sailorv:

I’m so sick and tired of seeing this picture. Normally when I see images like this (daily on my Facebook feed, actually), I blow them off, because I know that thin is the industry standard and I’m lucky blah blah blah. But people who would tell me to quit complaining would probably be incredibly surprised to know what kind of criticism I receive on a regular basis for being somewhere between Kiera and Kirsten on this scale. When I worked at Godiva, I usually got multiple comments every day about how I should “eat more chocolate,” “probably couldn’t help them out because I looked like I never ate chocolate,” etcetera. Almost invariably these comments were delivered in a mocking or plainly offensive tone.

Every time I see this picture posted, it’s usually accompanied with a comment about how “natural” beauty is no longer valued. Yet people forget what types of self-mutilation women of earlier eras went through to look the way they did: corsets, skin bleaching, hair bleaching (before it was as perfected as it is today), and in the case of Rita Hayworth, electrocution of her hairline. What people fail to realize is that setting any standard of beauty for women is incredibly detrimental to our esteem. Throughout history, the standards have changed, but the stuff we put our bodies through hasn’t.

Furthermore, some women just do naturally look like Kiera Knightley or Kirsten Dunst. I will NEVER naturally look like Marilyn Monroe. No matter how much weight I gain or how much I eat, I will NEVER have curves. My waist-hip ratio is TERRIBLE. I am just not cut out to be a curvaceous woman. And telling me that I’m less “hot” because of it is counter-productive to banishing any sort of societal issues related to women’s esteem. Period.

Furthermore, shaming women for eating disorders (which arguably some of the women on the top may have) is also just plain disgusting. Although the image doesn’t necessarily imply this, I’ve seen a swarm of ed-shaming comments surrounding this photo every time it’s posted on Facebook so I feel the need to address it. Honestly, it’s pictures like this that exacerbate eating disorders in women. Often eating disorders are a pursuit of perfection more than a pursuit of thinness, but the idea of “perfection” becomes so distorted beyond reason that a woman forgets what “perfection” means to her, and so extreme thinness and dysmorphia are the only lasting result. Furthermore, this type of behavior is deadly, so when people say thin women should “get over” negative comments, I cannot believe they would be so insensitive.

I can understand why, from a standpoint of historical criticism, people would want to analyze standards of beauty and why they have evolved over time, but that is NOT what this image does. It is far too provoking and shaming, and in the end, it achieves exactly the opposite of what it sets out to do. Rather than making women feel better about their bodies, it only narrows the definition (notice how the women on the bottom are all still thin) of beauty. So um… let’s quit passing this around, okay?