When I first set out to write this piece, I initially was going to talk about how women’s bodies are constantly scrutinized, shamed, policed, and controlled in media. However, within my first few minutes of research, I learned that if I were to try and present this topic, specifically of women’s bodies being shamed, I would receive backlash from men saying that they too are given unrealistic beauty standards and shamed for not having the perfect body. Which, to an extent, is true.
Men do face unrealistic representation of bodies in media as well. While plus size modeling for women is expanding, the same industry for men has not seen that change. But whether you are a man, a woman, or non-binary, the body standards that our media creates for us are unhealthy and dangerous. These beauty standards that people can't possibly live up to foster a negative body image, which can have severe effects on an individual.
Before you get upset at me and say that I’m just another person complaining about “unrealistic beauty standards, just take a moment and realize that they do exist. The term has been overused, and used in the wrong context entirely, but the concept still clearly exists. It’s sometimes fun to joke about these standards when you yourself can realize that what the media presents isn’t realistic or possible for the majority of the population. But these standards are dangerous to young people who are fed negative comments about their bodies and still are deeply affected by them.
Which is not to say that people are not still affected by negative comments as they reach the age of adulthood. I still get called “bitch”, “fatass”, “whore”, and many other terms online on nearly a daily basis. It’s stopped affecting me because really, these attacks are not on a personal level. The people, most of them strangers, directing these attacks at me don’t know me well enough to actually insult or offend me. That’s probably why we see so many “celebrities read mean tweets” videos. The comments after some time don’t really affect them because the comments are made by people who don’t know them.
Of course, some days still really get to me. There are days when random comments by 14-year-olds on twitter and strangers from other social media apps hurt. Clearly, they hurt, these types of things aren’t what you say to people you like. After some time, I recover and just have to realize that all I have to do is block them and I’ll never hear from them again. If it won’t affect my life in 5 years, I don’t need to spend more than 5 minutes on it. That doesn’t include homework. Homework matters. Keep doing your homework, guys.
People decide to go out of their way and target others on parts of themselves they cannot change all the time. At least partially, it is embedded in human nature to judge others. But when our brains do start judging someone, we can usually stop ourselves now and say, “let them live their lives how they want to. I don’t know them and have no place to think negative or rude things about them.” Others have absolutely no filter and can’t control any thoughts that come into their mind and they allow every thought to spew out of their mouth without a second glance or regrets.
Telling people mean things about their bodies is cruel and unnecessary. Let people live. Let people exist with their bodies and allow themselves to do what they want with their bodies. What other people eat, wear, or do with their bodies is none of our business. Criticizing people for their bodies is pathetic. Truly accepting others' bodies for the way they are does not depend on what you think is beautiful. Your beauty standards do not always apply to every person and that's okay. Everybody has a different definition of beauty, and you don't have to think that everyone is beautiful, but you should at least allow other people to exist the way they want to. It's a difficult, internal thing that takes a lifetime to unlearn. We see it every day in magazines and media and it's probably not going to change anytime soon.
What you can take away from this, if you've read this far, is to just allow people to live. Fat or skinny or in between, tall, short, or in between, chunky or smooth or in between and everything else. You are not required to agree with what people do, or fully support them, but there is rarely a need to go out of your way to attack another person for just being themselves. We are all just people, so let's treat each other like that.
