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The Problem With Treating Women’s Body Types Like Fashion Trends

Women’s bodies aren’t trends, and they never were.

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I think (or hope) most of us can agree that the concept of a body trend is damaging and, for lack of a better word, downright weird.

Yet, here we are, watching the media push the narrative that you must look a certain way to be considered beautiful or worthy of love and acceptance. Sometimes, the messaging is subtle, like in those moments when we’re praising a singer for representing a “healthy” body type, while she’s just existing in an athletic frame. Other times, it’s obnoxiously obvious, like when we witness bullying from a herd of social media users slamming an actress for having a stomach that folds when sitting. 

If you haven’t realized it by now, women can’t win in today’s world: we’re either too skinny or too fat; too flat or too curvy; too frail or too muscular; too this or too that, but never, ever enough for people to leave us the hell alone and let us exist in our own bodies.

Body Types Should Not Be Trending

Now, most of us blame the harmful push of “body trends” on the systems that profit off our insecurities, and we’re right to do so. But unfortunately, the criticism doesn’t stop there. I see men spewing judgments as if they’re the son of Christ himself. I see........

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