I believe in the plus sized movement, we need more shapes and sizes represented, but sometimes I feel the current state it's in isn't always so great for women. I have no issue with the heart of the plus sized movement, I'm not one of those jerks who thinks it promotes an unhealthy lifestyle. Beautiful, confident, and healthy plus sized models aren't what is fueling our country's obesity problem: that's due to our corrupt food system.
The plus sized movement needs to exist in order to fight societies everlasting pressure to fit into a Kendall-Jenner-supermodel shaped box. It warms my heart to think that finally more women and little girls are seeing some part of themselves reflected in the media. My issue is with the fact that it is still boiling down women, thinking and feeling beings, into just bodies.
Everyone deserves to feel sexually desired or beautiful regardless of their size. But when I look at the most notable plus sized models Ashley Graham, Tess Holiday, or Robyn Lawley the truth is that these women are still gorgeous. Perfect pointed noses, sexy curves, sultry eyes you could lose yourself in, and high cheek bones. I think these women are fighting the good fight and I recognize that I've had it easier than them as a thin woman. But the truth is that I feel the plus sized movement is playing into the larger evils of the modeling world and our society in general.
Our media has this habit of only paying attention to the most beautiful women. Yes, you can find beauty in anyone, but who says a woman has to be beautiful anyways? The truth is that not everyone is a super model, and there's nothing wrong with that. We are still pretending that a beautiful woman getting paid to walk down a runway is our society advancing.
While I mostly focused on the plus sized movement for the sake of this article, I want everyone to know that this mostly applies to the rest of the modeling world, that's where the worser evil lies. The Victoria's secret fashion show is the bane of my existence. It is marketed and danced around by celebrities claiming it's a night of celebrating women. No, it's a night of celebrating an extremely particular body shape, and thats just it, a body shape and not a entire gender.
We are not celebrating female's minds, agency, and personality. We are celebrating breasts, we are celebrating rear ends. What about celebrating the brave women succeeding the male dominated world of STEM? What about the brave women Alicia Garza, Opal Tometi, and Patrisse Cullors, who started the Black Lives Matter Movement? Or movie producer Nina Jacobson kicking ass in the behind the scenes hollywood boys club? Nope. Instead most of us chose to think that our continual obsession with beautiful women and neglectful attitudes of normal looking women will dissipate when we pay attention to more beautiful women and their bodies.
So yes, the Plus sized movement and praising diverse body types is good, but it's only deeply beneficial if it happens along side another movement to actually pay attention to women for their achievements, minds, and strength...and not their tits.