So Tired of this "Real Woman" garbage.

I've been reading through a lot of posts recently where people are extolling the virtues of "real women" and "real beauty". I think it's absolute rubbish to say that "real women have curves". I mean, we're all supposed to be supporting each other, right?

It's amazing, the double standard. It's wrong for thin women to call overweight women fat, but we're allowed to say that skinny women aren't real women? That's so offensive. It's catty. It's designed to make heavier women feel better about themselves by insulting a whole other group. It's kind of cruel, and it amazes me that it's so wide-spread.

 

(Keep in mind, this all coming from a 14 stone woman.)

oh dont start this. the whole 'real women have curves' theme is aimed at trying to curb the epidemic levels of obsession geared toward having a size 0000 figure. ther's nobody that actually says those blessed with thin and delicate figures are less womanly but there is a definate emphasis on encouraging natural curves.

many of the skinnies you see around these days are that way due to disordered eating and thinking. so nobody is out to make thin girls feel less feminine - just encouraging us that the real figure most of us are supposed to have really is acceptable.

dont make an issue where this is none

I think all anyone's trying to do when they refer to 'real women' is go against the tsunami of images that appear in our media.....  You open every magazine or watch a TV show or see a movie and you will not find the full range of people represented as being 'normal'  It goes way beyond 'thin' 

As well as not seeing too many overweight or even normal weight women on the screen or in the pictures, you will not find many middle-aged or older women, or women with wonky teeth, stretchmarks or big noses.   Not unless they are playing comedy roles like 'Ugly Betty' or character parts like 'Murder She Wrote'.  90% of women have cellulite but when was the last time you opened a magazine and saw a rear-end with a few dimples that didn't have the bitchy caption 'Look how this celeb has let herself go!'?... when all she is is normal.

We know the pressure they put on models to have breast-enhancements... what's wrong with real breasts?  They dragged out Jane Fonda to advertise anti-wrinkle cream but, normally, they'd bizarrely used smooth-skinned young women!  You will not find too many disabled women represented as normal either... but they're just as real as anyone else.

Back in the UK in the 1970's my black cousins used to tell me how they felt left out when they switched on the TV every night & every face beamed back at them was a white face - like people their colour didn't exist.   Social exclusion by omission.  So when we talk about 'real women' I don't think it's an anti-thin message or an 'excuse to be fat' message - I think it's a message that we're all as real as each other and we should all be represented..... warts and all.

I think it's a message that we're all as real as each other and we should all be represented.... I think the same way..

Never intending to hurt others or make anyone use it as an excuse. I hope someday you will feel the same in the meantime dont take things that are said so personally.  It was not aimed in any way other then women do have curves!

I don't think it is ok to retaliate at her comment either. ....Regarding... thin women have disorders. Not true and it was meant to be mean in retaliation.That was a rude comment and way out of line.

I feel bad you feel this way. A whole lotta positivity is needed here.

I completely agree with you. 

There is nothing wrong with women who are naturally skinny.  However most girls that are skinny nowadays are anorexic.  People are just saying that the majority of women with an average metabolism have some curves.  No one is saying being below or a little above makes you ugly

People are just trying to promote the way most women look - which isn't a size 00.

Original Post by rabes87:

I completely agree with you. 

There is nothing wrong with women who are naturally skinny.  However most girls that are skinny nowadays are anorexic.  People are just saying that the majority of women with an average metabolism have some curves.  No one is saying being below or a little above makes you ugly

People are just trying to promote the way most women look - which isn't a size 00.

 I don't even know if I ahould bother getting all hot and bothered. Had this generalization been omitted, everything else said was quite reasonable..

Very well said and intelligent. Thank you.

Erin

Original Post by gi-jane:

I think all anyone's trying to do when they refer to 'real women' is go against the tsunami of images that appear in our media.....  You open every magazine or watch a TV show or see a movie and you will not find the full range of people represented as being 'normal'  It goes way beyond 'thin' 

As well as not seeing too many overweight or even normal weight women on the screen or in the pictures, you will not find many middle-aged or older women, or women with wonky teeth, stretchmarks or big noses.   Not unless they are playing comedy roles like 'Ugly Betty' or character parts like 'Murder She Wrote'.  90% of women have cellulite but when was the last time you opened a magazine and saw a rear-end with a few dimples that didn't have the bitchy caption 'Look how this celeb has let herself go!'?... when all she is is normal.

We know the pressure they put on models to have breast-enhancements... what's wrong with real breasts?  They dragged out Jane Fonda to advertise anti-wrinkle cream but, normally, they'd bizarrely used smooth-skinned young women!  You will not find too many disabled women represented as normal either... but they're just as real as anyone else.

Back in the UK in the 1970's my black cousins used to tell me how they felt left out when they switched on the TV every night & every face beamed back at them was a white face - like people their colour didn't exist.   Social exclusion by omission.  So when we talk about 'real women' I don't think it's an anti-thin message or an 'excuse to be fat' message - I think it's a message that we're all as real as each other and we should all be represented..... warts and all.

 Very well said and intellegent, thank you.

Although it may be patronising, it is nice to see the media change and try to actively promote 'normal' women with 'curves' instead of the very skinny almost unobtainable ideal which has been promoted since the late 80s/early 90s.

Having incredibly slim women as the majority or only characters in popular tv shows increased the exclusiveness of the stars because the majority of people in Western societies have put on weight over those same years due to our desk bound computer-dependent jobs, no longer having to or fearing walking to work or school and the garbage sugar and chemicals put into cheap food that most of us eat. 

So it's nice to see the pendulum starting to swing the other way.

On the other hand during this time I think it also became as acceptable to criticise skinny people as it was to make fun of fat people. Back when I was training for marathons a few years ago I was a lot thinner than I am now. Not a day would go by without someone making a remark on what I was eating or whether I was eating enough. I was within normal weight range and I was working hard to get the body I had, but many people in my workplace couldn't resist making it their business to comment that I looked under nourished or should eat more. Because I'm a private person I found that really, really annoying. My sister is naturally thin, works out and is very careful to eat healthily (she introduced me to this site) but when she was a temp at one particular office there were women who would actually leave notes and pamphlets on her desk telling her to seek help for anorexia. One woman even came up to her and gave her a helpline number.

That sort of behaviour is seen as somehow normal in many workplaces.

This kind of thread seems to pop up quite a bit...

Here's a quote from susiecue on another thread (Real Women)that perfectly sums up this situation:

"Okay, but if you're slender, the media already tells you you rock. ALL healthy glowing girls (and women and boys and men) rock - but the curvy ones don't get told that as much.

It's a similar situation to encouraging girls that they can do math. You're not saying that boys can't do math. You're simply emphasizing that they can too.

Healthy glowing curvy girls rock TOO."

Healthyforever, I definitely agree with you. 

I like the Dove commercials (among others) that promote average-size women, but I don't think the whole "real women have curves" thing needs to be promoted. A different choice of words could convey the message that you don't need to be stick thin, and it could be said in a way that doesn't bash those without curves. 

I for one am not curvy. My measurements indicate that I'm a banana (fantastic, right? haha). However, I also am not stick thin. I have a BMI of 22.5. I have a very athletic figure. Am I not a "real woman" because I have a low BF% and lack curves? It's absurd! 

Personally, I like the way I look. And it's not comforting to me when I see magazines full of skinny models, nor when I see ads that say "real women have curves." Why can't we celebrate people of all sizes? Why is it either the skinny women that prevail or the curvy women that prevail? What about those women who are neither model thin nor curvy? 

I totally agree. I dread to see labels..  Well said!

But people usually do mean thin/less curvy girls are less womanly.    I was reading the one thread here somewhere and it was saying about how women's perception of beautiful is different then a mans perception of beautiful, and other things.  And like 12 times in the same thread I saw " real men like curves" or "real women have curves"  "real women don't look like sticks".    They may not purposefully be trying to insult people without curves, but it IS insulting.   I think people should word it that their "natural size" is beautiful or like you said that natural curves and real figures are good, and you don't have to all be thin.    But saying it the way they do makes it seem as though I shouldn't qualify as a womanly or feminine because I do not have big curves.   And being that for a good part of my life I was told I had a boyish figure and was once told by a guy to "go grow some boobs over the summer, you could use them", it is an issue to me.