This Movement Should Not Just Be For Cisgender White Women

The body positive movement has inclusivity issues similar to those of many other social movements. Like the feminist movement, it tends to be associated with cisgender white women (Reger, 2014). Besides the problems with ableism described in last week’s post, two important groups of people are also marginalized by the current “mainstream” body positive movement: women of color and transgender individuals.

Although there has been some progress in terms of inclusion of women of color in these campaigns, more diversity of representation is needed. One of the remaining concerns is the circulating idea that somehow women of color don’t experience as much “fat shaming” as white women. This was spurred by the research suggesting that, on average, white women have lower self-esteem and a more negative body image than women of color (Burrowes, 2013). However, size discrimination is not only experienced by white women.

With the recent push toward the visibility of “plus-size” bodies in these campaigns and the media in general, people were encouraged to see Rebel Wilson, a woman with a plus-size body, on the cover of ELLE UK back in May. People also recognized the importance of having a plus-size supermodel like Tess Holliday represented in the fashion industry
However, many women of color feel that they are being excluded from the movement’s portrayal of plus-size bodies. The #PlusIsEqual campaign by Lane Byant is a step in the right direction, but representations in the body positive movement are far from reaching a point of equality.

One complaint is that women of color have to be models in order to be featured in the media. Quita Tinsley, of The Body Is Not An Apology, writes

Relatability is key to the success of the body positive movement, and this can be extended through representations of a diversity of bodies.

Another aspect of the current movement that needs to be addressed is cisism. It is encouraging that the inclusion of transgender individuals in the body positive movement has been a topic of recent discussion. A Huffington Post blog article titled, “I’m Transgender and I Need Body Positivity, Too” highlights this issue and provides an interesting perspective.

The piece starts a conversation about the language used in the body positive movement that encourages people to “love the skin you’re in.” These kinds of messages can be marginalizing to transgender individuals. This blogger has a masculine gender identity, and having a “feminine” body has caused him to develop body dysphoria, whereby emotional distress results from the mismatch between the way in which the brain thinks the body should be configured and the reality. This problem is very much related to issues that the body positive movement is trying to address, so we should think carefully about the messages we present, and the ways we can expand the movement to those who could benefit from it. Some people need to change their bodies for the sake of their mental health. This blogger suggest that the movement should focus on helping us to “reclaim ownership of our bodies,” rather than simply telling people to accept their bodies as perfect the way they are.

The presence of transgender individuals in the images associated with the body positive movement is small, but one important campaign that emerged over the summer was the #DropTheTowel campaign. It not only included bodies of different sizes and colors, but also is one of the only campaigns to include individuals who do not conform to the traditional gender binary:

The Wear Your Voice Magazine campaign featured 10 non-gender conforming individuals, but now that summer is over, its popularity is fading. More progress must be made. The body positive movement needs to represent transgender individuals, and give them a voice. The movement is making progress, but we need to push for more, faster, greater changes to encourage inclusivity and equality of representation.

Thanks for reading. Comments are encouraged! Start a conversation!

References:

Reger, J. (2014). Debating U.S. contemporary feminism. Sociology Compass, 8(1), 43- 51.

Burrowes, N. (2013). Body image- a rapid evidence assessment of the literature. A product on behalf of the Government Equalities Office.