The Thin Girl v/s The Real Girl.

I just read this beautiful and oh-so-true blog post by Libby @ Catching the Stars. Please check it out!


It's about body image, ideals and the question of which women are "real" and who aren't. I absolutely agree with Libby that the problem of today's size 0 ideal is not that there are women out there who are extremely skinny, and being thin should not be considered as being unhealthy and less "real" than other women. 


It bothers me so much to read comments like "eating disorders are terrible, why do girls want to be skinny when everyone knows all guys prefer real women with curves to those sticks on the catwalk?!". THIN GIRLS ARE NOT THE PROBLEM! We are all built differently and come on: 1) there are men who love curves and there are men who love thinner girls and most of all, every man who's worth anything doesn't fall for a girl because of her freakin' body type! 2) Who says anyone should try and change the way she looks because of what "guys prefer"?! 3) If we're talking about eating disorders, I'm pretty sure that very few girls with ed's are sick because they want guys to think they're sexy. Please. Life's not all about looking hot for the opposite (or same) sex. And even less so when it comes to different sorts of illnesses. 


But, one thing that I'd like to add to Libby's great post: No, once again, it's not the skinny girls who are the problem. The problem is that we're constantly surrounded with images of these skinny girls, being told that they're as close to perfection as a human being can get. Especially fashion images. What we need is not to ban skinny models from the catwalks or fashion magazines, but we do need to mix it up. By letting different types of women - of different shapes, sizes and ethnicities - onto the catwalks and into the campaigns and editorials. And not say "heeeeeeey, look at these girls, look, they're not super skinny, and look at this one, she's not white, aren't we being all diverse and awesome right now?!". No, you're not, because of what you just said. Stupid. Everyone who isn't white and super thin shouldn't be an exotic exception to the white/skinny-rule.  


I've been a part of the modeling industry for many years and I know for a fact that a lot of young female models have severe problems concerning their body image and eating habits. Not everyone, sure. But way too many. It doesn't really matter if you're naturally skinny when you're modeling, since there is always someone telling you that you should be even skinnier in order to be really successful. What the industry does to these girls' health is a big issue, and an even bigger one is that other girls and women are lead to believe that the way these models look is 1) aquired without much effort and 2) what a woman is supposed to look like if she wants to be considered as truly beautiful.


Because yeah, a thin girl might be completely healthy and is without a doubt just as real as everyone else - and she definitely shouldn't have to hear that she's a "bad role model" or be harassed in any way. But why has someone decided that she should be the only one representing beauty? When we all know that beauty comes is more than one shape, and that fashion has to do with so, so, so much more than your dress size or hip measurements. 

"And it's not like we can use a pickaxe to reshape you like a sculpture, haha!"

Flower print tank top, H&M. Bird print pencil skirt, Nümph. Cheetah print litas, Jeffrey Campbell. Flower print sunglasses, Monki.

You know what? I'm being brave right now. It might not seem like it to anyone else, but I am. Why? Because I'm wearing my insecurity-skirt.

I bought this skirt online maybe five years ago now - I thought the bird print was lovely and figured the sharp-set waist would look good on me. And it did. But I still never, ever wore it.

I suppose everyone has their "thing". That thing about yourself that you hate as a teenager, then slowly come to accept, learn to live with. Even though you might forever wish that particular part of you could be just a little bit different.

Well, for me, it's my hips. A winter night about a year and a half ago I wrote a story about how it all started, and I thought I'd try and translate parts of it for you. I know I suck at writing in English, but my plan is to get better and better and better with time!

It was a Wednesday. Along the sidewalks people where slipping and sliding on the slush and hard-packed ice, kind of like today, but on this particular Wednesday I was fifteen.

The agency office was located on a narrow back street and the walls were covered in photographs. The motives were all the same: girls in fancy hairstyles dressed in exotic haute couture clothing, or barely any clothes at all. The were all very beautiful and very thin.

The woman who smiled and shook my hand had asked me to stop by since I had potential. That's what she said. Then she fetched the measuring tape from a drawer and told me to undress. Her hands were cold.

When she had measured every single part of my body she said it again: that I had potential. There were only a few minor problems. My nose, for instance. My short legs. My weak jawline. My knobbly knees, my broad shoulders, my birthmarks. And, above all, my hips.

"A lot of this can be corrected", the woman with the measuring tape proclaimed, almost consolingly. "But I want to be honest with you right from the start: hips are very difficult. You can see yourself how the hip bones are sticking out here on the sides, so even if you manage to get rid of all this excess fat on your bottom, the hips will still be too wide. And it's not like we can use a pickaxe to reshape you like a sculpture, haha! That sure would be something!"

But I did have potential, so she figured I should give it a try. Lose about twenty pounds - "it's all about eating healthy and drinking lots of water" - and then come back. Because she could see something in me. With just a little bit of work, I might one day become one of the girls up on that wall.

You would have thought I'd get it by then. That whatever it was I was looking for, there was no way I would find it there, in a business that obviously didn't think I was good enough.

I ended up working as a model for seven years. How did that even happen? It can't be that the next agency that approached me gave me a glass of milk and some chocolate chip cookies and was kind enough not to bring up the idea of using a pickaxe on my hip bones. It just can't. 

Sure, I was flattered, I wanted to be adored and admired as much as the next teenage girl. But I can't seriously have imagined that seeing my photo in a magazine, with a fancy hairstyle and dressed in haute couture, would have made me feel beautiful. I must have known better.

Sometimes I think I was actually looking to be humiliated. That the confirmation I needed had nothing to do with feeling beautiful, but the exact opposite. Proof that I didn't measure up. The relief in hearing somebody else say it.

It was a Wednesday. I know that because I remember skipping my piano lesson.

I got dressed and said thank you, for what I don't know. Then I went out into the darkness. I remember shaking. But then again, it was a cold winter that year.

(Published in Sofis mode #8 2010)

So there you go. Before that day, I had never even considered my hips. I mean, they were just sort of... there. But from that moment on, I despised my hips, I hated every goddamn inch that just wouldn't come off no matter how much I exercised or how little I ate. I started wearing clothes that would accentuate my waist and then hide all the stupid wideness below, and when I did start modeling a while later, I was always certain that the moment anyone realized how wide my hips actually were, they would kick me out head first.

Sure, all of this was a long time ago. Today I can handle my hips, I even kind of like them. But I still remember how I tried on this skirt, looked in the mirror and immediately started thinking about that pickaxe. I wanted so bad to be a marble sculpture at that moment. Just reshape my body the way it was supposed to look.

Therefor, I'm being brave right now. I found the skirt in a box full of old clothes and I decided that today is the day that I throw that imaginary pick-axe away. Because I love my life, I love my body and I'm not going to let some bitter, unfulfilled middle aged woman with a sick body image decide what I wear anymore.

If I want to wear a pencil skirt with birds on it, I will. Even if it lets the world see that yes, I am a woman and yes, I do have hips. So sue me.