as small as a world and as large as alone

3:43am July 31, 2012

josiahd:

karalianne:

musicalandacademicblunderings:

halfvampire:

Bless this post.

Are you fucking kidding me, VS?

Fuck.

I think the main problem with the VS ad is that it implies that a woman can only love her body if she is tall and skinny and has large breasts. All of those women are the same height, size, and build.

The only problem I have with the Dove ad is that it excludes any woman who is naturally very thin (like a model) and most of the women in that image have large-ish breasts, so it’s excluding women with very small chests. Otherwise, it is definitely more diverse than the VS image.

Also, for anyone who needs an image description: Two images. Top image is the Victoria Secret “Love My Body Campaign” ad, which features seven female models in the same bra and panties. The models are all the same height. Five of them are white, two are dark-skinned (probably African-American). Two of the white models are brunettes, and the rest appear to be blonde. All of the models look very serious. Bottom image is the Dove “Real Beauty Campaign” ad, which features 11 female models in a variety of bras and panties. The models are of varying heights and body types, and most of them have large hips/thighs. Three of the models are WOC (it appears they are African-American, and one is very dark-skinned, though one of them could be Filipino based on her facial structure), and one is olive-skinned; the rest are white. Two (maybe three) of the white models are redheads, and only one is blonde. All of these models are smiling and seem to be enjoying themselves; one model is laughing.

Well, also none of them are disabled. They all look kind of similar in a way I’m having trouble explaining.

But like. I don’t look like that. I don’t look like the pictures of what “real women are beautiful/have curves” look like. And I look a lot more like them than a lot of other women do. 

And for the most part I’m ok with that, except that it gets presented as “this is a representative model of what women look like” thing — because I’m a woman too, I’m not imaginary.

That said, I really like this picture. 

Not to mention there’s a lot of people bigger than that, or with vastly different proportions. My breasts, before the reduction, were so large and dangling that no bra could make them look like the ideal that photo presents. And they all have similar fat distribution. By far most of my fat is on my waist and belly. And now I have relatively small breasts. (When they were huge, then under a shirt they looked like more belly, and people thought I didn’t have breasts at all. Now, somewhat to my dismay, I have obvious breasts.)

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