"Real women" don't have to set narrow definitions for "real women"

[breakinglight11]

I hate the trope of "real women have curves."

Perhaps I hate it because my biggest feminist pet peeve is when people try to lay a narrow definition on what constitutes a "real woman." Perhaps it's because it's not fixing a prejudice but the equally toxic practice of turning it around so that somebody else is the target of vilification instead. Perhaps it's just 'cause I'm a skinny chick who says fuck that. But I hate that chestnut "real women have curves."

I don't have a curve on me-- all sleek lines and clean angles. Am I not a real woman? Not a chance. 

This trope takes our culture's standard assumption, that thin women are more beautiful and desireable than heavy women, which makes so many women who aren't thin feel inferior and less valuable, and turns it around so that heaviness is the ideal and thinness is undesireable and wrong. Reversing a prejudice and making the formerly "superior" group into the target of disgust and vilification is not making things better; turning the victims into victimizers makes them just as bad. It's basically saying, "You made me feel bad. Now I want to make you feel bad. I want to hurt you the same way I've been hurt." 

The "real women have curves" trope was not come up with by women who like their bodies. No woman who actually loves her beautiful feminine curves would ever need to create something to reduce someone else to lesser status. Sure, there are some pretty people who refuse to acknowledge the beauty of others, but those people have other problems and most likely aren't secure in their opinions of themselves.

But no girl who knows she is a voluptuous goddess invented or repeats that. No, this trope is the work of the chunky girl who would KILL to have the lean thighs and flat tummies of her slimmer sisters and resents the hell out of them for it. She says it as a balm against old wounds, as a punishment of those who she blames for those wounds.

But two wrongs don't make a right. I get that some people have suffered a long time for the fact that their culture impressed on them images and standards of beauty that they can never meet. I feel very sorry for those people, and it should change. But that doesn't make it okay to take out that hurt on other people. It can't be that the only change is that a different group must suffer instead. There's something vengeful about it, and God knows how destructive seeking vengeance can be.

And it doesn't do anything to encourage people being generous enough of spirit of acknowledge each other's beauty and value. I know that when I hear it, my hackles raise. While no one's word can render me unbeautiful or unfeminine, there's still this inherent unkindness in declaring that if you look like me you're not a "real woman" that I don't respond well to. And when someone treats me with malice, it makes me feel mean. I want to be mean back to the person who was mean to me. Again, I know two wrongs don't make a right, and I should feel sorry for a person who obviously isn't as happy with their appearence as I am with mine, so I know it isn't an acceptable response. But my instincts tell me to bite back. I want to say nasty things like, "You know what curves I like? The ones on the zero on the size tag in my dress." 

Nobody should get to feel good by making someone else feel bad. Nothing destroys the soul so fast as destroying the value or goodness or well-being of someone else. I think this is one such case.

Comments

[emp42ress.livejournal.com]

I think this is an interesting point, and I will try to be more aware of it. I think that when I'm making relevant comments I tend to say things like "most women have curves" instead, but I will pay a little more attention. When I'm making these comments I'm usually complaining that women's fashion is all made for the tiny fraction of women who look like you, and much less of it is made to flatter the majority of women that look like me or heavier. I don't want there not to be fashions that flatter you. I just want a lot more out there that flatters the majority.

[breakinglight11.livejournal.com]

A fair point, of course-- there's a difference between deciding ONE body type must be good and normal and wanting ALL body types to be considered good and normal. What I object to is the loaded language. "Most women have curves"? Simple statement of fact, no implications of anything. "Real women have curves"? Value judgment built right in.

The thing that bugs me about it is that it doesn't encourage representation and attention to MORE body types-- it just implies the substitution of one in the primacy rather than the other. But anything that supports body DIVERSITY I believe in and can get behind.

[morethings5.livejournal.com]

Yeah, substituting one image as legitimate over another just leads to propagation of the eternal cycle of fashionable body types. Frankly I don't think curvier women will truly be the fashion icons again until the majority of women are stick thin. Then they'll have something to aspire to, and male ad execs can start marketing to them again.

[witticaster.livejournal.com]

I find it is safer and more accurate to attribute human folly to oversight and ignorance rather than malice. I don't believe that the "Real Women have Curves" campaign was created by a bunch of ugly overweight women with grudges. Nor was it in any way a reaction to naturally curveless women (and there is a distinction between being thin and being curve-free; you and I both know buxom skinny girls). Instead, as far as I can tell, it was meant as a reminder that your body has a natural shape, and for the vast majority of women this shape involves curves. Thus the extreme attempts by young women to not only lose weight but eradicate all curves are not only doomed to failure, but flat out stupid because their shape is a natural part of them and unless they go to extreme (and artificial, hence the 'real') measures, they can't change it.

Unfortunately, this marginalizes the minority of women who don't have curve to their figure, because this mindset assumes that body type is only achieved by starvation and/or surgery, and that's very unfair. It also implies that such a figure is less desirable and feminine than the alternative, and that, as you've mentioned, goes against the ideal concept that healthy examples of all body types are equally attractive.

That said, the message it tries (and to many, succeeds) to send is important. "Love your body" is similarly concise and catchy, and a much more equitable sentiment, but because it's so broad, it has less power. "Real women have curves" wasn't meant to snub people or portray an absolute truth, it was meant as a powerful slogan to combat a problem. Problems involving larger and/or more vocal groups have more push in society at large, and as far as the general public knows, there are far more women with anorexia than women gorging themselves in an attempt to acquire hips their pelvis simply isn't built for. (It's possible you could tie this in to breast implants, as well, but our society doesn't seem to want to see those as a bad thing.)

[(Anonymous)]

Valid points. I'm not sure which is worse, a misguided (as you note) attempt to work against stereo types of ideals, or a general lack of attempt to work against other unhealthy ideals (re "real men...").