WHAT WE'RE ABOUT
We are constantly redefining our own perspectives, and therefore tend to write a lot about our personal experiences. Many followers and contributors are living with anorexia, bulimia, body dysmorphic disorder, depression, and a variety of other body image disorders or mental illnesses, so please be respectful and remember that health applies differently to everyone. Any and all potentially triggering content will be prefaced with a trigger warning.
RBI supports all races, genders, classes, and sizes. We try our best to make this a safe space for everyone. If we are not doing our job or checking our privilege, we invite you to please inform us.
Some of the artwork you see here has been created by our founder or moderators, some sourced when applicable. Please be kind enough to source this blog whenever you share it's content.
We are not health professionals. Any and all advice provided on this blog is supported only by our own research, studies, and personal experiences; nothing more.
This blog is part of the Safe Space Network.
Yeah, I’ll say it - this universal call to action for women of the world to “love themselves” is overrated.
Strive for self contentment, be kind to yourself, be critical of media, remain vigilant in seeking empowerment and positivity when you can, form a relationship with your body, live well by your own standards, and by all means - love yourself, if that is within your grasp.
But if you can not find self love, for whatever reason and however long, know that you are not part of the problem.
You have been affected.
Unlearning the hate is hard work, but once we learn how to dismantle the inner-workings of a society and culture that permeates and surrounds our very existence, we can stand a chance of knocking it down.
In the meantime, don’t force it - stop blaming yourself for not “loving your body” enough.
You can not possibly be at fault, when the oppressive culture we live in is the main offender.
I found this blog at the beginning of the semester, through a link at xojane, and it really really hit home. I realized that I need to make a concerted effort to work on loving myself (even though society tells me not to)- not through diet and exercise and self flagellation, but through acceptance. This project was an attempt at that. I researched fertility figures, and the ones that I liked best were the ones with round hips and large heavy breasts. The ones that resembled me. It reminds me that this obsession with size 0 is a recent trend. There have been times throughout history where we have been revered as the standard of beauty. So not only is this figure a reach into the past, but it is also a self portrait.
She has two faces, one forward and one back- and when I have some time, I will be setting a stone on either side- a moonstone for the Maiden aspect and a Labradorite for the Crone.
Thank you for giving me the courage to explore this. I still have some really bad, triggering days, but I hope that my new totem can help me remember that the clamoring of the media is not the truth of the world. I am a fat woman and that is ok.
stigma or STI6MA? #applewhore #jakethedog #bellathecat
Working on some new designs to make some super fab Activist Mantra buttons for all!
You know when life throws things at you like death and hate and the sorts of things you can’t control and you find yourself back in the land of disordered eating and anxiety and depression and you don’t ever want to come out from under your blankets? Or is that just me?
I’ve been in that space for a while. Visibility is a challenge, taking care of myself is a challenge, owning my body is a challenge. But I continue to dare myself and accept the discomfort, because it means I’m not giving up. I am in control.
[Image: Typographic message depicted in pastel purple and peach: “I am forever working against a culture of shame.”]
It’s been a while. Here’s a thing I made for you!
Working is the key word.
I want this as a bumper sticker for my car.
I am in the process of designing more of these babies!
I’ve decided to call them Activist Mantras and plan to make them into stickers and buttons and maybe other things so I can sell them and we can put the money back into bettering the RBI community.
Have an idea for a good Activist Mantra?
Submit it and it may end up as one of the designs!
Just be sure to include the title “Activist Mantra” so I know what you’re submitting for, and note your name/tumblr URL so that I can give you credit if I use it.
Mantras can include anything related to encouraging awareness of body politics, privilege and race politics, beauty standards, feminism, fat discrimination…You get the idea. <3
[Image: Typographic message depicted in pastel purple and peach: “I am forever working against a culture of shame.”]
It’s been a while. Here’s a thing I made for you!
Sometimes I am afraid to be too dismal.
Smile. Be positive. Set an example. Fuck you.
Because I’ve come to this place again, of questioning my body - and while most of the time I aim for acceptance and presence of mind, those things are hard to keep hold of, as a reality. As my reality.
So I keep asking myself over and over again, as if reminding myself will finally get me to accept that I am not always okay with my body, or my mental health, or my eating habits, and that it will pass. I just rather wish it would stop flipping like a goddamn switch.
Does my overwhelming love for spinach cancel out my overzealous gravitation to baked goods? Am I virtuously healthy enough yet, or will I surely die some vague future death that won’t stop haunting my mind?
You know the shit that surrounds you molds you. You know how to actively break it down. You know that aiming for good health rather than the slimness commonly (and incorrectly) associated with it is the better alternative.
But that slim figure, the one you’ve crafted in your brain from the moment you realized your fatness, is burned behind your retinas. And this perfected version has a tendency to want to block your view.
Why the fuck do I want to change my body? Because I was fine, until someone or something pulled the trigger - and I don’t have to sit here and take the fucking bullet.
“St. Fatty 2x4 Purifies the Holy Kingdom”
30” x 22”
Relief on muslin with gold leaf, dye
2012
It’s been a while.
I’ve been hearing this a lot lately. This is what I think about it.
There are no if’s, and’s, or BUT’s when it comes to body positivity.
ALL bodies are good bodies.