What the Thin-Bashing?!
By Erika Davidoff
A little while back, I wrote about Robyn Lawley, a plus-size model at Ralph Lauren who’s a little fed up with the modeling culture. Turns out women of all body types – even the type the media claims is “ideal” – are equally frustrated.
Alexa Chung is a model and contributing editor at British Vogue. She’s a natural size 2. “It’s not like I’m starving myself, I’m not,” she told Fashionista. “This is just how [my body] is at this point in time and like maybe it will change when I get older but due to stress factors and all that, this is my natural body shape.”
Back in April, she received criticism after posting a picture of herself wearing a jean dress and standing next to her mom on Instagram that prompted comments about how thin her legs were and reposts on pro-anorexia thinspo sites. She closed her Instagram account, insisting, “I’m not trying to be thinspo for anyone.” ()
Now, as Chung returns to the spotlight to promote her new book, the comments are continuing. She’s received criticism for being too thin, for having legs that are too small, and, yes, for promoting eating disorders, which she doesn’t and never did have.
“I think it really sucks,” she said. “I think it’s about time people stopped judging women on their appearance and more on their intellect.”
Chung feels she’d be “completely criticized and ridiculed” if she were to claim she was happy with her body, and that such a statement would sound like bragging. She bemoans the “culture of hatred” and jealousy that she thinks plagues the media industry, but she’s not sure how to stop it except to encourage young women to develop self esteem.
“Self esteem, that’s something you got to work on yourself,” she told Fashionista.
It’s ridiculous that we’ve created a media behemoth that plagues both women like Lawley and women like Chung. The criticism Chung has received just proves that pushing women towards “perfection” in the realms of appearance and style ends up putting everyone down.
We’re not going to magically turn into a judgment-free society, ever. But by spreading messages like Chung’s, we can take a little step closer away from the toxicity of the culture she describes and toward a more supportive, inclusive environment for our young women.