Body shaming, it's a big topic. Whether you're a size zero or a size sixteen, we've all been made to feel bad about our bodies by someone at some point in our lives. Maybe some horrible boy made fun of your flat chest and long legs, telling you to "just go eat a cheeseburger." Maybe you read online that "real women have curves," and wondered just why you didn't fit the definition of a real woman. Or maybe a mean girl in the hallway whispered the dreaded f-word and giggled to her friends as you walked by, causing you to forego lunch that day in a desperate attempt to just be a little smaller. We have all had these experiences, and neither one of them is any worse than the other. However, for some reason, instead of sharing bad experiences with each other and sympathizing, women (especially women on the internet) just want to argue about who has it worse.
Honestly, I'm biased. I've never even been close to being a size 2, I usually fall somewhere between a size 8 and 11, depending on the year. I'm not ashamed of that, but I used to be. I used to see skinny girls in the hallway and beg God to look like them. I wished away my big thighs and heavy hips, my chubby arms and flabby stomach. I wouldn't eat right; I would exercise excessively (and unhealthily) to just lose that extra ten pounds. I would get mad when my smaller friends complained about their bodies and told them that they didn't know what hating yourself feels like. But they did. Everyone does. Everyone, small or large, has or has had something about themselves that they don't like. And everyone has had those things pointed out to them more than once.
Sure, society-wise, the skinny girls have the advantage. If you just look at magazine ads and articles about losing weight for that perfect, tiny summer body, you'd easily be convinced that everyone in our world prefers smaller girls. However, I'd argue that society doesn't like anyone because everyone in society doesn't always like themselves. If you're bigger, society tells you that you need to lose weight to be healthy and fit those infallible beauty standards we see plastered on every television screen and popular Instagram page. If you're smaller, it tells you that you need to gain weight, stop perpetuating those impossible beauty standards and stop hating on bigger women because "real women have curves." It's both a contradiction and a paradox, closing in on itself and making us lash out at each other like a bunch of caged animals.
So stop. Stop writing articles about how skinny women don't know what self-hate and body shaming feels like, because I promise you they do. Stop acting like all bigger women are attacking you for being small because I can tell you from personal experience that it comes from a lifetime of internalized, institutional shame. Stop fighting each other, and take some time to listen to each other. Listen, and learn what it's like to walk in every single pant size. Stop acting like "fat" and "skinny" are curse words, and just accept that they both can be synonymous with "beautiful." Stop saying that real women have curves because all women have curves; it's a part of the human body. Stop bickering over who wears crop tops better, because every size woman can slay a crop top if she so chooses.
It's hard enough to be a woman in a patriarchal society that values a woman's size and physical appearance over her brain and soul. We don't need those women attacking each other for stupid reasons too. We are all beautiful, strong, and we all should be confident enough in ourselves to not have to tear anyone else down. The wheel of systematic oppression is only going to stop turning if we team up on either side and break it in half.
