Body talk

How do you talk about your body?




I see all these stories on the internet talking about fashion models, who in ads are to represent plus size women, who are in fact not plus sized in the normal retail world.

I see people use the term "real women", and others call this body shaming.

Here is what I understand about fashion:
The "normal model" That will walk a catwalk and do high fashion shoots, is about a size 2 [There is no standard sizing in the US any longer but lets assume the numbers look like this: bust 28-32 inches, Hips 30-34 inches, waist 22-27 inches *  ] Sample sizes aren't very big.

Any person who models needs to fit in a size 2 through 4

A woman who is say a size 8-10 is considered above average in the fashion world. Thus they won't have the opportunity to do some kinds of work.

I also understand the anyone outside the 8-10 range is even less likely to get called out on a regular basis. They are specialty sizes.

I know for a fact that models are not meant to look like the average person.

But this does not make a person smaller than the average a non person, in the same way someone over that size should never be a non person.. but this is where the rub of opinions happens.
Bigger women are told regularly we are not healthy, we are a drudge on the system. Where as women under the average do not deal with the same kinds of overwhelmingly negative chatter/stigma about their body from all sides. I am in no way saying that under average people do not get harassed for their slight stature, What I am saying is that they do not receive the same kind of negative treatment.

So where does this leave us?

I sure know my body isn't average, your body probably isn't either. That's the funny thing about averages, When you look at say 10 people in a line, you then have to do some interesting math to get an average, and an average doesn't represent any one "real" person, it is a calculation. It is taking 10 different sets of numerical information (say a waist measurement) in regards to size, and dividing by 10, this is number might not even be a waist number of someone in the line up.
You know that "average household size" that includes 2.5 kids? That .5 part of a kid is the remainder in a division equation. It isn't telling us that a large number of people have a half person walking around. Its just math being math.

There is a large failure in how we talk about bodies, size and models.
There is an even bigger failure in how all people are forced to be an average; and even more so on how people who don't fit the imaginary "Average" are treated.
I am proudly not average! I don't want to be an imaginary person, I want to be me. I want variation, lot and lots of it. I want equality for the non average, since most people don't fit into average.

Look at all the amazing beautiful bodies!

I can only hope one day that the "above average" can have all the same treatment as people of an average and under average size have, in regards to accessibility, comfort, and choice. And that the above average to be seens as people not just whatever label the media or fashion wants to arbitrarily give us.

Worthiness has nothing to do with your body.
Stop letting a small subset of people convince us otherwise.



Your happily above average

Raven