Good evening!
Okay so my friend wanted another blog post and originally I wasn't going to write one because I didn't know what to talk about, but I do now. Sit down and listen to Polly explain why she is writing this blog post if you would like, okay?
So we all know Adele, yeah?
Or most of us do, anyway.
And it is no secret that she has lost a lot of weight over the past year and she looks incredible. (not that she didn't before! She just looks different, okay? I'm not hating - I love her!) Her recent Instagram post was a photo of her on her birthday.
Now, loads of us are really excited and happy for her because she seems so thrilled with this whole extravaganza and her 'new look'. If it makes her happy, then who are we to judge? A lot of the media has portrayed it as a really positive step and haven't had much to say on it other than the fact that she looks stunning. In my personal opinion, that's good because it supports her decisions.
However.
(Because there so obviously is a 'however'... this is my blog, remember.)
Just ten minutes ago, I read an article that was saying how "boring. It's really fucking boring." Because every time someone Googles Adele's name, articles about her weight loss come up instead of articles about her music. As though this is promoting the idea that people need to lose weight. As though it made other girls think that they had to lose weight in order to be happy and have a fulfilled life.
Do you know what the tags were?
Can you guess?
Some of you may be surprised to find that I completely disagree with this article. "But Polly, you're a feminist! This is a feminist's blog talking about feminism! And you're actually complaining about other feminists!"
I know, right? What a huge hypocrite I am.
Not
.
Why? Why do I disagree with the article?
Because it is saying that despite how happy Adele is with the weight loss, despite the numerous articles that have probably body-shamed her in the past, she can't show it off. Also, after a bit of digging on Google, I found articles body shaming her for looking too skinny, looking 'haggard'.
So in the end, we criticize people for not being skinny and then when they change their appearance in any way to fit our 'perfect' mold, we criticize them more. They can't win. This can create negative thoughts, mental health issues, eating disorders as some try and become perfect just to stop the taunting, the teasing, the body-shaming.
This should be a huge red flag to everyone, because our actions, our words are causing others to hate themselves for not being 'perfect'. We all know that there is no such thing as perfection, we get told it from very young ages, and yet our brains can have an annoying tendency to scrutinize ourselves for flaws and other people can do the same to us, too. Some of us will go to great lengths to achieve what we deem to be perfection, a flawless state; naturally, whenever someone compliments us, we probably feel elated because 'finally, we've fit the mold! We've hit perfection!'
Until someone judges us and the cycle begins all over again.
Now, I am NOT saying you can go around complimenting people on a weight loss out of the blue and acting as though they are only worthy of your attention now that they are skinnier. Because that is not okay and will probably make others feel worse, not better. As HUMANS, we should bring each other up, not pull them down.
"People are starting to go on about my weight but I'm not going to change my size because they don't like the way I look." ~ Adele
"Feminism is not a stick with which to beat other women with. It's about freedom. It's about liberation. It's about equality." ~ Emma Watson
And that's the end of today's blog post.
~ Polly