The story of body positivity and why did bbws get all the attention?

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Body positive. What is it? Unconditional love and acceptance of your body and yourself or unwillingness to take care of your own health and hype on deliberate non-aesthetics? What is meant today by this movement, which once emerged as freedom from frameworks and imposed stereotypes.

At all times, there were standards of beauty, fatties were replaced by thin ones, brunettes - blondes, short - stately ladies, only one thing remains unchanged - the desire of women to comply with these very imposed canons. Moreover, these standards at times, and it would be more correct to say, most often, were created according to the principle of inaccessibility. For example, in antiquity, snow-white skin was considered the ideal, while Greek and Roman women most often had dark skin. And ladies of all classes entertained themselves with masks and milk baths in order to get even a little closer to the ideal. In the Middle Ages, asceticism developed, which made its demands on the human body. For example, a small female breast was considered beautiful, in order to achieve the desired, women bandaged. Then pregnancy became fashionable, and since it is difficult to be constantly pregnant, linings came to the rescue.

Venus from Botticceli's painting is the personification of the model of female beauty of the Renaissance, a thin waist and curvaceous forms, along with blond hair, ensured that the girl would be considered a beauty. In the Baroque era and during the industrialization, more attention is paid to clothing, hairstyles and other paraphernalia than the human body. This position was strengthened by the beginning of the 20th century - clothing became a way of self-expression. But fashion has never changed so quickly, and with it the requirements for the female body.

• 20s boyish figure, pronounced angular shoulders and narrow hips are in vogue. • 50s turned the previous canons, releasing busty beauties on the catwalks. • 60s again popularized excessive thinness. • 80s turned to sports, deciding, that an athletic and strong body is very beautiful. • The 90s brought the notorious 90-60-90 and high growth.

Along with the change of the century, the canons of beauty also changed, but it is difficult to single out any specific trend, it is quite possible that descendants will highlight the beginning of the 21st century as a period of body positive.

The history of body positive. When it all started and why

It would be strange if sooner or later women were not tired of it. The first attempts to express dissatisfaction with fashion were in the 19th century, at a time when women wore tight corsets and fluffy dresses. Feminists of those years managed to ensure that rigid corsets, squeezing internal organs, ceased to be perceived as a fashion accessory. Another stage, which can be called the formation of body positive, is a rally in New York, directed against the insults of fat people. By the way, more than 500 people came to it. This protest became the starting point, after which social movements began to appear, which were supposed to help overweight people cope with complexes. The movement was popular in the USA and some European countries, but only the third wave reached Russia, when social networks became popular and the movement began to be actively supported not only by ordinary people, but also by corporations.

Already in the early 2000s, gloss became synonymous with Photoshop, “fake”, and many publications, previously proud of their “gloss”, increasingly began to avoid deliberate retouching and excessive perfection. Many clothing manufacturers first began to produce a line of “plus size”, and then they simply expanded their dimensional grid so that a girl of any size could buy the clothes she liked, and not the one that was adapted to her “plus”.

So why bbw?

Body positivity, closely associated with femenism, is often perceived precisely as a propaganda of complete refusal to take care of oneself, an appeal to love oneself as it is, bordering on recklessness, because many women who call themselves feminists refuse even basic care procedures. This is done for the sake of attracting attention, or, more simply, hype, and is unlikely to have anything to do with feminism as a movement for freedom and independence in the broadest sense of the word. In addition, the movement of body positive began precisely with the protection of the interests of overweight people, and therefore it is they, with their excess weight, who are increasingly associated with body positive. So what is body positive really about and why is it needed? Probably, overweight people actually felt extremely oppressed all this time, or there are simply more of them, but after all, almost everyone cultivates one or another physical disability in themselves. Freckles, double chin, wrong hair color, glasses, crooked legs, thick arms, belly left after childbirth, wrinkles, bald spot, wide-narrow shoulders-hips, height, too short or too tall, wrong skin color, voice, the shape of the nose, ears, eye color … it is obvious that in the list of possible complexes, excess weight is not the only claim to one's own body. And if a person, already confident that the nose could be smaller, and taller, are also being driven into a frame, then the level of self-esteem will simply slide to zero.

The Victoria's Secret brand has long been accused of being too thin even by modern model frames, but even when body positivity began to rage, they did not give preference to plus-size models. They showed a deeper understanding of the problem by hiring Winnie Harlow, a girl with vitiligo (a skin disorder that causes her to color in color), to become the face of the new company. But, alas, this step did not save the brand from the scandal, because the fatties were already unstoppable.

As we have in Russia

Our compatriots and the entire media space of Russia and the CIS countries treat body positivity with caution, however, as well as many other things that came from the West and promotes freedom of spirit and body. No breakthrough happened, and Russians do not take a bang on projects aimed not just at popularizing body positivity, but at freedom from stereotypes. Officially, body positivity appeared in Russia by 2013, although the first plus size modeling agency was founded even earlier. Projects began to appear on the screens, the main idea of which is that fat people can also be beautiful and fashionable. However, nothing prevents, in parallel with them, to show shows in which the participants get rid of excess weight.

Anna Semenovich and Anfisa Chekhova, who made their careers on the fact that their figure was more magnificent and more appetizing than those of most girls from show business, do not make loud statements and do not seek to make life easier for overweight people. Although, for example, Chekhova has her own line of clothing for people with large clothing sizes. Summarizing all of the above, we can only remind you that body positivity is not an excuse for obesity, as they are trying to convince us, but only a call to stop spreading rot on yourself and your body for imaginary shortcomings and to love your body in return. Actresses with non-standard beauty who managed to fall in love with millions of viewers, only prove the fact that beauty is still a fire flickering in a vessel, and not the container itself.