, but in the US we have this stupid bias that thin=healthy and fat=unhealthy. It’s so reductive and ridiculous and can we just stop please?
- There are too many thin girls
One of the criticisms I’ve read is that the “faces” of the movement are too often small, thin, white girls posting workout pics on Instagram. And that’s a fair worry. Though if your measure is number of Instagram likes, I’d posit that maybe that’s more a symptom of cultural bias than an issue with the movement itself.
- There are not enough thin girls
Sometimes, in an effort to make those traditionally othered feel welcome, we make those traditionally welcome feel othered. Then again, the process of going from a position of social power to one of social equality feels like being persecuted, so maybe this isn’t even happening. I think we have to remember to have grace with each other here; that thin girl might have eating disorders and depression and body dysmorphia. Telling her she isn’t allowed to feel something isn’t going to help.
- There aren’t enough dudes.
I see a little bit of body positivity for guys, and let’s be honest, dudely types aren’t given the heavy message that their appearance is their main source of value to the world, so body image isn’t going to be as heavy a topic. But it’s still not non-existent. I’m looking forward to more stuff for the men in my life.
- It’s about goddam time
In case you can’t tell, I fucking love the body positive movement. Sure, it has challenges and things to balance, but so does everything worth doing. Every time and place and culture has been telling women that they need to look a certain way. It’s refreshing to hear, “You know what, forget it. Just do you.”
So you know what? Just do you.
Other Notes:
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