by Golda Poretsky, H.H.C.
www.bodylovewellness.com
Listen to the podcast of this post here:
Lot’s of very well meaning people, when they find out what I do for a living, say something to the effect of:
“Right on! Real women have curves!”
Real Women Have Curves. Maybe. (Image from wikipedia)
I know they mean well. They’re saying that women’s bodies are more curvaceous than the emaciated bodies that are often held as an ideal by the media. But the whole concept drives me bonkers. And if it hasn’t driven you bonkers yet, let me explain why it drives me bonkers and you may end up agreeing with me.
1) Women Are Women, Curvy Or Not — Women’s bodies (just like men’s bodies) come in a diverse range of shapes. There are plenty of curvy thin women and curvy fat women, not curvy thin women and not curvy fat women. There are plenty of fat women with proportionately small hips and proportionately big hips. There are plenty of thin women with the same. Same for breasts. Same for everything. There are also some men with bigger hips and smaller hips and bigger breasts and smaller breasts. In other words, there are plenty of “real women” who are not f-ing curvy and are still quite real, and sometimes even, quite fat.
2) What The Heck Is A Real Woman, And Why Should We Care? — Personally, I think that anyone who identifies as a woman is a woman. I don’t really care if she has curves or a vulva or whatever. I’m guessing that if you’re reading this blog, you probably don’t care to much about it either. But aside from that, does it help anything to refer to larger women as “real”? Does that make thin women fake? Or not really women? Ugh. See item #4.
Which of these women is more real? (Image from Marie Clarie UK Online)
3) Can We Just Say FAT For Once? — I personally hate the curvy euphemism. I hate it more than most others, like large or even plus size (though I agree with Queen Latifah that plus size should be “buried“). Curviness has way more to do with chest/waist/hip ratio than anything else, and I think our fixation on those measurements has added to the negative way that most women view their bodies for decades.
4) Relegating Thin Women To A Lesser Status Isn’t Helpful — I realize that bigger women have been put down, discriminated against, considered non-ideal, and worse, and that is really, really wrong and needs to change. But I don’t think the way to create that change is to try to prove that bigger is better. How about we just start to see that bigger is great too. We don’t have to relegate ourselves to a scarcity model of beauty and “realness” belong to only a select few. Perhaps one doesn’t have to be better than the other. Perhaps we can see that there’s a thing called body diversity, that beauty comes in all shapes and sizes, and that attraction is viable among people of varying weights.
So, yes, real women have curves, and don’t have curves, and whatever, at least that’s what I think. Let me know what you think in the comments section below!
Golda Poretsky, H.H.C. is a certified holistic health counselor who specializes in transforming your relationship with food and your body.
I recently saw a dove ad on facebook and it was a little daunting. There wasn’t anyone especially thin that would throw home the fact that woman come in all shapes and sizes. To be frank, at 5 feet and 94 pounds, I wear a substantially padded bra so more people would get the idea that I am in fact-a 27 year old woman and not a 12 year old girl who deserves less respect and attention. Course, I am also fairly confident and have a sense of humor. I’m thinking looking 15 years younger won’t be so bad as I age. ALL women are beautiful!
wow reading some of these comments has given me confidence. living in a “your a boy unless you have huge breasts” society has really fucked with my self esteem.
Ive always been very short and thin and I hate it. Anytime I see someone taller and curvier I feel like a kitten, and they are the lion I can never amount too. :( I know ive been brainwashed by the media and I shouldn’t feel this way but how can we cope if its being flashed infront of us everyday, everywhere? billboards, magazines, tv shows, movies, ects……….
http://t.co/7WWjWo7q makes lots of sense to me.
Thank you SO MUCH for posting this!!! I just finished reading another ‘feminist’ blog on this same issue and ended up leaving a long, angry rant in the comments, so I’m very happy to leave a long *happy* one here. Please be a little more sensitive to women and girls who may have a different body type than your own. Growing up, I was always very thin, had difficulty gaining weight. People told me I was a ‘late bloomer’ (insulting for many reasons…), but it turns out by their standards I was a non-bloomer. Because all the supposedly positive talking points were geared exclusively toward bolstering curvy girls’ self-esteem, I grew up being called boyish, scrawny, skinny, anorexic, and flat-chested. So, when I read on that other blog about how “real women” don’t have the “androgynous, long-legged, small breasted, slender silhouette” seen in magazines, I think of all the girls like me who grew up hearing that “real women have curves” and thinking they weren’t *real* women and have all the femininity of an ironing board. Why does rhetoric regarding the female figure have to be so oppositional? We are all equally women, and we are all equally beautiful. Thanks for doing the responsible thing and caring equally about everyone’s health and happiness! :)
Here here! I spent most of my life being made fun of for being thin. It is hurtful to us just as it is for big girls/women. Thank you for this article! Yes, I am a woman too!