Vanessa talks about me time for real women with curves
This week I want to talk about me time for real women with curves. Before you punch the air… wait. Sit down. I’m not in favour. I started a bit of a rumpus on Facebook a few days ago because I made this known. One of my friends took great offence at my comment, to the point where she actually shouted at me (in cyberworld that means writing in capital letters and using excessive exclamation marks!). My comment was simply that the media’s core vocabulary when describing any woman that isn’t Giselle seems to have shrunk to ‘real’ and ‘curves’. I don’t understand… where are all these unreal, square women they speak of?
“The obsession with the way we look hasn’t changed despite all Gok’s fawning”
Apparently the obsession with the way we look hasn’t changed at all despite all our whining and all Gok’s fawning. We haven’t freed ourselves of visual objectification at all, we’ve just shifted the focus and developed a (pretty lame) dictionary of rhetorical gems to persuade ourselves that we have. All we’ve succeeded in doing is turning (once again) on our own gender, and this time it’s the ‘skinny women’ who are taking the flack. I know lots of models and they actually get bullied these days for being slender. I don’t know of any that have eating disorders or snort copious amounts of cocaine to stay thin… they’re just slim. It’s the way they are. They’re still real. They still have curves. And it still hurts when someone shouts “Eat a hamburger!” at them in the street.
One of my best friends is an honest-to-God supermodel and she’s so cool about her figure, which is far from emaciated – she gets called ‘curvy’ all the time and has a splendid rack, yet I doubt she’s ever been bigger than a size 10 – what does it even mean any more? To watch the way she ignores everyone’s wittering is a thing to behold. She’s quite simply not interested. If we all ignore them do you think they’ll shut up about it and go away?
While everyone’s yelping about ‘real women’ it’s ironic to note the industry whispers are that Dove’s ad campaign featuring ‘plus size’ models wasn’t a huge financial success. Whilst hailing a mini-revolution of the mind we weren’t actually putting our hands in our pockets. I’m so bored of reading, writing and hearing about women’s fat/thin bodies. When are we all going to stop being so damn vain?
Picture credit: Belovodchenko Anton
Which brings me to the next bug… me time. What is all this ‘me time’? Last time I checked all my time was ‘me time’. What is all this nonsense about treating ourselves every time we manage to get out of bed in the morning? More ad-man rubbish that we’re falling for like flies instead of getting on with it and working hard without needing a reward at hourly intervals. This is officially the age of austerity, and it’s time for our world of pampered princesses (I include myself in that) to (wo)man-up. We never know what treasures we might find in the simpler things if we can stop gazing at our curvy navels long enough.
To this list of words that will ensure I never buy your products I will also add, at the suggestion of an irate group of my Facebook friends: ‘stunning’, ‘decadent’, ‘gorgeous’ and ‘fabulous’. I’ve never been ‘stunned’ by a perfume and anything short of a bathtub full of Krug is not ‘decadent’. No more hyperboles! There is nothing worse than the hyperbole. Please! No More! My real curves can’t take it! I need some me time!
