#under representation

18.1.21

I wrote a new blog post about my struggle to remotely like let alone love my natural 4c hair but it’s a journey I’ve chosen to begin this year. I’d appreciate if you could share it so it gets to the people who need it.

Female INTJs are rare in real life but rarer in fiction.

I think there is an under representation of non villain ESTJs.

I think there could be more female ENTPs, but not as much as there is a need for female INTJs.

I think there is over representation in female ENTJs.

I used to think there was an over representation of INFPs but I’m retyping a good chunk of those on my list.

I’ve noticed over the years, there is a growing ‘grey’ area in how women’s bodies are represented in fashion and it’s one that really pisses me off, with increasing ferocity. So what is this grey area? It’s the divide between what I see in high fashion/fashion advertising VS buying in mainstream retail stores.

To start, I’m going to say something that seems to upset a lot of people, but it’s something that for me is integrated in why I hate this grey area so much and I believe it is a root cause for a lot of girls who struggle with their body image. I don’t like being called plus sized. The reason being, I don’t believe it is relevant to me. I actually really hate it being applied to people who don’t know me and I get equally annoyed when others get upset that I don’t like a label I didn’t ask for being applied to my body. (Seriously, its my body, not yours).

That doesn’t mean I don’t like the plus sized movement or think its amazing, because I do. I follow a number of incredible plus sized women online who I admire beyond believe, but I don’t see my body in them at all. Plus sized now days seems to be marketed/geared towards girls who have ample busts to match their curvier frames. In quite a few years on social media, I’m yet to see a girl I can relate to body wise. With my 36-38B cup bust, this is something I cannot relate to and it’s really one of the biggest factors that makes me not identify with the plus sized movement.

In pinup fashion I wear sizes small through to large, style depending. Many of these brands carry ‘plus sized’ versions of the ‘standard’ sizing, but I’ve never had to buy from that section because simply: they are too big. Hell, as a small busted girl with a bigger booty, I struggle to fill the tops of large dresses let alone anything bigger. In the pinup world I kind of where my body fits, which is about the middle average for most brands.

My last experience with ‘mainstream’ fashion however, is a big part of why I hate the label of ‘plus sized’.  At my current size, I cannot buy bottoms from most main stream stores, as they simply don’t accommodate my lower half. Yet I can buy a size 10-12 in tops without any worry. I went into the plus sized store city chic once to try on a dress that I saw in the window and liked. Their smallest size was MASSIVE on my frame and it became apparent that the ‘plus size’ store clothes, like the pinup plus sized items, were too big for me.  So while the stores that stock upto a size 14 cannot accommodate my frame in full, plus size stores aren’t even close either.

Which is where the fashion industry comes in, creating that shitty grey area that I see so many women lost in as well as myself. In the fashion industry someone SMALLER than me is considered ‘plus sized’. I mean, what the actual hell? There is no continuity between where the plus sized retail market starts and the fashion industry start their plus sized models at. And I feel like so many women get lost in that. While I tend to not pay much attention to it now days, as I don’t pay much attention to mainstream fashion or advertising (I don’t watch tv, I don’t read mainstream magazines and I don’t listen to the radio) I know that when I was a lot younger, this inconsistency for me was a great source of my body issues and I have no doubt there are many young women out there today in the same boat: struggling with how they look due to being told conflicting things and under-represented in fashion. While there has definitely been improvements in the representation of plus sized women in fashion, I feel like a lot of these women are just proportionate copies of the smaller ladies they use. There is still a lack of shape variety in fashion as well as featuring more ladies of colour, ladies with disabilities and of varying ages.

I’m just in a weird place today and felt like I needed to smash this one out.  Be aware when reading this, that this is about my experiences, feelings and thoughts on things. These are simply my opinions that are currently swirling in my head.