I am a young woman who, more than anything, hates the body shaming our society has created. But you know whose fault it is? Not the modeling industry’s, the acting industry’s or the clothing industry’s. It’s ours. It is the young women of today’s society who are to blame and let me tell you why.
We were the first ones to say we didn’t like our bodies.
Long before someone else told us we were “too fat,” “too skinny,” “too ___,” we had already told ourselves. As women, we are naturally critical of everything: ourselves included. We are truly our biggest critics and this is definitely true when talking about our bodies. I remember the first time I grew out of a size in shorts as a teenager, and I had the ridiculous notion that I was too big. In reality, as I got older, my hips grew with me and that just wasn’t the right size for me anymore, and that’s okay. I had to learn to not be critical of the body I was given and accept it. Through this sense of criticism, we have set a chain reaction in motion.
We have made it “OK” to be critical of other women’s bodies.
Somehow, either through jealousy and insecurity or through just plain meanness, we have made it the “norm” to talk badly about other women’s bodies. Whenever someone posts a full-body picture on social media, you can’t read through the comments without seeing half of them saying something negative. A model, Dani Mathers, recently posted a picture on Snapchat of a woman at her gym. This picture was captioned “If I can’t unsee this neither can you” and showed a naked woman whose body was not the same as Mathers’. How can a woman ever think it is OK to shame another woman’s body, especially publicly? In a world where women are fighting for equal pay amongst many other issues, how can a woman feel that she can degrade another woman for being physically different than herself? Your body is the only one with which you should concern yourself.
Since so many women say negative things about the female body, males have decided they can, too.
This one outrages me almost as much as the previous point. Men have coined terms like “thick,” “phat,” etc. to describe parts of women’s bodies. Men have somehow come to find the figure of a woman the center of a joke that is becoming less and less funny. Under no circumstance is a woman’s body humorous. Supporting the sayings “Real men like meat, not bones” or “Slim waists with bigger breasts and a backside is what I like” has made women all over the world question their body more and more. Men like these are some of the shallowest scum of the Earth and what they find acceptable and deem beautiful is not of importance. Who cares what a male thinks of a female body anyway? They don't even understand the female body.
The point I’m trying to get around to is this: love your body. Women must love the skin they are in and learn to not care what someone else says about it. And if for some reason you don’t love your body, make it into something you do. Work out, gain muscle, eat a Big Mac, go on a diet, whatever will make you more confident. Just remember, if you are changing your body, do it for the right reasons. Not because some random follower on Instagram called you fat, or because saw a post that says “zero is not a size.” You are beautiful, regardless of the shirt or pant size you wear. Believe that, and teach it to the girls who are coming up in the generation after you. We are role models to the next line of women, and this is something that we should better for them.
