Because black women, especially dark-skinned black women, deviate furthest from European beauty standards, they are more likely to experience self-hate, distorted body image, depression, and eating disorders. Unless you’re in possession of an uncanny confidence that isn’t directly proportional to how closely your aesthetic matches a European standard of beauty (in which case, congratulations and […]
No one else has accompanied you through every excruciating moment of your life; your body has served as witness to it all. It has taken me my entire life to realize I should be ashamed of how ungrateful I’ve been to my body, how wrong it was that I did not appreciate all of the […]
Just because I do not represent someone’s ideal of beauty, they are not allowed, by their actions, to negate me. If you hang around my mother and me long enough, you will hear the Onion Ring Story. I honestly don’t know why she tells it. Maybe she thinks it’s a cute childhood anecdote that should […]
Where are the gaggles of innocent college boys lusting over stretch-marked and taco-eating female parents? Last week, when The Odyssey published 500 words on Why Girls Love The Dad Bod, fathers across the Internet exhaled, allowing their distended tummies to hang generously over their belt buckles. Mackenize Pearson, piggybacking on our recent obsession with Lumbersexuals […]
There is this idea that if a woman celebrates her fat body as beautiful and worthwhile, then she is a bad influence on those around her. Imagine this: A woman tells a story on her personal blog about how she learned to stop hating her body. She writes of the journey that took her out […]
I see beauty for what it is: a mirage and a distraction. Who can forget that famous Pantene commercial of the ‘80s with Kelly LeBrock leaning into the camera, swinging her magnificent tresses, and pouting: “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful.” I didn’t hate her because she was beautiful—I hated her for bragging about something […]
