Women, we gotta get out of our own way (rant with cussing involved)!

I didn't want to write this post because when you comment on things like this, often people don't hear you but instead look for cracks in what you are trying to explain in order to voice an opinion no one asked for. Which I'm sure will happen, to the irony of wherever this blog post gets posted and some unsuspecting commenter bellowing the same trite PC bullshit that contradicts whatever trite bullshit someone else posted. I'm just setting up this preamble because I know that's what will happen.

The internet is a large toilet, we all know that, filled mostly with the bile of anonymous commenters content on having a 'voice' yet refraining from taking ownership of that voice. It's lazy (I will be speaking in absolutes in this post) and it drives me crazy.



Why did I title the post the way I did? Because of this woman who is making the social media rounds and who is for some reason being picked up by "news outlets" as a "story".


She's a model and she's 8 1/2 months pregnant. Congratulations!
Now, my comments are not going to be about her. I don't know her, I'm sure she's a lovely person, and I seriously doubt that she would put her fitness above the health of her child. 

What I'm exhausted with is the swath of people all over the tubal inter webs who are somehow "concerned" for her health. Why? Because she does not look the norm, and by that I mean have extra body fat. 

If you've seen the other images she has posted of herself, she's constantly at the gym. Why, because it's her job to look this way. She's a model. It's her work to be physically like that. If the normal 9 to 5'er did their business day at the gym, they would most likely look like that, too. She just seemed not to take any time off from her physical schedule because she is having a baby. It's not good or bad, it's just what it is, but for some reason, her choices to which as far as I can tell have not judged anyone else, are looked at as dangerous by everyone else. What the fuck!?

On the other side of the spectrum, we have another model.


I've actually met her (we have mutual friends), and just recently she's been all over the web because of her signing a modeling contract with a prestigious agency.
Congratulations!

Yet again, countless, and I mean COUNTLESS people are just so "concerned" with her weight, and so "worried" about her "choices". Fuck you people.

Again, she is a model, it's her job to look this way. She makes a paycheck being this physical type, and it's working for her, just like the model above. But again, people just have so much of a reaction because this model is not in the 'norm'.

I bring all of this up because most people commenting on these types of people are women and I want to call out my sex on our perpetual bullshit. Don't misunderstand, I totally get the hypocrisy of me saying this (please re-read my preamble) but it so needs to be said. We can't have diversity and then nitpick something wrong in every aspect of that diversity.

From a plus size model not being large enough to a plus size model being too large, to a model being too thin and then not being thin enough. I do realize there are boundaries at either spectrum, but the women above are nowhere near the extremes, again, have you all seen the internet!?


This woman trended recently. She lost over 170 pounds and was told to cover up because of her skin. Forget her accomplishment of losing a person, she still was not attractive enough. 

Why is it someone else's comfort in their own body makes others uncomfortable?


Not too long ago there was this plus size model who got a LOT of flack for having a stomach. OH MY GOD! A stomach!

Then there was this mother, who seems to be the only one actually criticizing others.
But again, she's a personal trainer, selling diet books and fitness stuff. It's her job to look this way. Do I give a shit about what this woman thinks of me? Nope. I'm never going to buy her stuff, so she can say all the crap she wants.


And that's the irony, women who comment against these women HATE to have that thrown back in their faces.

I get it, we are a visual civilization and the internet is a picture media, but how I physically look isn't even in the top 5 of how well I judge myself as a person. Perhaps that's why all of this gets to me. To judge yourself on something that will always change and age seems fleeting. I'd rather be judged on how many books I've read or how many animals I've saved or my self acceptance. 

Why do these women bother so many enough to comment on them as if they are actually going to take the advice? I honestly don't get it, especially in a world where we as women want diverse representation, but when it's here, we have problems with it.


Or problems with other people's choices.
MY GOD the shit storm that happened to this poor woman.
I just don't get why it bothered so many people. 

Or this.


Honestly women, we need to get over ourselves.

All of this isn't just online. It's that woman we see at the bus stop that we sum up based on nothing but what she looks like. It's that woman walking who we might think is beautiful but we look for one thing to tear her down about. It's that woman who we shake our head at because you are secretly glad you "don't look like her".

Just fucking stop it! Stop it the next time a woman comes around and looks "different" and gets trending. Stop with the mental judgements and just find something, something to be positive about, or don't think about it at all. I mean, it's not like our opinions contribute. This one included.

9 comments:

  1. Yay! I completely agree. We probably all do it sometimes but lets try not to. Go you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you for writing this. I've thought it so many times. At age 65, if any one bothers to even notice me, I've lost the "attractive" wars from the get go.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm 63 years old. it's been years, YEARS, since I've seen an ugly person, in real life. The media, in all of it's incarnations, from Internet to the advertisement flyer tucked under one's windshield wiper, is creating ugly thoughts about regular people. False concern about a person one knows nothing about, is intrusive and bad form.

    ReplyDelete
  4. We are a mean lot. My husband insists its because of the patriarchy. I love the little dear for saying that, but I think it is just that we are human. And the internet seems to amplify that.
    You've put this much better than I would.

    ReplyDelete
  5. We are so mean! That is what drives me crazy. Perhaps part of that os patriarchy, because the woman that the man favors will have the power. I Don't think we as women have ever gotten past that.

    ReplyDelete
  6. You said it! You said it well too! I will try harder not be judgy even in my mind.

    ReplyDelete
  7. "Stop with the mental judgements and just find something, something to be positive about, or don't think about it at all."
    Amen.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Great post! All the contradicting standards about women's bodies are so frustrating and infuriating. Can't people just mind their own bodies and stop policing other people's physical appearance?! My best friend says mean stuff about other women all the time and it drives me nuts! "Beauty" is purely subjective and women shouldn't be shamed because they do not match someone else's definition.

    ReplyDelete

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