When Politics Meets Body Positivity - Why Every Plus Size Blogger Should be Up in Arms Against the Republican Candidate
When Politics Meets Body Positivity
Why Every Body Positive, Sex Positive, Plus Size, and/or Pin up Style Blogger, Model, and Regular 'ol Person Should Be Up in Arms Against the Republican Candidate
I mostly keep my politics to my Arts and Culture Notebook, Vintage-Bridge.com. As I wrote about in my mission statement, Vintage Bridge Style does its "political" body positive, sex positive, age positive work in subtle, deliberate ways, by simply existing and being public.
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| http://www.vintagebridgestyle.com/2016/07/leopardprint-polkadots-swimsuitsforall.html |
Right now, however, for all of us body positive and/or plus size bloggers and all of us sex positive/ pin up style bloggers, "the personal got political" as the phrase goes. This week, everything we stand for, promote, and celebrate became part of the presidential election.
"Trump bashes ‘disgusting’ former beauty queen Alicia Machado, accuses her of having ‘sex tape’" https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/09/30/trump-falsely-cites-sex-tape-in-latest-attack-against-former-miss-universe/
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| http://www.vintagebridgestyle.com/2016/08/vintage-bridge-mission-statement.html |
In defense of the indefensible I heard so many Republican pundits on the news say ignorant things like "well she was a BEAUTY queen and she did gain WEIGHT." As if one's good looks disappear upon being over a certain weight. As if no one over a Size Zero could be considered attractive. As if a two digit dress size can never be seen as worthy of the title of Beauty Queen.
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| http://www.vintagebridgestyle.com/2016/09/my-swim-body-had-fun-plus-size-swimsuit.html |
The body shaming; the grotesque, pitiful distortion of what can and can't considered desirable; the ageism, size-ism, sexism and narrowed-minded view of what kind of people can be considered sexy, pretty, beautiful -- it is an insult to everything we do.
The fact that someone who espouses such deplorable, backwards notions could become the leader of the free world is terrifying. I hear others say, "we should focus on the issues" as a means of dismissing such actions from their candidate. THIS IS AN IMPORTANT ISSUE.
How we treat people, the messages we send to women through our words and actions, matter. The personal is the political and anyone who believes in empowering women to be their bests selves -- at any age, size or physical attribute needs to step up and stand against a person who'd espouse otherwise. To do this, and be so publicly PROUD of it, to double down on it when called out and uncovered, in reprehensible. This man MUST be stopped. Or all the hard work we do promoting our important message will suffer a major blow and send us backwards, into our shadows and undeserved shame.
I am supporting Hillary for President, for lots and lots of reasons. But this week? This week it's personal.