Last week, former reality star Lauren Conrad decided to ban body-shaming terms like “skinny” on her website laurenconrad.com, according to CNN. Conrad is replacing them with terms including, “fit” and “healthy,” in order to promote a more positive connotation surrounding ?body image.
“We try to do this for the most part anyway, but now we’re making it official,” Conrad wrote in a post. “The word skinny will now be reserved for skinny jeans. My editorial team and I had a long talk about it, and we want to make sure that the focus is on being fit as opposed to a number on the scale. Every body is created differently, and healthy bodies come in all shapes ?and sizes.”
It seems nowadays, women just can’t win when it comes to their looks. Whether they lose weight to conform to industrial beauty standards or gain weight to attain fuller, healthier curves, the body shaming never stops, which is something I have found to be hypocritical and downright degrading.
Society can’t tell women that they can have the same chances of winning an election as men do without commenting on their debate attire and how they may look more “tired” on a day without ?makeup.
We can judge a woman for her flat chest and non-existent butt, then turn around when changes are made and comment on her lack of thigh gap. The real question is not whether women should conform to a certain look, but rather, when society will learn that constraining women by their looks does nothing to better social and gender equality as a whole.
Another huge topic of discussion in the news lately is Caitlyn Jenner and her recent transformation.
Jon Stewart said it best in his June 2 episode of “The Daily Show,” tackling news segments noting Jenner’s surprisingly sexy transformation and anchors debating whether Caitlyn is actually hotter than Kris. “You see, Caitlyn, when you were a man, we could talk about your athleticism, your business acumen,” Stewart said. “But now you’re a woman, and your looks are really the only thing we care about. Welcome to being a woman in America.”
Jenner gathered a lot of courage to be able to come out into the world as a transformed woman, just to have people nitpick and judge her solely on her appearance the same day.
With that being said, this isn’t to say that men don’t get shamed for their bodies, ?as well.
But in a society where the Internet is embracing the “dad bod” and helping men of all sizes achieve the confidence they say they deserve, it just seems wrong that we aren’t doing the same for women.
snvanden@indiana.edu
