“I’m bringing booty back. Go ahead and tell those skinny bitches, ‘Hey’.” Do the lyrics ring a bell? It’s none other than our favourite, Meghan Trainer, singing about how being skinny makes you a bitch. Now here is the deal, I am all about empowerment! Hell, bodies are beautiful in all shapes and forms and colours and you cannot convince me otherwise. But Meghan, let me ask you, did you really have to drag down other girls to feel better about yourself? I don’t think so!
International Women’s Day just went by last week and the biggest takeaway is this: we all need to stand together against them. By we, I mean us feminists, not us women. By them I mean sexist people. So, we can’t be seen, or heard, dragging each other down, especially when it comes to body image.
The truth of the matter is simple. We all have insecurities, we all want to change parts of ourselves and at some point, in our lives, we all look in the mirror and dislike what we see. Body positivity is a movement that enables us to be accepting of ourselves, and think what you may, it does not just apply to the female sex. Either way, I am here to tell you, that you may not know it, but you are beautiful.
Recently, a Tweet went viral about a random (sexist) guy who decided to tell women how they should be. He said something about shaving, being skinny, being feminine, being submissive and whatnot. Now I do not want to give this person any credit or pay heed to him in any way, because mansplaining is an issue for another column. I just want to educate those of you who would listen. This may even be helpful to the people who have always thought of the opposite sex as somewhat of a mystery.
As a human identifying as a woman, I am going to break a little rule of mine and make this article real personal and talk about the seemingly taboo parts of the female body.
We have body hair. Some more than others. I know how women are portrayed in the media. The word shiny comes to mind. But seriously, you all, we could go the whole winter without shaving, barring events that require visible legs. Even then, we might just give you a glimpse of the gorilla that lives under these layers.
We have facial hair. Just look at us closely (not too closely) during exam season because we aren’t going to jeopardise our grades for a visit to the salon. But seriously, it is normal. Get over it.
We have tummy rolls. Seriously, even the skinniest of us has tummy rolls, but so did Cleopatra, the most beautiful woman of her time. We are making peace with it.
We come in different shapes, forms and sizes. They have put us in different categories. I am told pear is a bad shape and an hourglass is almost perfect. So, whoever came up with this system, I am glad you did not go onto do better things because they would have sucked as well. All bodies are beautiful, all people are beautiful. Hell, even you are beautiful.
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