Bigger than our bodies give us credit for.

Fat-shaming is wrong.  People who call people ‘fat’ are bullies, anti-feminists and fascists. Public outrage over the recent Abercrombie & Fitch debacle proves that current attitudes exist, which are keen on embracing non-skinny body types. But what about the flipside: why is skinny-shaming okay, if fat-shaming is not?

It’s wrong to judge plus-size women, there’s no question. And while fat shaming is very much rampant and abhorrent, no one bats an eye at the shaming of thin girls.

It is NOT okay to tell a fat girl that her love-handles stick out. But somehow it’s okay to tell a thin girl that her hip bones are sticking out.

People scrutinize and make exclamations about my body in a way that has been deemed unacceptable, had I been a fat girl.  And now I’ll be accused of writing from a place of ‘thin privilege’. After all, what could be more obnoxious and entitled than a skinny girl complaining about being called skinny?

But pause for just a moment and think about how we describe skinny, especially in India. Angular, emaciated, anorexic, unhealthy, bony, skeletal, unsexy, boyish, unwomanly, INFERTILE. These terms are frequently used in the media and in personal interactions, without any of the political correctness we exercise in references to terms related to ‘fat’.  Yes, fat people are constantly barraged by communication intended subliminally and directly to undo their self-esteem –mushrooming gyms, VLCCs of the world, etc. And no I can’t possibly know the pain of being fat in a system that structurally and in quantifiable terms discriminates against fat, but does that give anyone the right to shame me?

Call a woman fat, and you’re anti-feminist, call a woman skinny and you’re somehow exempt?

If calling a girl fat can breed self-esteem issues leading to anorexia and the like, then calling a girl skinny or ‘tomboyish’ can induce the same feelings of low self-worth. The kind that makes you want to slice open your boobs and ass and implant bags of chemicals in them.

Because, I hear this. A lot. ‘Real women have curves’.

Yes, so, all women who don’t look like Sofia Vergara or Christina Hendrickson are made of cardboard and sawdust.

Listen up shamers. Hip to waist to bust ratio (aka curves) do not make a woman. Saying, 'Skinny is ugly' is as offensive as saying fat is. When skinny girls spew the word ‘fat’ it’s malice. And somehow when fat girls spit out ‘skinny’ it’s because they were oppressed first and this is somehow an attempt at empowerment?   That’s like black people lynching all white people because black people were lynched first. There are no two ways about it. In the same way that calling me fat is an attempt to control me by making me obsess over my weight, so is calling me skinny. All forms of body-shaming are oppressive. Whether it originates from a skinny or fat girl.

And then there’s something else I hear. A lot. ‘Real men like women with curves.’

So what you’re telling me is that I must have been dating robots at worst and cyborgs at best all this while. Such utter drivel. In truth, REAL men like self-confident women who embrace their body types and don’t agonise about having too small/big boobs/ass whatever else is supposed to be a ‘womanly’ asset.

Hurtful words hurt. So whoever you are, stop shaming others to boost your own self confidence and promote other weights, when you should be spearheading the acceptance of all body types instead.

Instead of telling women 'you shouldn't look like this' tell us 'once you are healthy and happy, it doesn't matter what you look like'.

Just as not all women are runway models, not all women have curves, either. It is absurd, then, to venerate any one body type and condemn another. So please, enough with both the fat AND skinny shaming. These are not separate, divergent issues—they are parallel planes of the same problem. The real problem isn't how we look at thin and fat bodies, it's that we define womanhood and desirability by body dimensions. Patriarchy’s survival is dependent upon befuddling us with this petty shit, making us feel like shit about ourselves, and then causing conflict by making each other feel like shit. Ensuring that each one of us is perpetually shackled by shame and doubt.

Because god forbid we focus on our strengths rather than our ‘flaws’.  Where on earth would men be if women realised their actual potential? Now, instead of beating ourselves and each other up, let’s focus on eliminating the system that defines women by their bodies. By remembering, you are not defined by the shape your body takes. Your whole is greater than the sum of your parts.