Very few of you will have noticed that the blog is a wee bit late this week; I have been ill (I am never ill). So I am in quarantine, watching the 40 year old Virgin and feeling sorry for myself whilst drinking copious amounts of water and eating dry toast.
Moving swiftly along - this week my blog is discussing the attitudes towards different sized women in the modelling industry. The other week, I read an article and the link was entitled "Here's what Victoria's Secret swimsuits look like on real women." The use of the phrase "real women" made me squirm. To me, the title suggested that the writer thought that Victoria's Secret models aren't real women because they are simply smaller, more toned and let's face it, more Photoshopped than the average woman. But (and I might seem naive for saying this) I think that there's only so much Photoshop can do; if they want to show slim women, they will pick slim women to be the models in the first place. So that left the bigger issue - that the writer suggested that they were not "real women" because of what they looked like.
And so I thought to myself: What do we think a "real woman" is in 2015? Now, more than ever, more plus-sized women are on the modelling scene and I think we'd be stupid to ignore this new culture of "skinny shaming" that we're seeing all over the place now that (arguably) modelling isn't exclusive to those that are size 6 or below. This led me to the conclusion that the Victoria's Secret article was a covert form of skinny shaming.
All you need to do to know what skinny shaming is, is look at Meghan Trainor's lyrics in "All about that Bass" - awful song, awful message. I'm not even going to dissect the lyrics and tell you which bits are unacceptable, because I hope many of you will agree with me, and will already be able to tell me - it's plainly obvious.
Don't get me wrong, I think it's brilliant that larger women are finding happiness in their own skin, but putting others down to find that happiness? That is what I am not a fan of.
Moving swiftly along - this week my blog is discussing the attitudes towards different sized women in the modelling industry. The other week, I read an article and the link was entitled "Here's what Victoria's Secret swimsuits look like on real women." The use of the phrase "real women" made me squirm. To me, the title suggested that the writer thought that Victoria's Secret models aren't real women because they are simply smaller, more toned and let's face it, more Photoshopped than the average woman. But (and I might seem naive for saying this) I think that there's only so much Photoshop can do; if they want to show slim women, they will pick slim women to be the models in the first place. So that left the bigger issue - that the writer suggested that they were not "real women" because of what they looked like.
And so I thought to myself: What do we think a "real woman" is in 2015? Now, more than ever, more plus-sized women are on the modelling scene and I think we'd be stupid to ignore this new culture of "skinny shaming" that we're seeing all over the place now that (arguably) modelling isn't exclusive to those that are size 6 or below. This led me to the conclusion that the Victoria's Secret article was a covert form of skinny shaming.
All you need to do to know what skinny shaming is, is look at Meghan Trainor's lyrics in "All about that Bass" - awful song, awful message. I'm not even going to dissect the lyrics and tell you which bits are unacceptable, because I hope many of you will agree with me, and will already be able to tell me - it's plainly obvious.
Don't get me wrong, I think it's brilliant that larger women are finding happiness in their own skin, but putting others down to find that happiness? That is what I am not a fan of.
Unless you've been living under a rock, you'll probably have heard of this lady above - Tess Holliday. She is the first size 26 model to be signed by a major industry - Milk Management. In terms of making a statement - of course, she's done it! But is it the right way in which to challenge the norm? I'm not so sure. I don't believe that the way to combat unhealthy slim models saturating the modelling industry is to attempt to decrease their significance by replacing them with equally as unhealthy, plus-sized women. Whenever you put someone on a public platform, they become someone's inspiration. It could be 10 people, it could be 1 million people - setting the right type of inspiration is important in this business.
Another woman you may also know - Australian model Robyn Lawley. At size 12, she is also a plus-sized model. Yep, you read it right, plus-sized. I have insecurities, much like many of you reading this. I am a size 12, but am I plus-sized? I wouldn't class myself as plus-sized. And neither should anyone else, including the modelling industry. The average dress size in the UK is size 16, so I (like many others) am shocked that a woman as slim as this is being classed as this. By having size 12 models classed as plus-sized despite being 2 whole dress sizes below the national average, it implicitly shames larger women and signifies that it is more desirable and 'normal' to be less than plus-sized, which is depicted here as size 12. (Which may I just say, is a perfectly fabulous size to be, not that I am biased at all.)
Views of what is found typically beautiful in a woman has changed over history. We can see this if we look to the Renaissance period (1300 - 1700AD) where in art, everyone appears to be nakey. My good friend Faith Harvey (History of Art student; potentially the most pretentious degree I've ever heard of, but you've gotta love our Faith) told me that the reason for this was primarily to celebrate the human form. We can see that the 'ideal' is far from what we might see in modern art or photography today. This shows that without a doubt, the notion of beauty has not always been the same as we believe it is now.
Marilyn Monroe peaked as an international sex symbol in the 1950s and early 60s, before her untimely death in '62. Despite there being much disagreement over what size she may have been, the smallest that has been estimated with any real credibility was a UK 8. Small, but still larger than the average model today. Marilyn Monroe was and is still seen by many as classically beautiful - this is without being as slim as other models now and around that time period.
60s supermodel Twiggy - given this nickname due to her extremely thin figure, was one of the first models blamed for eating disorders in young women. She has however, always maintained that being slim was all down to genetics and she was never unhealthy. She has even spoken out against girls starving themselves in order to obtain bodies like those shown in magazines or on catwalks. Many models have quite literally starved themselves to death, for example the sisters Luisel and Eliana Ramos both died due to complications related to malnutrition and anorexia. Eliana aged only 18. The underlying issue of suggesting that to be thin is the only way we can be beautiful is not only that we pressure regular girls to attempt to achieve these unobtainable expectations, but unhealthy models with BMIs of 15 also feel that they are "too fat" to succeed in the industry. Making girls with anorexia nervosa models, such as Luisel and Eliana, can be detrimental to their mental and physical health. Which is why modelling should not be exclusive to thin girls - it should be exclusive to healthy girls.
Although if we look at models in recent centuries, it's easy to see how the idea that being thin is best hasn't really changed that much. In the 90s, the modelling industry was dominated by Kate Moss and now Cara Delevingne - two models I absolutely love for numerous reasons! Also two models who maintain that in terms of their weight - they are healthy and it is down to genetics (which is absolutely fair enough - some people are built that way!). However, they are both incredibly similar and like Twiggy - very slim. Showing that as a society, the type of model that we find appropriate has barely changed, thus putting pressure on women who weren't necessarily built this way to attempt to obtain these "ideals". By only having one popular image of what is beautiful, it ignores all the rest - and of course, there are many.
I'm under no illusions - I know that the use of this type of girl as a model is an advertising tactic based on the notion that clothes look better on slimmer women and therefore more people will want to buy the clothes. However, I don't believe this is true! Plenty of men and women find different body shapes in women attractive. Some people love the slim catwalk look, some love curvy girls and some love size 26 girls like Tess Holliday. It's all very personal, so why in the past have modelling agencies only had very slim (and sometimes unhealthy-looking) girls as their models? I would argue that with the plus-sized world making the impact it has recently, this could possibly change in future.
But unfortunately, I am still not satisfied. I don't feel that we should fight fire with fire. Why should we start a war between slim and large girls? Why can't we celebrate health rather than body shape? And why on Earth do we not have models of all shapes and sizes rather than only having those at separate ends of the spectrum? We need a more accurate representation of the women in our society. By this, I don't mean that we should have all models at a size 16 as that is the average - I mean some size 6s, some size 8s, some size 10s and so on. A little anecdote for you - I no longer shop online because I am sick of all the models being size 6 - when I buy the clothes they look astronomically different on me to how they do on the website so there's no point in me going on as I may as well be shopping with my eyes closed. This could be changed so easily by having different sized models to give a more accurate representation of what clothes would look like on a variety of girls and I am positive that the industry has enough money to do this.
Marilyn Monroe peaked as an international sex symbol in the 1950s and early 60s, before her untimely death in '62. Despite there being much disagreement over what size she may have been, the smallest that has been estimated with any real credibility was a UK 8. Small, but still larger than the average model today. Marilyn Monroe was and is still seen by many as classically beautiful - this is without being as slim as other models now and around that time period.
Although if we look at models in recent centuries, it's easy to see how the idea that being thin is best hasn't really changed that much. In the 90s, the modelling industry was dominated by Kate Moss and now Cara Delevingne - two models I absolutely love for numerous reasons! Also two models who maintain that in terms of their weight - they are healthy and it is down to genetics (which is absolutely fair enough - some people are built that way!). However, they are both incredibly similar and like Twiggy - very slim. Showing that as a society, the type of model that we find appropriate has barely changed, thus putting pressure on women who weren't necessarily built this way to attempt to obtain these "ideals". By only having one popular image of what is beautiful, it ignores all the rest - and of course, there are many.
I'm under no illusions - I know that the use of this type of girl as a model is an advertising tactic based on the notion that clothes look better on slimmer women and therefore more people will want to buy the clothes. However, I don't believe this is true! Plenty of men and women find different body shapes in women attractive. Some people love the slim catwalk look, some love curvy girls and some love size 26 girls like Tess Holliday. It's all very personal, so why in the past have modelling agencies only had very slim (and sometimes unhealthy-looking) girls as their models? I would argue that with the plus-sized world making the impact it has recently, this could possibly change in future.
But unfortunately, I am still not satisfied. I don't feel that we should fight fire with fire. Why should we start a war between slim and large girls? Why can't we celebrate health rather than body shape? And why on Earth do we not have models of all shapes and sizes rather than only having those at separate ends of the spectrum? We need a more accurate representation of the women in our society. By this, I don't mean that we should have all models at a size 16 as that is the average - I mean some size 6s, some size 8s, some size 10s and so on. A little anecdote for you - I no longer shop online because I am sick of all the models being size 6 - when I buy the clothes they look astronomically different on me to how they do on the website so there's no point in me going on as I may as well be shopping with my eyes closed. This could be changed so easily by having different sized models to give a more accurate representation of what clothes would look like on a variety of girls and I am positive that the industry has enough money to do this.
So what we need is a change in industry and more importantly - a change in attitude.
The industry must be changed so that it is inclusive for women of all shapes and sizes. Not simply "fat" vs "skinny" which is not only a negative way of challenging the norm, but it actually excludes the vast majority of us.
And attitude? Well that's up to us to realise that what we see in magazines is not how we need to live our lives. When we accept this and show the industry that their standards are not something we need to live up to, then maybe they will see how stupid their suggestion is that one type of body shape is beautiful. We need to be comfortable in our own skin and comfortable in the knowledge that it's ok to be different. If being comfortable in your own skin means eating more healthily and going for a fortnightly jog - do it. If it means eating three good meals a day because you don't already - do it. The most important thing is that you are happy and healthy, finding a balance can be incredibly hard but it is not impossible.
Lastly, to compliment this change that we hope to see in the modelling industry, we need to celebrate diversity in a positive way. Body shaming in any proportion is not something we should need to do to empower ourselves. Do not be judgemental towards those who do not wish to look the same, or do the same things as you do. Positivity and acceptance for who you are and positivity and acceptance towards the choices that other people make for themselves is crucial to create a happy and healthy society.
The industry must be changed so that it is inclusive for women of all shapes and sizes. Not simply "fat" vs "skinny" which is not only a negative way of challenging the norm, but it actually excludes the vast majority of us.
And attitude? Well that's up to us to realise that what we see in magazines is not how we need to live our lives. When we accept this and show the industry that their standards are not something we need to live up to, then maybe they will see how stupid their suggestion is that one type of body shape is beautiful. We need to be comfortable in our own skin and comfortable in the knowledge that it's ok to be different. If being comfortable in your own skin means eating more healthily and going for a fortnightly jog - do it. If it means eating three good meals a day because you don't already - do it. The most important thing is that you are happy and healthy, finding a balance can be incredibly hard but it is not impossible.
Lastly, to compliment this change that we hope to see in the modelling industry, we need to celebrate diversity in a positive way. Body shaming in any proportion is not something we should need to do to empower ourselves. Do not be judgemental towards those who do not wish to look the same, or do the same things as you do. Positivity and acceptance for who you are and positivity and acceptance towards the choices that other people make for themselves is crucial to create a happy and healthy society.
Sources
http://www.buzzfeed.com/laraparker/heres-what-victorias-secret-swimsuits-look-like-on-real-wome?bffbstyle&utm_term=4ldqphh#.che3lEvyD
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/womens-blog/2013/nov/06/debenhams-size-16-mannequins-diversity?CMP=fb_gu
http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2012/04/marilyn-monroe-was-not-even-close-to-a-size-12-16/
http://www.buzzfeed.com/laraparker/heres-what-victorias-secret-swimsuits-look-like-on-real-wome?bffbstyle&utm_term=4ldqphh#.che3lEvyD
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/womens-blog/2013/nov/06/debenhams-size-16-mannequins-diversity?CMP=fb_gu
http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2012/04/marilyn-monroe-was-not-even-close-to-a-size-12-16/
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