Scrolling through Instagram, admiring all the beautiful people and their enviable lives, I came across an account that had posted a screen shot of an article written for Vice. The title grabbed my eye “How to come to terms with your attraction to fat girls“, if you, like I, are a fat girl I urge you to read this article. It is honest and insightful, in fact I urge you to read it no matter your gender or dress size.
This well written, no woe-is-me post had me interested immediately. As a plus size woman I have often felt marginalised and fetishised. When I was a teenager and even into my early twenties, no one wanted to admit to fancying the fat girl. We are perceived as taboo. Something you wouldn’t tell you mates you searched for on the internet let alone be someone you willingly wanted to have a relationship with. We are sexualised into a category of BBW (Big Beautiful Women), rather than taken on our own merits of just being a beautiful woman, why is the “big” necessary? Reading further into the article I came across a quote that I have felt so many times over the past ten or so years –
“I’m ashamed that you might be ashamed of my body.”
Whilst I am beginning to come to terms with who I am and what my body looks like, that sentence is something that plagues me. I have always been worried that other people will be embarassed of my body. I have spent far too long worrying that my size will make others feel uncomfortable. Society says there is something wrong with the way I look, it tells others to feel shame if they find someone that looks like me, attractive. Larger women were celebrated and desired until the diet industries dug their money grabbing claws in and ripped away women’s self worth. We allowed this to happen and it amazes me that we still haven’t seen the light over a century later.
The media tells us that if we as women, are to find love and be adored by others, we must at first conform to a certain body type. This is sad, misguided and dangerous. We are cultivating generation after generation of self loathing and eating disorders. Striving to look like the women in the magazines who don’t even look like those women is unattainable and yet we keep falling for the same ploy.
I am trying to be less judgemental and more accepting of my body. I am worthy of love and the fact that I am fat should make no difference. The western world needs to stop shaming women who don’t fit into one ‘ideal’ category, because the majority of us do not fit this label. I have been body-shaming myself. Myself. The one person who is meant to love me unconditionally is me but I have been cruel and dismissive. We need to teach empowerment and acceptance at an early age instead of fear and prejudice. Teaching girls and boys from the beginning that their body type does not define them as a person could help in reducing anxiety, depression, self harm and eating disorders.
The way we look has overtaken the way we act as the gold standard of being a human, and that terrifies me. We all need to learn to be a little kinder than we have to be. It would stop me being publicly shamed for the way I look, and this has happened far too many times in my life. I have been made to feel bad about myself due to the fact that someone else feels uncomfortable with my appearance.
However, I feel like we are beginning to turn a corner and accept people as people and not as a dress size. With incredible women like Tess Holliday and the #effyourbeautystandards movement, tides are changing.
Here are 5 women who inspire body confidence:
Tess Holliday
Courtney Mina
Cailey Darling
Mellisa
Natalie
These are just a few of the gorgeous humans that remind me each day that it is possible to be fat and beautiful, intelligent and loved, sexy and a good role model. People shouldn’t be shamed by their attraction to larger bodies in the same way that people with larger bodies shouldn’t be shamed because they aren’t slim. When it comes down to it, the old adage of “If you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all” comes into play. A little more positive reassurance and compassion for one another would go a long way to changing peoples attitudes.
I’ll always be there for you, girl I have no shame.
(I do not own these images).
Belle of the Bluegrass 