It would be funny if…
It would be funny if it wasn’t true.
I keep seeing this all the time: ooh, you’re so brave to share pictures of yourself because you don’t fit society’s ideal body type.
This is an idea that has to stop. Now.
Claire Sheehan, who posts @recoverybrainfood on Instagram, wrote
There's an implicit assumption that comments like 'you're so brave!' are supposed to be received as a gesture of praise – a regard for courage, an admiration of bold spirit. For firefighters running into burning buildings, I get this. For people who pack up and leave abusive relationships, this seems appropriate. But for existing? For just presenting myself as I live in the body that I have? What kind of message does it send when the word 'bravery' is autographed across visual exposures of 'unconventional' bodies? This is where my ambivalence sets in.
Here’s the deal. Women with curves are beautiful, just like women who are built like a 14 year old boy are beautiful, just like the women with vitiligo or the one with stretch marks or the one with acne scars are beautiful.
More than that, women are allowed to feel beautiful, even if they don’t fit this narrow band of what society says is beautiful.
The trouble is, if the only good thing you have to say about someone who posts a photo of what she actually looks like, is that it somehow symbolizes "bravery," it only reinforces the cultural stereotypes. It focuses on the fact that they’re bucking cultural norms, instead of focusing on the fact that she looks badass.
Sheehan again:
At what point do we stop complimenting fat bodies for their 'bravery' and start PROTESTING the reality that we NEED bravery in order to validate our existence at all? In many ways, telling a fat person they're 'brave' just reinforces how much f*cking LABOR fat people need to undertake simply to receive respect in this world. When will fat people be able to stop being brave, stop NEEDING courage to survive, stop DARING to live and depleting our mental energies on the toll 'being brave' requires?
But is in bravery? Kenzie Brenna, also on Instagram, says we don’t think Victoria Secret Models or athletes brave when they post pictures of themselves showing skin.
Being brave, she says, “requires an acknowledgement of fear, possibility of loss, where chances of failure are high.” Bravery is putting yourself into a position where you are less safe, like a firefighter running into a burning building to save lives from the flames.
The trouble, she says, is that we’ve made our bodies an unsafe place to exist.
Because we acknowledge that there may be social failure in this, I may be attacked, I may get hurt JUST BY BEING MYSELF. Can we all just recognize how fucked up that is?! Yo, if being yourself, accepting who you are is an act of bravery what kind of world have we created? We need to make it safer for people to exist in their bodies, black, fat, queer, trans, disabled people need to know they have a right to be themselves.
If you want to shoot with me, and you’re not perfect, that’s okay. In fact, that’s more than okay, that’s great. Let’s get past this idea that we have to be perfect (whatever that means) to be considered picturesque. Know that—by this definition—there is no bravery required to be in front of my lens, because it is a safe place. A place free from judgement and condemnation.
As always, if you want to find out more, we’d love to talk to you. There is no commitment if you just want to talk, and find out what a shoot with us is like. Fill out this form to find out more.
Image at the top from Lainey Molnar, again, Instagram. I will be posting more of her work over the next little while.