I’m not the first one to say it (nor the funniest one to talk about it) but let me throw my hat in the ring about labels. They aren’t needed – they take up character count and breath that can go toward much more positive thoughts and sentiments.
We all come in wonderfully different shapes, sizes and colors. We don’t need labels or clarifying statements to describe people that point out what we already know about ourselves – or what is simply a matter of opinion.
Earlier this month, Amy Schumer took on Glamour Magazine for insinuating she was plus size. She explained that plus size typically starts at 16 and she fluctuates between a size 6 and 8 and asked Glamour what type of message they were sending to young girls calling her plus size. Would a size 6 teenager now think she was plus size?
Amy Schumer’s bit on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon had me tearing up with laughter. She is brilliantly funny and handled it the way she felt good about.
While I get Amy’s stance, I would love to change the conversation to simply remove the labels. Why are the words “plus size” needed? Everyone has a number that helps guide them through a shopping process. But I certainly don’t feel like others have the right to define who is plus sized and who is not. Lane Bryant to me is simply a clothing store. I do know that they market to the double digit sizes but I don’t consider their models “plus sized” nor would I ever refer to them that way.
We certainly don’t do it the other way – there are clothing lines for adults that include the size of double zero. Should we start referring to models that represent those brands as “bony” or “skeletal” – which are both synonyms for skinny in the dictionary? I would hope not.
So, I challenge us all to do better. We’ve all have been labeled more times than we can count in our lives. There is no denying that labeling can have disastrous effects on our youth. But we have the power to change it – we can simply follow Twitter’s rule and actually keep our word count down.
Instead of calling someone a curvy girl – how about just a girl.
Instead of calling someone a big-boned woman – how about just a woman.
Instead of calling someone a plus sized model – how about just a model.
Removing these unnecessary words gives us more character count to include hashtags like #WomenSupportingWomen #EffYourBeautyStandards and #FeelBeautifulFor!