Tags
beauty, curvy, ideals, media, pass it on, skinny, standards, women's issues
Oh, that’s all of us? I guess we should all stand up then!
Following up on what I wrote the other day, I decided to make my own Perfect Woman image for people to share around town. Actually, I made a few; options are good!
Women are allowed to come in different shapes? INSANITY.
I know it’s hard to love the looks genetics handed to you. We always seem to desire what we don’t have: straight hair, curly hair; skinnier, curvier. Why is it so hard to just be content with what we have? A lot of it, in my opinion, is due to the constant bombardment of media-determined ideals. I think it is unrealistic to hope that they will come around eventually to celebrate beauty in all its various forms — frankly, making women feel badly about themselves is a lucrative business. Cosmetics, gym memberships, diet pills, plastic surgery, facial creams, push-up bras to make boobs look bigger, support garments to make waists look smaller .. the list goes on and on. Now I’m not saying that we should all burn our bras, eschew make-up and stop shaving our pits (although if that’s the path you wanna take, GO YOU!). However, when we doll ourselves up it should be because we want to, not because we have been programmed to think X, Y and Z are the only ways to be beautiful. We also need to stop playing right into the media’s lies by tearing each other down. Stop with the body shaming, ladies! We are all real women.
It's true! And not just because I said it.
Now let's all hug and have a giggle-filled pillow fight in our underpants
Whirligig-a-Gogo 
Love this. Well said honesty.
Thanks! As someone who has had body issues for a large hunk of my life, it really bothers me when a body type — ANY body type — is vilified.
I approve underpants fighting
Somehow, this does not come as a shock to me. Ha!
I appreciate your message and also the fact that you made the first image racially diverse. One small correction, in the scope of what you’ve said here: some people with vaginas identify as men, and therefore are not women. Some women happen to have penises. The only qualification for being a “real woman” is believing you are one.
You know, I actually had thought of that when I was making the images, the third one on particular. I was going to add a line about how some of us have vaginas, some of us have penises. Since I was making these graphics to be shared around in direct counter-point to the one that had been popping up all over the place on Facebook, I decided to leave it off only because I didn’t want the discussion of body-shaming to get lost should people get fixated on whether or not women who identify themselves as such but might not have the anatomical parts still count as women (my opinion: they do!).
So that said, I don’t know why I ended up including a line so specific about having a vagina in the actual post. Thanks for pointing it out; I’m going to tweak that part now.
Thanks so much for the response and for adjusting that part of the post! I’m enjoying the rest of your blog, too (I found this post through FB, as I’m sure many have).
I’ll probably circle back to this topic again — the standards by which women are measured — and address the subject is a deeper, more thoughtful way than what can be expressed in just one image. Especially considering that the first image in this post, I have been getting blow-back from! While most people have responded positively to it, a number have been offended that all the women depicted are young and traditionally beautiful regardless of their body shape. Others have been offended that women are being judged by looks at all. As this image was simply a direct counter-point to the original and focused on the specific notion of body-shaming, it will be nice to delve deeper to address all the things that this graphic didn’t cover.
Thank you.
My wife thinks she needs to look idea! What do she and her co-workers talk about at work during lunch! Cosmetic procedures (Although they are health care professionals).
I really appreciated this, I figured this out shortly after college when the 11 of us guys (from college) that hanged out every weekend noticed that we tended to be attracted to women of a certain shape. Each of us different. The first of us got married at age 34! Thanks for pointing out the obvious because it needs to be pointed out!
I think it’s hard for any women to not think they need to be one certain way. It’s like society grooms us to believe that out appearance is a woman’s number on valued asset. It takes concerted effort to push back against the media bombardment of physical ideals.
Hopefully things will be different someday! It helps to have guys like you letting us ladies know that we’re pretty in all our various shapes. So.. THANKS! :D
I cannot agree with you more. This is a fabulous post and something that I’ve been trying to teach my clients (I’m a boudoir photographer who firmly believes all women are beautiful and pride myself in taking real photos of real women with real curves). Some of us are small, some of us are big. Some of us have perky boobies, some of us have none. Some of us are confident, some of us hate ourselves. Bottom line, we’re all real women… and beautiful at being us.
We’re all beautiful to someone and we’re all beautiful in our uniqueness but sometimes it is so hard to see that. It’s almost like society raises us to hate what we look like and want change what we have. I hope someday things will be different!
I went to your site and your pictures are amazing! You are a very talented photographer. It’s obvious that you treat your subjects with sensitivity and appreciation.
Thank you! :)
so pinned. I have not liked the other types. Yes I understand some are for the unhealthy girls, but there are different body types. Ectomorphs, Endomorphs & Mesomorphs and most have a combination. I have been following these posts on Pinterest. http://pinterest.com/dream_it/
I actually made a bunch more images and collected them all in one place. Hope you like these, too!
Reblogged this on Peggy Lu Who's Just Sayin'! and commented:
This was Ninaws’ follow up to the same photo I posted about on Sunday.
I just wanted to say: thanks for reblogging! I think it — body issues amongst women — is an important discussion to have. So it makes me happy to see the topic out there and talked about.
Fabulous stuff. Found this via somebody’s FB post and have re-shared on MY FB fan page & Pinterest board.
Yes, we are all beautiful, and we have to stop bashing one another. Thanks for doing this.
It really makes me happy to see this stuff being shared! When I first wrote my post and made my images, I knew that I couldn’t be the only one feeling as I did but I have been pleasantly surprised with just how many people agreed with me.
Maybe if enough of us pipe up, it’ll be easier to accept that there is no one physical ideal and that the stuff on the outside, really, doesn’t matter so much anyway!
While I entirely agree with your sentiment. And all the women in your image are gorgeous, I think that it needs to be said that despite accepting ourselves as we are it is important to recognise that being overweight does bring with it the potential for major heath issues. I don’t think for a moment that you are necessarily supporting the ‘fat acceptance culture’, but I think it needs to be said that although healthy women come in all shapes and sizes – being overweight is decidedly unhealthy and costs most countries billions of dollars in healthcare and other illness-related costs to society. So let’s accept ourselves – but let’s accept the healthy version…
Oh, of course. We should all strive to be healthy and that goes for both ends of the spectrum (underweight & overweight). I think it goes without saying though that the people who aren’t there yet shouldn’t been shunned or be judged as ‘less worthy’ because of it. If anything, those people need even more compassion and understanding extended to them. As someone who was in the underweight corner of unhealthy, ridicule and exclusion only served to validate the hate I already had for myself.
We all have qualities that make us beautiful and it seems to me that is much more constructive to focus on those things than to berate ourselves and each other for the attributes we perceive as negative.
You might be interested in this page I created some years ago to counter another very popular page called “Real women have curves…Not the body of a 12-year-old-boy.”
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Real-women-have-the-body-of-a-12-year-old-boyNot-curves/123510931003195
Yeah, as woman who has a ruler frame, it always kind of bugged me when people assert that real women have curves. What does that make me? A fake woman? Real women DO have curves. They also have slender frames. They also are pear shaped, apple shaped, ectomorphs, endomorphs, mesomorphs, etc.
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LOVE THIS – beautiful images, beautiful images and beautiful words *creates smiles*
thanks for making these, I hope they go as viral as their negative counterparts!
Reblogged this on pickedonbynerds and commented:
THIS is a message I want to send to my daughters, and my patients, and my family. They could have included a lot more ages and sizes in those pictures, but fair enough.
Brilliant! I am going to share your image on my Facebook page as I want to encourage my clients to stop beating themselves up about their size and looks… saying they are too big.. too thin… boobs too big, boobs too small… too old, too wrinkly… I’m sure men don’t feel they have to apologise for themselves the way women do!
I absolutely love it! Well said!!!!!!!!!xxx
I love this! In fact I shared the first image with the pics of the different women on my Facebook page as one if the first things I my clients tell me before a photoshoot is all the things they hate about themselves! And I look at them and say ‘there’s nothing wrong with you, you’re beautiful’. Yet I find that hard to say that to myself when I look in the mirror but I’m getting better at it ;-) I got quite sick of women on my Facebook a while back posting pics comparing curvy and skinny women and calling skinny women a bag of bones. :-( I’d love share your other pics. How is best to credit you?
I have been saying this for years! I want all women to know that because of who we are we have worth no matter our dress size!