Picture courtesy of the fabulous Jodee Rose http://jodee.deviantart.com
After the controversy surrounding Protein World’s body shaming ads, they found a defender in Fox News host Andrea Tantaros who said:
“At this time of year, anyone with a functioning brain asks themselves that question, ‘Are you beach body ready? In fact, I ask myself that question every single day. And I bet you people who have a problem with this ad going into summer time are not beach body ready.”
So Andrea has chosen a worldview wherein only people who look a certain way should be seen on beaches, and in which every single day she asks herself if she looks “good enough,” if she will get approval from strangers if she wears a bathing suit to the beach. I would never want to worry about strangers approval of my body at all, let alone every single day.
But I celebrate her right to choose that for herself because, unlike Ms. Tantaros, I understand that (setting aside the layers of ableism embedded in the suggestion people who think differently than she does don’t have functioning brains) people are allowed to make personal choices with which I disagree, including being desperate for the approval of their bodies by strangers.
So I’m not asking Ms. Tantaros to change, if she wants to ask herself if strangers will find her fuckable every hour on the hour, that’s her prerogative. I am going continue to fight the system that says that women should base our value on whether or not whoever shows up at a beach at the same time we do approves of how we look in a bathing suit, or whether we meet the current stereotype of beauty (which, being rooted in pictures of people who have been massively digitally retouched is actually impossible.)
I think that one of the ways we can help dismantle this whole “beach body bullshit” is by simply not buying into it. If we don’t care what the beach body police think of us, if we’re at the pool, the lake, the river, the ocean not giving a shit, then the people who judge us lose their power.
So I’m going to continue to be very clear that if I have a body, a beach, and a suit, then you bet your sweet bippy that I’m beach body ready. I’m going to continue to provide support for people struggling to feel comfortable in bathing suits, and anyone who has a problem with that is kindly invited to look the other way, and/or fuck right the hell off.
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