Mind the Gap is one of my favorite new feminist blogs (new to me, at least!). Check out Winter Woods’ post on the Dove Beauty Campaign:
But at the risk of sounding like a humourless, spoil sport, never satisfied feminist I’m now going to come out and say “I’m not happy.” What’s not to like? Well I don’t like the fact that the empowerment is very little, very late, and I don’t like the questions about my own feminist thinking which this campaign raises. What really bothers me is not the fact that the Dove campaign is not radical, it is the frightening probability that, in the context of our current culture, this campaign is extremely radical. As feminists, this is what we should be worried about.
Exactly. (There’s lots, lots more to Winter’s post; you should read the whole thing.)
Let’s not forget how very little Dove is giving us. All the women in the Dove ads are conventionally attractive; all of them are below the average dress size of American women. No one in Dove-land is fat, no one in Dove-land is disabled, and no one in Dove-land has any wrinkles. It’s as if a prisoner was allowed out of her cell and into the prison yard. Well, yes, after a long confinement to a tiny cell, the “freedom” of an exercise yard might seem something to celebrate; but let’s not forget that she’s still in a prison.
The essential purpose of Dove’s campaign is the same as all ad campaigns for beauty or diet products: to make money by convincing people that they are unattractive and insufficient the way they really are. In Dove’s case, what’s being sold is “firming cream,” which as Lindsey at Majikthise points out, is just another word for snake oil. So Dove is trying to exploit women’s insecurities to convince them to waste money on products that don’t even work, but because they’re using models who are not actually anorexics, we’re supposed to see this as a feminist victory?
Winter Woods is right – if that’s radical, then we’re in deep trouble.
As a fat activist, I’m struck by how much the Dove ads – and also Nike’s recent bandwagoning ads – are less about body acceptance than about setting a boundary between acceptable and unacceptable weight. It’s okay to be bigger than a bundle of sticks, the ads tell us, so long as you’re firm. So long as your fat isn’t, you know, jiggly. Keep it in control, and you can keep those thunder thighs. Nike’s “my butt” ad features a picture of a butt that you could bounce a roll of quarters off of, with text that says:
My butt is big
And round like the letter C
And ten thousand lunges
Have made it rounder
But not smaller.
Ten thousand lunges! It’s under control, see. No loose, unruly fat running around here, no sir.
Similarly, Nike’s “Thunder Thighs” ad is sure to tell us that the thighs in question aren’t just large; they are “toned” and “muscular.” Not fat, that’s for damn sure.
These ads aren’t about body acceptance, so much as they’re about regulating the borders of what bodies are and are not acceptable. You will never see a body that is soft, or that has ever jiggled, in a Dove or Nike ad. We’ve been let out of the cell, but we’re still in the prison.
POSTSCRIPT: You must see the “repair work” some kick-ass anonymous artist did on the most offensive of Dove’s ads. Via Big Fat Blog.
I pretty much agree with your points (and Winter Woods’ post). The Dove ads were out here in the UK before they were released in America, so I don’t know how similar they are. If the one you’re talking about is the one I’m thinking of, I agree that the women are all conventionally attractive. I don’t know about average sizes in the UK, although I take your word for it that the models are below the average US size. Just as a piece of extra information though, there was a particular Dove advert that I liked that may not have been released in the US yet. I only saw it once or twice, but as far as I recall it featured women with wrinkles, scars and stretch marks. That’s pushing the boundaries a bit further, at least.
It’s still pretty much all snake oil, though. :-)
Word, Amp. Excellent post – you articulated what has been bothering me about these ads. Thunder thighs are not how I would describe the legs in that one ad. Mary Lou Retton didn’t have thunder thighs, either, but there was some commentary to that effect ‘way back when. Puh-leeze. Muscle tone does not thunder thighs make. And I totally resent having to explain to my (then-7-year-old) daughter that it’s normal for your thighs to look bigger when you sit down because that’s what happens when you put pressure on a cylinder and besides, the back of her legs has to have somewhere to go.
at the same time, i’ve seen a reposting of one of the dove ads with the text photoshopped to read, “learn to deal with your ever-expanding size. your boyfriend already has.”
so even with such a weak “campaign”, i’ve seen backlash.
I racked my brains to think of what a “soup campaign” might be. I wondered whether it was some kind of allusion to prison food: they’re grudgingly doling out an extra ladleful of soup and we’re expected to be grateful rather than asking for more a la Oliver Twist.
Please, put me out of my misery here. Is it just a typo for soap?
Hm. What’s the American woman’s “average size”, anyway?
And WTF is “firming cream”? What possible physiological effect does any such cream have, anyway, and what’s the basis for it’s activity?
HTH can Dove sell this stuff if it won’t stand up to a scientific study that it really works?
Soup? Soup? How the heck did soup get in there? Sheesh. Thanks for pointing that out, Nick. I’ve corrected it.
RonF, I’ve read that the average American woman is a size 16, but I don’t know the source of that statistic or how accurate it is. And I don’t think beauty treatments are legally required to actually work, unlike medicine. (IF you haven’t already followed the link to read Majikthise’s excellent post on the snake-oil aspect of Dove’s campaign, then you should – it’s a terrific post).
Because you won’t believe what people will snap up, for whatever they can be persuaded to part with–if somebody convinces ’em it’ll make them look sexy, or impress people, or whatever. If it isn’t religious leaders telling us we won’t go to heaven unless we throw our brains out the window and grovel to their god, it’s parents and teachers telling us no one will like us unless we quit reading and play their silly games, and when it isn’t those, it’s advertisers telling us we won’t have any fun in this life unless we buy this or that. Even if the product does something, it might not be the something you need. As for scientific studies…well, there might not be enough scientists to go around; if there are, the public may not be well-educated enough to make sense of what they write; and some of science’s farther reaches get hard for anyone to understand however they’re put. But when some bigshot takes who-knows-what study and uses it to claim that, say, certain people can’t do math, or something like that, that doesn’t help either; it makes people wonder about science, and perhaps not bother. There’s only so many hours in a day, and for some people, worries about looks, popularity and so on metastasize till they take up all your energy, so you haven’t got time to think critically.
And some people may be so grateful to be let out of the cell and into the prison-yard that they actually think that that company means well. Enough–I’m going to go get a big bag of Dove Promises–you know, the chocolate.
[Cue up “Prisoners” Chorus” from Fidelio]
Okay- so the ad campaign isn’t particularly good when it comes to promoting actual body acceptance, but it’s not exactly as if you’d get Dove to sign on to a campaign to help promote that- it’s asking them to essentially commit suicide with respect to their current business model. “Your frame can, with our product, be made minimally acceptable” is the absolute best we can hope from them. Jesus, that’s depressing.
(I’d like to note that this really can’t be taken as praise for Dove- it’s just noting the boundaries of what my dumb, incrementalist head can come up with. In fact, if you take a really cynical view on this campaign, I’d guess that they did some research and found that varying the frames of their models might increase sales- giving a slightly larger base of “idealized” body types to achieve might convince some more people to waste money trying to achieve them.)
thank you, Mr. Ampersand.
it has been a sad thing to see these ads trumpeted as some sort of feminist victory. especially since more than a few folks seemed fine with overlooking Nike’s labor practices…
Amp, I think the average women’s dress size in the U.S. is a 12 – the U.K. equivalent is a 16, which is why I think there’s some confusion.
Check this page discussing Marilyn Monroe’s dress size.
Okay, thanks, Lee. The seemingly largest of the Dove models is a size 8, however, so my point remains the same.
It’s funny, but I’m much more enthusiastic about the Nike ads than the Dove ones. (I don’t wear Nike myself, both because of their labor practices and because I’m pretty happy going back and forth between Asics and New Balance). Fat-reducing cream is, to me, worlds apart from “ten thousand lunges.” The former is, as Majikthise says, modern snake oil. The other is exercise, the results of which are not in dispute and which do lead to healthier bodies –though not necessarily bodies that meet societal standards.
I don’t think it helps the fat acceptance movement to take an anti-exercise position, even while it is right to be dismissive of “firming cream.” For all of us, of all body types, regular exercise ought to be seen as a fundamental good — expensive cosmetics of dubious effectiveness are a totally different thing.
The health benefits of exercise are an example of diminishing returns – someone who doesn’t exercise will see enormous health benefits from moderate exercise. However, someone who already exercises a lot won’t get a big health boost from exercising even more. They could even become less healthy as a result of chasing after an artificial no-fat-anywhere-on-my-body ideal. Exercising for health is great, but the reason to do “ten thousand lunges” is vanity, not health.
And the fat acceptance movement is not at all anti-exercise (HAES (Health At Every Size), the “health program” of the fat acceptance movement, emphasizes exercise). But I am against the fetishization of exercise, and the exclusive adoration of fat-free bodies; and in my judgment, that’s what the Nike ads are about.
I’m gonna have to semi-disagree here. I think it’s a start. Dove managed to start something, Nike is taking up the gage, and I just saw yet another addd with a woman who was at least a size 13.
If the Nike and Dove ads don’t get a positive reception, they’re not suddenly going to start showing wrinkly 3X size wearing disabled people. They’ll go back to showing people who’re proportioned like barbie dolls.
Of course the ‘firming cream’ is snake oil. it’s a fucking beauty product. they’re all snake oil. You’re missing the point, which is that finaly, someone is listening to the idea that marketing using barbie dolls as models is making people who’ve got any tummy, waist or ass showing at all feel abnormal.
The women in those ads are not thin. They’re not fat either, but it’s a start.
If you hate all ads, there’s not much point in expecting that ad companies will ever listen to you.
Re the whole Marilyn Monroe thing that always seems to crop up in these discussions: yeah, I’m sure that dress sizes have changed over the years. That doesn’t change the fact that up until well into the 60s–and for many women into the 70s, wearing girdles at virtually all times was de rigeur.
I just recently bought a book on 1950s ads, and apparently it was considered normal to wear girdles under freaking shorts.
So, maybe Marilyn did fit into a smaller size 16 than is standard today, but that was at least in part because her body was being crushed and restrained in an abnormal fashion–along with almost all other women of certain classes.
The difference is that nowadays, women are expected to really have the sort of anti-natural smooth, taut shape previously acquired by compression of flesh by restrictive material.
Average woman’s size is 14, not 16.
Also, many of the women in the dove campaign are size 12 to 16 from the looks of the pictures.
Well, according to this article, Lindsey – who appears as big or bigger than the other Dove “real beauty” models – is a size 8 to 10.
She looks more like a 12 to 14 to me. I’ll give you some examples RL of different sizes tomorrow.
Crys T, excellent points. I brought up that particular site about Marilyn Monroe because when I Googled “average dress size,” that was one of the few that actually discussed in somewhat quantifiable terms the differences between dress sizes; plus, Monroe was very curvy, which I thought would help highlight the discussion about the models in the ad.
Kim, the average dress size may very well be a 14, but the only site I found that talked about it said 12, so that’s what I went with. From my recent shopping experiences, it would seem to me that it depends on the brand which size is actually the average (which is why the Cathy comic strip reruns of Cathy and Irving shopping for clothes hits so many sore spots for me). Also, if the models are British (which for some reason I think they are), a British 8 to 10 I think corresponds to an American 12 to 14. Where’s BritGirl when we need her?
The idea that there is a single, fixed women’s dress size is ridiculous. Do you people ever go shopping? Do you think that if you have a size 8 dress hanging in your closet, you could walk into a store, pick a “size 8” off any rack, and know it would fit?
Hugo, when did fat acceptance take an anti-excercise position, exactly? Not cheering the Nike “pro-athletic body” ad doesn’t make anyone anti-excercise. All those ads are doing is saying that its not right for anti-fat sentiment to effect people with athletic bodies. They don’t comment at all on actualy fat people. Really, they are just fighting for the status quo. I realize that the warped beauty standards affect athletic women just like fat women. That’s wrong and I do oppose it. But not on the grounds that Nike does, where they are saying that its wrong for them to feel fat because they aren’t. Its wrong for *everyone* to feel pressure to be perfectly thin. Athletic shaped women, fat women. Everyone. There are plenty of fat people that get plenty of excercise without looking like the women in the Nike ads. While its silly for women with “athletic” bodies to be called fat, the real problem is that fat is treated like an insult.
Concerning the Dove campaign, I think it occupies the interesting place of being a step forward while not being progress. Frankly, I’m fine with companies going after fat consumers for purely economic gain. I think that’s what will need to happen to counteract the billions of dollars spent to ensure that no one questions the fat=evil position put foward by Big Diet. Now, ads for the properly termed snake oil that is Firming Lotion isn’t really going to change the world. But if it was Dove soap, it might be progress. What is going to need to happen is for someone to mainstream this marketing approach.
Concerning average dress size, the number I’ve seen quoted most often is size 14, not size 12. However, I’ve seen that number quoted for a good 10 years at least. With 10 more years of yo-yo dieting pushing weights up, it wouldn’t surprise me if the number is closer to 16 now. Unfortunetly, I can’t seem to locate any hard evidence of where these numbers come from.
Lee, you’ve got it backwards. A US size 8-10 is closer to British size 12-14.
Girdle or no girdle, when people use the “Marilyn Monroe was a size 14” quote to illustrate their point that size 14 is not unattractive, it is misleading. Is size 14 unattractive? I certainly don’t think so. I’ve known plenty of gorgeous women who were size 14 and I’ve been a gorgeous size 14 woman myself at points in my life. But looking at photographs of Monroe, even at her heaviest, it’s plainly obvious that she is nowhere near a size 14 by today’s sizing standards.
Just a personal anecdote related to this. Two years ago, I was a groomsmaid in my friend’s wedding and the bride wanted all the women in the wedding party to wear navy blue dresses made from natural fibers (ie cotton). I had to have mine specially made, because it was a fall wedding and there was absolutely nothing available in the stores to buy. I wear a size 7/8 or 9/10 off the rack, but when I got the pattern for the dress, my measurements put me at size 14 according to the pattern. Although vanity sizing in retail clothing has caused the sizing numbers to stay the same while the actual size of the clothing gets larger, my friend’s mom who made the dress for me explained that the same is not true for sewing patterns, whose sizing has pretty much stayed consistent since the 50s.
Related to the Dove ad, which I have already posted at length about on my own blog (mostly to air my disgust at Roeper), no, it’s not perfect. But what I think is important about the Dove ad is that it has generated so much discussion and public awareness and public disemmination of many points of view regarding the issues of female body image in the media, size acceptance and beauty standards. The ad campaign has been a catalyst for discussion among women and men alike about how the media has affected everyone’s perception of female beauty and female worth. Do I think this was Dove’s primary intent? Of course not. Their primary intent is for their products and their brand to generate a profit for their shareholders. But for the first time in pretty much as long as I’ve been alive, the subject is up for open, wide-spread debate, instead of being pushed to the fringes as the gripe of “jealous fat chicks” and “militant feminazis.” The Dove ads brought to the forefront of public attention that this issue affects everyone.
Actually, the dress size thing is interesting- the ad campaign is the models against a white background, with very little scale to judge by. My initial guess was that the models were a good bit taller than they apparently are (my initial guess would have put the smallest in the group shot at around average height, but I’d be the first to admit that my judgement on these things is terrible).
There’s probably also some perspective and posing going into these shots that’s meant to confound how we read their size- how much in the perception of which model is the “largest” based on the way they’ve posed them? Only two are faced into the camera, one of whom (Sigrid, I think) having proportions that I coded as “petite.” And is the group shot a composite of some sort? I’d love to know if some of the models are shorter and have been scaled up, or taller and have been scaled down.
” Is size 14 unattractive? I certainly don’t think so. I’ve known plenty of gorgeous women who were size 14 and I’ve been a gorgeous size 14 woman myself at points in my life. ”
I see the points that Kiki is making, but I’d like to point out something else in addition: when I was a size 14, I was so skinny my hip bones jutted out and my friends told me I looked like death. The only way to get me in anything below a 14 would be to saw chunks of bone off my body.
There’s also Mythago’s excellent point that there is nothing even that standard about clothing sizes (hell, I’ve bought garments in ostensibly the same size from the same damn label that were nowhere near the same fit!) anyway.
So even if you were going to use relative fatness as a measure of “attractiveness” or “fitness” (which, btw, I am not at all condoning), using clothing sizes is a piss-poor, unreliable way of doing it. Some people are just physically larger without necessarily being “fatter”, and the supposed standardness of sizing leaves a lot to be desired.
And, btw, whatever the fuck size Monroe would’ve been had she been alive today, comparing her to what is currently considered attractive by the media, she would clearly be labelled somewhat chubby, except maybe when she was at her thinnest.
Kiki, thanks for the correction. Sometimes I just get turned around which way it should really go. And you’re totally correct about the sewing patterns. Back when I wore mostly 12, I bought a dress pattern and had to alter it significantly to get it to fit properly. Nowadays I automatically buy 2 sizes bigger. I think McCall’s and Vogue have the slimmest patterns, while Simplicity comes closer to off-the-rack, so you can’t even use dress patterns to give you an good idea of size.
Actually, this whole sizing discussion just shows how pervasive male privilege is even in the off-the-rack clothing industry. I only have to know about 4 numbers to go shopping for my husband – he doesn’t even have to be along most of the time – and almost everything I buy for him fits. He can’t do that for me, unless he buys me a caftan or something. Talk about totally unfair!
“I see the points that Kiki is making, but I’d like to point out something else in addition: when I was a size 14, I was so skinny my hip bones jutted out and my friends told me I looked like death. The only way to get me in anything below a 14 would be to saw chunks of bone off my body.”
Crys, I’m fully aware that people come in different frames and proportions. It’s amazing the way mass-produced clothing companies assume that anyone over a size 4 must be at least 5’6″ or taller. I have a really hard time finding pants that aren’t at least 5 inches too long.
Not once in my previous comment did I either say or intone that size 14 = fat and/or that fat=unattractive. I said that when the “MM was a size 14” comment is trotted out, it is usually in response to the assumption that a woman who wears a size 14 is overweight and therefore unattractive. MM was regarded as the most attractive celebrity of her day and an international sex symbol, so stating the point that she was a size 14 might cause some who believe size 14 automatically equals unattractive to rethink their views. The comment is misleading, though, because the average size 14 is a lot larger today than it was at MM’s peak of popularity. The comment makes the suggestion that MM was the same size as today’s average American woman (if current popular statistics are to be believed), which is just plainly untrue.
Being a woman, I’m quite familiar with how much clothing size numbers can vary between brands, stores and even styles in the same brand.
“And, btw, whatever the fuck size Monroe would’ve been had she been alive today, comparing her to what is currently considered attractive by the media, she would clearly be labelled somewhat chubby, except maybe when she was at her thinnest.”
No fucking shit.
Those who wax nostalgiac for the heyday of Monroe, et al, seem to overlook the fact that all that “unruly fat” they had was reigned in by corsetry. Trust me on this: I own hundreds and hundreds of 1950s-era women’s mags and those supposedly fatter and happier beauties were quite clearly so constricted in the mid-section for those photo shoots that it hurts my own ribs and belly just to think about it. So our choice is between a contemporary body whittled down through relentless excercize and dieting vs. a “vintage” body compressed into the appropriate shape through a tube of wire, elastic and faux-whalebone.
As with our political system, it doesn’t cheer me much to believe that these two choices –which are no choice at all– is the best that can be expected of this culture.
>>TV (and movies) have distorted sizes to a great extent. One of the characters on Friends once claimed to be a size 6 … but the actress who played her was, at the time, a size 2 or 0. But I’ve talked to a number of women over the years who would argue that those women were a size 4 or 6. >>
Well, yeah, combined.
Kiki: I was actually AGREEING with you there, but also adding another point. OK? Sorry if it came across as something else.
Although the Monroe thing did get me a bit peeved, because I am tired of people implying or otherwise lending credence to the theory that those who mention her dress size was larger than most actresses today are a load of sad tubbies engaged in wishful thinking. She *was* larger than would be acceptable today, and it’s pretty much beyond doubt that she only fit into the sizes she did because (like most women of that time) she was wearing confining undergarments. I’m sorry if my post came off as attacking you, personally, though.
(On a related note, Butterfield 8 was on TV last night, and I noticed that Elizabeth Taylor was also much fleshier than would be permitted in a leading lady intended to be seen as sexy and/or beautiful nowadays.)
Alsis: hey, proof great minds do think alike! (post #16) ;) I just bought a couple of those Taschen books on 50s ads, and they freak me right out. I literally found it impossible to believe the “girdle-under-shorts” one the first time I saw it–hell, it still boggles my mind now. And the bras must have been pretty horrifying to wear as well.
Also: so in the US, a size 14 is now the average? But isn’t that size still considered either the top end of “normal” sizes or actually included in “larger” sizes?
The hilarious thing is that if 14 is the average size, that most top-level plus-size models are below the average size. If Size 16 is now average, then virtually all of them are. That’s one of the reasons is so awful that the Dove ad is so radical. Even clothing for fat women cannot be advertised being worn by women who can actually wear the retail offerings. That’s how bad our culture is on this matter.
Well, I’m sure as hell not buying any “firming cream”. But I am gonna put a chip in for the Nike ads. I like them. Granted, I’m rather a jock, even in my forties. But the whole time I was growing up, I was always hearing from my southern-belle relatives that “young ladies” didn’t play rough sports and get all sweaty and skin their knees. And “boys don’t like it when you beat them at games, maybe you should let them win” – that kinda crap. I think it’s pretty damn feminist to tell women that their muscles and their strength and their endurance are to be lauded. I’m not a size 2 by any means, but I’m proud of my hard thighs because of what they represent, and over the years, I bet I have done ten thousand lunges. It’s not just about vanity. It’s about being strong in all the ways I can be.
D’oh !! :o Sorry, Crys. Don’t know how I overlooked your post.
I swear, judging by some of these mags I’ve got, everyone expected pregnant women to wear those damn “foundation” devices under their clothes, as well. Blecch. (Don’t forget that “nice” magazines didn’t use the word “pregnant” back then, either.)
Considering that my favorite used clothing store bills itself as a large women’s store and features the whole gamut of sizes starting with “10” and up– yeah, I’d say it’s pretty comical what’s regarded as “large” in this culture. I haven’t been able to wear a Size 10 since I was in my very early 20s. I’m now an 18 or “2x,” whatever the difference is. So if 10 is “large,” 18 must be– well, nevermind. I still buy clothes in the Men’s Department at regular stores whenever I can get away with it.
I presume that even if a “Size 18″ made it into a Dove Beauty ad, she’d be well over my 5’5” in height, all the better to spread out that icky fat more uniformly. Yawn. Plus la change, etc etc…
just had to add my two cents. not that it’s particularly profound.
but the whole “controversy” is really fairly hysterical, i think — i mean, “progress”? regardless of what sizes we’re talkin’ about here, the Dove ads are still just a bunch of women standing around in their undies. hardly a radical step forward.
but the sad part?
the hook WORKS. myself, my eyes pretty much popped out of my head the first time these six ladies sidled up next to me on a bus ad. why? because they’re beautiful. seems like there’s a lot of defensive talk from the uber-thin folk that they’re “normal”, too — yes, you are. although hardly the “norm”. and judging from the mainstream media advertisers, we’re supposed to believe that you are. for once, it’s really, really nice even seeing a petite size 4 (like Sigrid, the smallest of the Dove women) as opposed to the emaciated sticks we’re supposed to think are the height of beauty.
i agree that dove is barely scratching the surface. i agree that it’s laughable that such a small, almost inadequate gesture STILL creates such a furor. but it’s still a tiny breath of fresh air. hopefully a step in the right direction. here’s to more of ’em, i say…
(okay, i’m off my soapbox now.)
It’s about health, not the way you look or fit our society’s beauty standards. The fact is, there are a lot of overweight/unhealthy people in America. Don’t justify being overweight by jumping on the “anti-size 6” bandwagon.
[snort]
A barnacle is a ship, and a splinter is a “bandwagon.” Or did I miss the memo wherein Hollywood and Anna Wintour fired all those “size 6’s” and replaced them with the Dove models. :p
Learn to read, Katrina.
Why, of course skinny people are oppressed. How many skinny people do you see on TV? Well, its not all of them so they must be getting oppressed.
I’ll say this really slowly for Katrina. Being fat doesn’t mean you are unhealthy. It *should* be about health. But its not. Its always about fat. Contrary to your assumpsions, there is a difference.
It’s getting to the point where the only thing I dread (on certain spaces I frequent) more than Israel Vs. Palestine Round 5,294 is some fuckwit blathering on about the moral depravity of fatness. I flamed one of those twits on Indymedia the other day, and lo and behold, some admin came along and cleaned out the fat-baiter. Right after Hurricane Katrina, I was treated to some clown proclaiming that the environment is being destroyed because he saw two immense fat women at some cafe’ the day before “shooting insulin into their chests.” I kid you not.
Fat in Lefty circles seems to equal Queer in Righty circles.
Re: Marilyn–not only did she wear a girdle, but women back then were all flabbier than the “ideal” today. Marilyn isn’t all that far off from celebrities like J.Lo or Elizabeth Hurley, but the latter two are more muscular, and therefore appear less “chubby.” Even the men had more body fat vs muscle back in the 1950s. Ever see Tony Curtis without a shirt? Definitely more “normal” looking than say, Matthew McConaughey (and I hope he smells better too-LOL).
Anyway, I do feel that smaller women are discriminated against. Not only do I hear “ewwwwww….you’re a size 0?? That’s just sick” all the time, but sometimes, the smallest sizes are too big, and I don’t mean length. I literally swim in some of the clothes I’ve tried on. Catalog sizing charts tell me I’m a 2 or 4, but they’re definitely too big. Heck, size 0 is too big!
For another option on the Dove campaign go here:
http://losangeles.broowaha.com/article.php?id=228
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