This article on Yahoo News sparked a conversation between my husband and I on the issue of women's weight. He complained that men have it easy, that football has made being a bigger guy...'fashionable.' Whereas women have Victoria's Secret models to look at before staring in the mirror and thinking, "I do not have those boobs, those muscles, nor am I less than a size 6. I. Suck." Shopping in the 'Big and Tall' section for men is a complement. Just the words 'big' and 'tall' bring to mind giants with muscles, even if that isn't the case. Women get stamped with: Plus Size. To most women, this just makes them envision. . . fat.
One summer my family and I traveled to Minneapolis to do our back to school shopping. My dad and I wandered off and came to a store that looked like the epic all-female equivalent of Hot Topic. As I looked around, enjoying the ambiance, I noticed that every shirt I found was a bit larger than I was used to. I couldn't find a pair of pants in my size. Finally, I asked a passing employee if it was possible to get the jeans I was holding in a 10 or 12. She looked at me a moment before telling me that the store didn't carry anything under a size 14. Later, when I got home (ah, the days before wireless), I dialed up the internet and discovered the store I enjoyed so much was a 'plus-size' clothing store.
Today, a size 12, even size 10, is considered plus-size. As John talked more about the injustice against a woman's body image, I spouted something like, "Well, we're women, we almost have to have a bad self-image."
Now hang on a minute. I couldn't believe what had come from my mouth. Granted, I don't have the highest confidence in the way I look. Every time I glance in the mirror, I sigh and wish that I could be the weight I was in high school. That was just a few years ago, so why is that so much to ask? Probably because a woman's body doesn't stop developing until the age of 24. Also, probably because I love food. My point is, how many times have I heard friends, family, random women walking by talk about something they would like to change about themselves? About how they want to start going to the gym, but lack the motivation, time, ect?
There is a stigma out there, and it's called popular media. Every commercial break, every TV show, every ad campaign features the small percentage of people who have perfect teeth, spatially desired eyes and nose, waists so small that the man with the wavy hair and rippling muscles across from the woman has no trouble grabbing her and throwing her in the air to celebrate all that perfection. You get the impression that if they were to have children, those kids would be the next step in the evolutionary stage. Plastic surgery would fall out of practice. Anyone remember the car ad featuring women so skinny you didn't know they were pregnant until the camera panned in on their bellies? Swollen ankles and double chins don't exist in that world. I'm not a fan of the idea of being pregnant, but when I looked at my sister-in-law with my future niece inside of her, I thought she looked beautiful in all her round and swollen glory. There's something to say about being able to create a human from scratch and expel it 9 months later as something more than the tiny cell it was before.
Media needs to get a little gritty. Plus size models should just be models. They should be the norm. After all, more than one-third of America is obese. Just think of how many more people out there are over a size 8.
Maybe it would help if women knew how to dress to fit their bodies instead of assuming the clothes that fit on that model without any body fat will suit every shape. I can't count the number of women and girls (including myself) who has worn a pair of jeans or a shirt that hugs curves in all the wrong ways. Of course you aren't going to like the way you look if you are wearing the jeans oh-so-popular today. The ones that sit just below the waist, forcing you to wear a belt to keep it just above the butt crack line, squeezing all the beautiful curves out into a muffin top.
So, women should get educated on the real facts of life. I think encouraging companies like Vogue to go the direction of curves is just the first step. Maybe the next time a new TV show about a confident, ass-kicking crime fighter starts up it should feature a woman with a crooked nose. Or a balding man. Or maybe someone with a skin condition. Who says you can't fight crime with a pimple and psoriasis? And please, if it is a woman, teach her to wear sensible shoes. Ms. Kate Beckett, heels are not acceptable in the middle of a chase scene. Get some sexy Reeboks up in there. If you watch Megan Fox's feet in the first two Transformer movies, or Rosie's in the third movie, even they have multiple shoe changes. Come on, let's get real.
