Black women are killing themselves to fit the beauty standards

‘Ooo, you have a black woman’s figure…’. ‘White women are trying to look like black women…’. I hear these statements all the time and I’ve always thought, what does it mean to look like a black woman? Deep down, we know the answer, or at least we think we do. Apparently we are all supposed to have big butts and tiny waists. We just don’t talk about our beauty standards and it’s high time that we, as black women, started having a conversation about our bodies, because the mainstream body positivity movement isn’t – and has no intention of doing so. The pressure on black women to have the shape of a ‘black woman’ is crippling.

We’re meant to be the ‘right’ kind of thick; be curvy in all the ‘right’ places. And I would argue that in an era where we fear our erasure and appropriation — and rightly so, just look at Kim Kardashian — we have been forced to defend a very dangerous body ideal. This is doing more harm than good. Black women are literally killing themselves to fit the beauty standards of what a black woman is supposed to look like. As a plus size model, my job has always centered around fighting the norm, and in recent years, ‘body positivity’ and ‘diversity’ are have become key buzzwords for advertisers. Given the current conversation around accepting one’s body, we could easily be mistaken and assume that the current body positivity movement is a rebellion against the ultra skinny beauty ideal.

In conversations where beauty standards are discussed, I often hear the narrative that the beauty standard for every woman is, and has always been, thin and white. This simply isn’t true. Allow me to explain. How we view our bodies is much more complex than how western media portrays it. Beauty standards are set by cultural boundaries and traditions, something advertisers consistently fail to understand. Growing up as a black woman, I never wanted to be skinny. The ‘heroin-chic’ look of the late ’90s to early ’00s was never an ideal body in my eyes, nor a point of discussion to anyone around me.

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Growing up in an age before social media, my beauty standards were defined by the images and media in my surroundings, which at the time was predominantly African American. In my world, we rarely saw the thin white woman. We saw the video vixen in music videos – she was our beauty standard. Her pert round bottom, her defined skinny waist and her ample bosom. An exaggerated hourglass. We all wanted to be like her, and to an a certain extent, we all still do. Growing up as a black girl, if you didn’t have a small waist or a big bum, you were considered ugly. As a result, black women are turning to unsafe tactics to achieve this figure. Most famous is the conviction of Oneal Ron Morris, the woman who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for performing illegal butt injections, reportedly filled with horrifying ingredients such as cement, mineral oil and bathroom caulking, resulting in the death of one of her clients, Shatarka Nuby.

Celebrities such as K Michelle and Cardi B have openly discussed the appeal and consequent regret (and harm) of these backstreet injections. I applaud these women, because we have been silent for far too long. It is important that, within the realm of body positivity, black women have the platform to speak on these issues and really interrogate the ideal ‘ black woman’ body narrative.

Personally, the current body positivity movement is unrelatable. Until I started modeling, I didn’t read any mainstream fashion magazines or go to any high-end fashion stores. Much has been praised about the inclusion of curvy models in commercial advertising, and to an extent, there has been a noticeable shift. However, black women are noticeably absent from this.

More importantly, black women of different shape and sizes need to be included. It’s not enough to have a few black women with hourglass figures in your campaign. This is permanently damaging in ways many advertisers fail to appreciate and understand. While the black woman’s experience is unique, it should not be homogenised. We are all different, and suffer the consequences of the ‘ideal’ body image in different ways. It is important that the body positivity movement includes, engages with, and better understands the experiences of black women, to ensure it is a truly inclusive movement that breaks beauty standards in all its forms.

 

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