I hate it too. Mostly because:
- real women are not airbrushed, that's about it. We come in all shapes and sizes imaginable
- real women may or MAY NOT have curves. Even if they're plus-sized. I was actually a lot straighter when I was plus-sized. Now that I'm almost at a healthy weight I'm quite a bit curvier (even
calculated this once ). Clothes shopping now is a huge pain and finding clothes to fit my curves pretty much all have to be ordered online
- weight loss is a valid choice. Sure, not everyone needs/wants to lose weight. That's their choice but for those of us who do try to lose weight using healthy methods, well, there's nothing wrong with that. How is it any different then someone who wants tatoos or to dye her hair? It's a choice for our bodies.
I get it, women want to have pride in their appearance and there IS a lot of pressure to look perfect so this is the backlash to that. But I think that plus-size companies have to be careful to not do the exact thing that they got upset over in the first place. If they're upset that being tall, thin and modesque is the only standard of beauty, why is it ok to say that being plus-sized makes you real? Besides, I'm sorry but the model in that shot doesn't look at all like I did when I was plus-sized, so does that make her a "unreal woman" too?
What I would LOVE to see is more diversity in modelling. ALL shapes and sizes, all skin tones, all different styles of beauty. It's really unhelpful for me to decide if an outfit will look good on me if the model trying it on is half a foot taller than me, doesn't have any boobs and has a super tiny waist. Sure, there are women that look like that so it's fine to have
some models that look like that but I'd love to have companies showing the same outfit on multiple different body types and sizes.