Women Either Have To Exercise, Diet and be Subjected to Photoshop, Or Be Told How “Brave” They Are For Having “Real” Bodies. And that has got to stop.
It’s summer and with that comes dieting, exercising, fake tanning, dry body brushing, exfoliating, waxing and moisturising. It includes hundreds of products and doing our hair and make up just perfect. Oh, and shopping for bikinis and sandals. Except THANK GOD it doesn’t. There is only one way to get a bikini body: put on a bikini. There you go. You already had the body.
In the run up to summer, magazines are full of articles on how to detox and lose weight for summer. I have read so many articles on fake tanning on auto-pilot that it actually made me angry that I did not stop reading these “how-to’s” years ago. I don’t even use fake tan. I love my pale skin and I will not let society and the media tell me how to ‘fix’ it to conform to their ideal of beauty. Ditto the dieting, waxing and detoxing articles. In fact, one of my biggest girl crushes, Mindy Kaling, has said the following: “Most people want to ask about my size and how brave I am. I’m like, ‘I’m not brave, I’m just not really skinny”. Because being a successful and beautiful woman is not enough, right? You also have to be skinny and conform to a certain ideal of beauty. Usually a tall, thin white woman.
The truth is, a women’s body is always politicised and objectified. We either have to work out, eat healthily and be photo-shopped into oblivion, or flaunt our ‘real women’ bodies (how I hate that phrase!) and get told how “brave” we are. We get bullied into insecurity because that is how the beauty industry, how capitalism, makes billions from us.
Making women feel bad about themselves is an industry in itself.
I am not attacking women’s magazines, but I am saying that those ‘bikini body’ articles have to go. Sure, tell us how to be fit and healthy. Tell us about the latest beauty products and give us great articles on health and recipes for good, nourishing food, but stop with the bikini body myth. It is damaging all of us. There is no such thing as perfection. It seems like it is a secret that women’s bodies are not perfect. That they don’t have marks on them. Well they do. Women have cellulite and stretch-marks. But here is the thing: men do too! They just can’t make money out of making men feel bad about it so they don’t bother. Hell, even babies have cellulite! Frankly, can you think of anything more dire than the pursuit of physical perfection? For one, it doesn’t exist. Even for the most narrow of beauty ideals, and because we all have better things to do. Can you imagine what women could achieve if they spent the same amount of time getting ready as the average man? We could take a course, work, even just relax for a while. I would rather carry some extra pounds and enjoy my life than have a ‘perfect’ body (and let’s be honest, those don’t exist).
In my life I have been everything from a UK size 4 to a UK size 12/14. And here is the thing: I always felt fat. I hated it if my stomach was bloated, if my skirts were tight around my hips. Then I freed myself. Because, to borrow a phrase from another wise woman, fat is a feminist issue. My body has made another human being. It has been good to me and I love it. And I love it even though I have been taught not to. Despite the lack of fake tan, waxing and expensive ‘firming’ creams. I love it because loving your body as a woman is a revolutionary act. And I have always been a bit of a rebel.