That thunder of hooves you can hear is my high horse at full gallop. I am, as my friend Audra would put it, cranky. That’s a drastic understatement. I’m close to being incensed. No, I am incensed. This is one of my very rare serious posts and I am seethingly angry.
Here we go. ‘Real women have curves.’ This is a familiar saying to anybody who spends any time on the internet, and especially on Facebook. It’s supposed to be a rallying cry, women speaking out about societal perceptions of female beauty. Real women have curves. It’s a feminist article of faith.
Well, I’m sorry, it’s not feminist. It’s deeply, profoundly anti-feminist, and here’s why. The women who say this are wilfully ignoring or decrying any of the sisterhood who are not curvy. What this mantra says is that if you don’t have a bosom, and a waist, and a rounded stomach, and a proper arse, and critically if your thighs don’t touch, you’re not a real woman. You might just as well yell, ‘Hey Titless! I’ve seen bigger currants on a breadboard!’ It’s like being back in secondary school.
It’s a blatant and very hurtful insult to those who are naturally slim or skinny. Not the anorexic Skeletorettes who live on coke and lettuce leaves, but the naturally non-curvy. I went out with a girl once who was 5’8” and weighed 100 lbs soaking wet. She made Olive Oyl look like a Botticelli. She had stick thin legs, thin arms, narrow hips, a 32A bust. Not at all curvy. I thought she was very sexy indeed. At the other end of the spectrum, I had a six-year relationship with a woman who was clinically obese. She didn’t just have curves, she had curves on her curves. I thought she was sexy too.
The odd thing is that while women are banging on about sexual stereotyping of the females of the population, they think nothing at all of perpetuating male sexual stereotypes. The internet is thronged with images of men that these feminist urban warriors have posted . Every single one of these men has magnificent pecs and deltoids and biceps, you can count their ribs, they have a six pack for abs, sturdy thighs, shapely calves. They typically appear wearing nothing but a cowboy hat and Calvin Klein underwear with a pair of socks stuffed down the front. They have no body hair (some designer stubble on the face is, however, curiously de rigueur), and have clearly just had a rubdown with baby oil.
So are these Adonises with Photoshopped perfect musculature, a back-sack-and-crack job, and a fondness for baby products real men? No. They’re fantasy figures, in the same way that the Page 3 girls and Victoria’s Secret catwalk models are fantasies.
‘It’s just a bit of fun.’ Really? Is it? Are the Chippendales just ‘a bit of fun?’ How come female strippers or pole dancers aren’t ‘just a bit of fun’ then? I don’t find them at all fun, but using this twisted pseudo-feminist logic it would be OK if I did. Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander, as they say.
Women quite rightly object to the manipulated stereotyping of what is beautiful or attractive as regards their own sex. I’m with them all the way on this one. But the whole ‘real women have curves’ thing is just another way of stereotyping, isn’t it? It excludes non-curvy women, and in this way is even more of an insult because it’s women insulting other women. At the same time these selfsame curvy women feel absolutely at ease with perpetuating a male sexual stereotype of perfection. That’s not logical, and it’s an insult to both sexes.
There. I’m glad I got that off my (slightly hairy) chest.
Yes. This. The saying should go: Real women have vaginas, or wish they had one.
I like that.
You know, gotta be fair with the gender identity crowd, too.
That’s why I lioked the original comment. It’s an interesting definition.
Duncan,
Feminism is in great part fighting patriarchy, and patriarchy is often behind quotes like “real women have curves”… And it’s absurd. The only real women I know are the ones made of rubber… Any living and breathing woman is ALL real. What we as a society (in this case Western culture) must do is stop creating these ridiculous fantasy images which skews reality.
Le Clown
Precisely. Thanks for reading and commenting.
Good post Duncan. I’m a woman. I have curves. Even if I didn’t, I would still be a woman. I have a niece that weighs about 100 lbs. She eats like a man and can’t gain weight. All of my life, I’ve been jealous of women that could do that. I have finally embraced the fact that I will never weigh 100 lbs. If I did, I would look like total shit. I think women are beautiful no matter what their size, but I will defend my rights as a woman to generate positive stereotypes. For big butts, wide hips, and lovely curves. I am a woman. Not because of my curves, but because of my gender. My femininity comes from the fact that I can accept my body type, and the body types of all other women. Be they 100 or 400 lbs. No matter what you think, I AM a feminist. I may wear lipstick and high heels, but by God, I AM a feminist.
My ex wife weighed about 95 lbs. She was tiny. she was all woman though. i can assure you of that
😉
My darling, I’m sure she was. 🙂
Arf!
😀
As humans, we seem to have to have to define ourselves over and over – like checking ourselves in the mirror. We like to know what box we fit, so as not to be ostracised, which could still be fatal. This, of course, is exploited by media and advertising – what a useful obsession it is for those who wish to manipulate us all. But we don’t have to play, if we learn to support each other instead of turning in on ourselves and stifling each other.
As you say. I’m not sure quite why I got so bloody angry about this as to write an entire post. I was just feeling grumpy, I suppose. Thanks forreadingme!
Always a pleasure 🙂
Thank you
We Canadians are kind of like that too. 🙂
I did like your comment.
Well thank you very much Crone.
😀
The lack of our own personal confidence is what makes us want to define others by our own insecurities. Ok, so that is just my opinion.
Exactly so. that’s why I was so disturbed and irritated by the whole curves thing. Thanks for reading this. It was quite an important post for me.
You did good.
Thank you. That is praise indeed from someone I respect a good deal. Thanks.
You ate welcome. It is making me rethink many common catch phrases of late that sound good – but to think about the real meaning, they lose their appeal.
Oops are *ate. Fat thumbed it.
I guessed that…
Yes. This.
No argument from this end
How do I reply… not the way you think I am, that’s for sure. In my life I have been all of the above. I was the 5′ 8.5″ 118 pound Olive Oil that bloomed into same 5′ 8.5″ but at – well we won’t put the weight… yes I will 325 pound woman to where I am today at 186. I have lived with all of the sterio typing my whole life. Still do as I am still told I am fat and deal with all of that. For the most part feminist stuff ticks me off. We all, men and women, should be equal in almost all things. Face it, there are just some things that a man can do that a woman can’t and some things a woman can do that a man can’t. I have seen many men that are not the “perfect” abed men that have turned me on just fine. I wouldn’t be married to the man I am if I didn’t. But like most pictures of women, you just don’t find a picture of the average man. The curvy girl thing started because all you ever saw was “Victoiria Secret” kind of women in pictures. Then suddenly we start seeing the average women and like all things are now beating it into the ground. For some reason as a people we can’t just bring things to light, make a change and let it be. No we have to beat it into the ground and affend the rest of the crowd. Then it will turn the other way and we will just do it again. It is a never ending cycle. So for me? I am just happy to be me. Nobody has to like me and how I look. Only I do. Curvy or stick or voluptuous all men and women are beautiful…
That was one of my points. I have seen spectacularly beautiful women who did nothing for me at all, though one did. i married her. I’ve also seen ‘average’ women who took my breath away. Funny old world.
But I like the point about beating topics to death. and i still think that the ‘curvy women’ feminists should think long and hard about posting photos of ‘perfect’ men. It’s a terrible double standard to apply. You never, EVER see these women posting photos of Mr Average, with the pipecleaner legs and a bit of a tum. Never. Curves on men aren’t sexy, according to these body police.
This. is. exceptional.
Also? Real women are confident in their looks and don’t have to belittle others.
A fair point, Liar
Amen
Yep.
Dear Erica, I must be argumentative and challenge your statement, I am not confident of my looks and I am a woman…. does that make me a fake woman? I think not. I think trying to define such a complicated concept of being a woman with a single statement is counter productive, whether it is “real women have curves” or “real women are confident in their looks”. We are waaaaay more tricky than that.
OK Ericka, ding ding Round 2
BTW Crone, guess what? Men are a lot more tricky than that too.
I can get on board with that. I suppose I was doing the very thing that grates on my nerves and looking at the situation solely from my perspective. Time’s too short to not appreciate what I’ve been given (in my humble opinion), but I have to realize different people are living different journeys. But I do hope you agree with the statement that real women “don’t have to belittle others.”
I’m not a woman, Ericka, but i can’t see any flaw in the logic there.
Wow! I’m so flattered. Thank you! I’m almost speechelss
I think it’s important to note that “Real Women Have Curves” is aimed at the population who is overweight, not necessarily a thin woman who also happens to be curvy. This makes the population of “real women” even smaller. I don’t like discrimination in any form, and I feel like that’s what this is.
I’m hoping that you mean ‘real women have curves’ is discriminatory, not that my post is. I was trying to stop this bloody nonsense, in my own little way
Yes, the campaign
It’s totally written by curvy/big girls to make their curvy/big peers feel its ok to be that way, it’s nothing really to do with what they truly think men prefer. Men (mostly) prefer a vagina, no matter (mostly) what its attached to. Risqué…maybe, but there, I’ve said it!
Rock’n’roll Victoria. Thanks for coming over. It is. It’s a copout to make them feel better about themselves by belittling others. I hate it as a concept
Yay! Fair play to my homegirl for telling it like it is from a woman’s point of view. Way to go girlfriend!
A really well argued case against all forms of body image stereotyping – well said!
Thanks. I was really cross when I wrote that. I think it may have showed.
Duncan I think it is so smart of you to avoid controversial subjects! Why don’t you go get some snaps of some peacocks. I know what you’ll do though, you’ll write a post, “Why I Dislike Peacocks,” to go along with your photos, and the peacock defamation league will protest on your front lawn.
Eeeeeewww. Don’t tell anyone I said this. I don’t want them showing up unannounced at The Holler. The coyotes will eat them.
Hmmmm……Maybe I should rethink this???
Hahahahaha! Controversial? Me? Never say it.
Funnily enough I have written a post about things you never knew about peacocks, I’ve just not put it up.
Now i come to think of it, I did post something about things you might not know about peacocks. You read it and Liked it many moons ago.
http://wp.me/P2C8Zz-2M
It’s a bit of my defunct first novel. There are some things that might come in handy. You never know.
I have a few pinterest posts dedicated to this theory!!!
No excuse for being skinny. Hahahahahah
I know that’s how the world was… I think the adds for being skinny are harsher than the adds now for being fat! We live in a sick world!
I live in the parallel universe of being underweight. I can be a bit irritating…
http://wp.me/p2C8Zz-Bw
I bet! But I think people will always find a way to be cruel to each other…
What a great little post this is and with such stimulating comments following it.
I too have found that whole ‘real women have curves’ irritating. I find the whole thing so freaking complicated because it isn’t just about beauty, it is also about health. It’s all well and good to want to feel sexy no matter your shape but when said shape can disable and even kill you, sexy is the least of your worries.
Tricky little bugger this, eh? But such fun to bat it around to see what pops up. Thanks.
Glad you liked it. As a amn, I get genuinely racked off wioth the unthinking sexism man women, and I empahsise some, can show to their own sex.
They’ll never stop. Until someone makes them stop. Hurry up already.