Things I
hate:
Broccoli
Cold winter
mornings when I just want to stay in bed
Lies
The sound
of my alarm clock
And this
real women have curves bullshit.
Oh dear. I’m
perhaps about to do a rant. I’m sorry – I’m tired, I did not sleep well last
night, I’m a little bit grumpy and I am pissed
off.
I saw a
thing today on social media, not unlike things I’ve seen all over the place and
all of the time that usually make me grit my teeth keep on scrolling, some kind
of alleged body positivity, talking about having curves ‘like women should.’
Erm fuck off (language, bad language. This
post might have it. Soz) Those are
the comments that piss me off.
I mean, I’m
not curvy I’m just…not. Apart from my bum, that’s perhaps not quite in
proportion with the rest of my 5ft 4” self. Am I less of a woman because I’m
slight, because I’m not curvy, because my boobs are small, because I have that
thigh gap that seems to be the worst thing a girl can possibly have? You want
to know a thing, I like my thigh gap. Stop telling me it makes me a shitty
person. Stop telling me I’m not a real
woman.
The definition
of the word real is this:
actually existing as a thing or
occurring in fact; not imagined or supposed.
So when you
say that real women have curves and take into account that I do not, that I
have small boobs and a thigh gap are you somehow saying that I am imaginary?
I’m not by
the way, imaginary I mean – I know this because I was pushing a twin pram at the weekend and when I banged my
shin on the bottom carry cot it hurt like a bitch. I’m surprised I didn’t
bruise. But that ‘oh shitting hell’ of pain, it shows that I’m just as real as
any other woman. Surprisingly.
All women
are beautiful (except, it seems, us smaller ones) and people need to remember
that. I am by no means what you would call skinny, I’m small but I’m not
skinny. What I am, is not curvy and that’s
ok. Embrace your curves; be proud of who you are, you should be, but please
don’t feel better about yourself or make yourself more of a woman by somehow I
am implying I am less than one. I didn’t choose my body shape any more than you
chose yours. You don’t have curves like women should. You have curves. That’s how
that sentence should end. Anything else is pitting woman against woman and is a
competition that I am pretty damn sure none of us agreed to.
You are not
your bra size, your hips, your cankles or collar bones, you’re not the
marathons you run or the food that you eat, you are not your curves and you are
not your size 8 jeans. You are not defined by the way you look, and however you
look, you are no less real because of
it. What you are is the way you laugh and the way you cry; the things that make
you smile and the reasons you find to drag yourself out of bed in a morning;
you are the photographs you take and the way you sing in the shower and the
secrets you keep and the promises you make; you are your thoughts and you are
your ambitions and you are your dreams. You are so much more than what you see
in the mirror.
To suggest
anything else is insulting and it sends out a terrible message and to say we
should look a certain way – curvy - is just as terrible actually, as calling
somebody fat. I don’t have a great body image and I don’t have a great relationship
with food and it’s hard for me sometimes to look in the mirror and feel ok with
what I see. Don’t make that harder for me by suggesting that the shape and size
I am is somehow inferior to yours, that I am less, that I am not real and I am undesirable – that no real man would want me. That’s shitty
and also brings me to another thing that I’d also like to put into Room 101 (such a great show): Real men like curves.
Shut up. Real
men (there’s that word again) like whatever attracts them personally: a flat
stomach, an arse they can grab hold of, big boobs, small boobs, blonde hair,
brown eyes, a dirty laugh, a shy giggle, a party animal, a bookworm.
Don’t imply
I am less of a woman because I’m only a size 8 and don’t imply my boyfriend is somehow less of a man because he likes me that way. It’s nonsense.
I would
never say to you that you’re too big to be desired, or that real men like thin chicks. I wouldn’t say
it because I don’t think it’s true and I wouldn’t say it because I wouldn’t
want to hurt your feelings. I have feelings too. (I also wouldn’t say it because
OH HELLO MISOGONY, WHY SHOULD I EXSIST ONLY TO BE ATTRACTIVE TO A MAN. I am who
I am for me, not for the amount of attention I get from a man but hey, another
soap box;another day.)
Basically,
taste your words before you spit them out, say you’re curvy and you love it,
and leave out that ‘like real women should be’ nonsense, and remember being
body positive means being all body
positive, it doesn’t mean belittling the body shape that’s not the same as
yours – what that is, is body shaming and it’s never okay.
