“Real Women” Come in All Shapes

The D’s and I were discussing an interesting trend today – the “Real Women have curves” phenomenon.  I ran across an article in StyleHive that had tips for hourglass women.  The tips were great, but the headline really irked me.

“Real women have curves.”

We know I’m on the small side.  I feel like I struggle at writing certain posts because I am small and there’s a mentality that being thin is disgusting.  I had a hard time coming out and saying “I sort of like being thin,” because I’m afraid someone will vilify me for “gloating” or something ridiculous.  I’ve read so many articles about girls with curves and how men love voluptuous women and so much trash talk about being a size zero.  In fact, last year, one trend report went so far as to point out the ways women could add volume to their backsides with pleats and poufy fabrics.

Now I’m all for curves – I think they’re amazing, but during one party I went to, I overheard a snippet of “That’s too skinny”-bashing conversation.  It was dismaying to hear these words coming from grown women – after all, you can tell when a woman is thin and still looks healthy.  The negative bias against skinny people has to stop though, because it makes the skinny girls feel bad for having whatever genes they came with.  Why pull out the pitchforks, ladies?

A recent article in Jezebel pointed out the stigma media writers have against thin girls.  Daily Mail writer, Liz Jones “snark[ed] on Gisele’s body” by saying it was like “hugging a broken umbrella” and hinting that being so thin would lead to brittle bone disease later in Gisele’s life, but since when does Liz Jones have the power to determine someone’s health through hugs?  And as the Jezebel writers note: that sort of catty talk about someone who was born thin “doesn’t help anyone else”.  It’s that sort of catty trash talk that Alex Blimes wrote about in a recent Vogue UK article (and I have a few strong words about that for later).  It isn’t thinness or thickness that’s keeping us down, it’s each other.

On the other side of the scale, I feel for girls who do have eating disorders, that they are holding themselves up to an unrealistic standard.  I think that the practice of runway models starving themselves on a few leaves of lettuce and a sip of diet Coke are ridiculous – but I don’t hate them for being thin.  I understand that the deeply seated problem is a byproduct of a society that has focused on unrealistic beauty.  Of course, I’m not going to assume, though, just because a girl is waif-like that she starves herself to be that way.

I do have curves, and I want to be allowed to feel sexy too.  I am built smaller, but I have curves and I think I am a “real woman”.  I am no less real than a girl with a bigger bone structure and a little more obvious voluptuousness than me.

I hate the phrase “Real women have curves.”  How about this, instead – “Real women look healthy”, or “Real women love themselves, and their shape” or “Real women support each other regardless of body-type”??

Notes From The [Other] Demoiselles:

Elle: I was really shocked at my own reaction to this article. Typically, I’m one on the larger side of the spectrum… well, most of the time, so people always seem to skinny-bash around me in attempt to establish approval of my size, and show that they’re “on my side.” I’d forgotten that teeny-tiny women had JUST as much control over how they developed as I did (which was very little), and that saying like “Real Women Have ____” are extremely harmful to the psyches of, well, anyone! There are very few “un-real” women out there, and they make themselves known. Actually, they probably wouldn’t like to hear this, either!

It makes me excited, though, that Birdie (our slimmest Demoiselle) is powerhousing through all the skinny-bashers and showing that real women have… bodies!

Jennifer Nicole: I know I overuse the word “conscious” but in a post like this it is so fitting.  Real women are conscious – of their fashion, yes, but also of their health and their words.  I don’t care how thin or fat you are: if you’re not eating healthy and exercising, you’re doing it wrong…and that’s what we should be talking trash about, not whether someone is “too skinny” or “too chubby.”

Of course, no one’s perfect (I have been known to skip a work-out…or seven) but what I’m trying to get at is exactly what Birdie and Elle are saying: if more of us were accepting of each other’s bodies – if we celebrated our chicken legs and belly rolls – we’d have fewer unhealthy super models and maybe even stand a chance against the obesity epidemic.

I, for one, would like to thank Birdie, and bloggers like her, for standing up for the skinny-minnies.  Now, let’s put her in a room with a borderline plus-size blogger and an ultra-curvy short blogger…oh, wait…

Tags: "real women have curves", giselle, hourglass figures, skinny bitches

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