This is one of my ranty posts, so I hope you are sitting comfortably with a nice cup of tea.
What’s with all the “real women” nonsense in the media just now? Seriously, I’d like to know because it’s making me incredibly angry and I’m sure there are worthier causes out there to get my dander up about.
In the past few weeks I’ve seen work by photographers using “real women” in their scanties, “real women” instagramming their stretch marks, advertisers using “real women” to sell soap and deodorant, and Kim Kardashian. Ladies, we’ve now officially been given permission not to be perfect. What a relief. I don’t know about you, but as a big wummin I’ve been feeling an imposter to my sex for years.
Not.
The media is now patting us on our collective lardy arses and telling us that we’re OK really and that our money is just as good as that of the Real Women (those without quotation marks). Unless, of course, you want to buy more than a handbag from the Gap. I can’t help getting the feeling that I’m being humoured like an elderly aunt who still thinks the war is on.
Know what else gets to me? Posts of Facebook showing thin runway models next to Marilyn Monroe, telling me that the skinny bitches aren’t sexy. And these posts are invariably by other women. Woohoo for sisterhood, girls.
For as long as we make a point about allowing larger women to be “real,” for as long as we criticise thin women for being unrealistic, for as long as we believe the crap fed to us by the media on a daily basis, we will never truly be freed from the tyranny of size. It’s one of the big areas that feminism has yet to tackle successfully. I would love to get to a time when I could differentiate between two women by saying “the fat one” or “the thin one” without it being interpreted as a judgement.
Ladies, our elderly aunt is correct: there IS a war still going on and I for one implore each and every one of you to take arms against the incessant infatuation with equating size with worth.
I’m a real woman. You’re a real woman. And so is Kim Kardashian.
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