The Pointlessness of the “Real Women” Debate

Finally it’s being discussed by a newspaper (the media! dun dun dun).

So apparently the real women slogan started out in 1997 with Body Shop’s ad campaign which said “There are 3 billion women who don’t look like supermodels and only eight who do.” GEE THANKS, BODY SHOP. As if supermodels don’t have the same body image problems us layfolk do. As I’ve said time and time again, every woman has body image problems.

Since then, women have been caught in a pointless feedback loop as we debate what does and doesn’t constitute ”real women”. That the bulk of it is a marketing strategy – Dove’s Campaign For Real Beauty, which sold a lot of fake-tanner, is a case in point – appears to have flown over most people’s heads.

So true! It’s just a marketing strategy which some parts of the body acceptance movement took to heart. I’m not even a fan of “real women” even if it includes skinnies because it still excludes supermodels. You know, the girl on the street could be a supermodel! I knew two in high school and I’d have had no idea. Some might argue that the “real” in this case is in reference to the Photoshoping and makeup and everything but I’ve most often seen it used to exclude thin women.

That said, I don’t have a problem with Photoshoping lighting, blemishes, adding makeup, etc. I do think it’s ridiculous when they change things that wouldn’t be changeable without camera tricks or makeup. Advertisements are supposed to sell you an ideal world; no one wants a pock-marked woman with weird wrinkles in her clothes to sell you a beauty product. I accept that because that’s how selling something works. But stuff like shaving inches off of Rihanna’s waist is unacceptable. Especially because Rihanna already has an amazing body!

More than one feminist commentator has pondered what women could achieve by redirecting the energy spent worrying about our bodies into more rewarding pursuits. But debating which woman’s body is more real is not feminist commentary; if anything, it is precisely the opposite.

So true! I’m glad that this has been brought out into the public eye.

By now, everyone should realise that the only people out there who aren’t ”real women” are men.

Amen. I mean, awomen.