daniellemertina:

thatmuslimfeminist:

occasionally pensive: I always see people respond negatively to the “real women are curvy”…

daniellemertina:

I always see people respond negatively to the “real women are curvy” thing and replace it with “all women are real” which is all well and good but I’ve never seen any of these same people discuss thin privilege which is why the saying “real women are curvy” even exists.

In our society, we know…

This is very true and there’s no denying the thin privilege but there’s also no denying that women are presented with a very narrow ideal of what is attractive and so there is a need to reinforce that the women deemed ‘too skinny’/’too boyish’ in their frame and who are rejected by society as fervently as the more voluptuous women are beautiful.

But yeah relatively, I agree. Fat women are seen as repulsive whereas women who are ‘too skinny’ are just unattractive so yeah it’s the lesser of two evils but it’s still damaging I think.

I don’t agree with you saying that skinny girls are rejected “as fervently” by society as voluptuous and/or fat women.

I can’t sit here as an incredibly skinny woman myself and pretend to struggle like women who aren’t my size.

I get comments sometimes… like you need to eat something, get some meat on your bones (especially since i’m black and skinniness is a little complex in the black community) but that’s just because i’d say all women are made to feel bad about themselves in some way in a patriarchal society. But that doesn’t take away the fact that my body type is viewed as the female ideal (I can see this when I pick up a magazine or watch TV… I can tell by people who say they want to be as thin as me when my body type isn’t even healthy because i’m underweight and i suffer from anemia and other things as a result… from a health perspective you don’t want to be as skinny as me.) and that there are girls who will literally starve themselves to get where I am.

You say that there’s no denying thin privilege but by saying that skinny women are hated or disrespected as much as voluptuous women you are denying it. 

^^^ YES

All bodies are good bodies. All bodies are REAL bodies.

Fat bodies face more oppression than thin bodies, therefore thin bodies have societal privileges.

This does not mean that thin bodies are unaffected by body image ideals or don’t come with their own issues or bad experiences, but telling someone “you’re too skinny” as opposed to “you’re too fat” are two COMPLETELY different fucking things.

No matter what, by society’s standards, “fat” = lazy, undesirable, disgusting, unhealthy, a drain on society, unworthy, something that needs to be avoided or in the process of avoiding at all costs.

Fat bodies are openly ridiculed. That ridicule is accepted and encouraged by the government and media at large.

Compare that to those bodies who experience interactions with people who say things like “You’re too thin, eat a fucking cheeseburger” or “You’re too thin, real women have curves, don’t ya know?” or “That person’s too thin, they must have an eating disorder.”

There is still unfair judgement and body shaming happening here, of course. And it’s fucking wrong. But it is NOT the same as the kind of ridicule fat bodies experience on a daily basis from every single possible source around them.