If I may give you my unsolicited opinion…
Society, Men, and Women have that tendency to feel like they are entitled to give their unwanted opinions regarding our bodies. Too skinny, too big, “vulgar”, too white, not white enough, too old, too young… Our bodies are like a movie no one has seen but everybody talks about: everybody has their opinion about it, and they can’t wait to share it with us… and the world!
But our body is our body, and we are willing to claim it back and show the world what’s ours is ours, wherever, and however, we want it. We fight enough to be okay with our own reflection, we definitely don’t need people to tell us how we should behave, or feel, towards ourselves.
So if we feel like constantly showing our naked butt on Instagram is the right way to empower the next generation of women, let’s do so! But is it the right way?
My body, my choice. But is it though?
For the past few years, and with the advent of Social Media, influencers and other trends directly linked to physics — have made seeing naked women’s bodies on the Internet the new normal.
Filters, no filters, with fillers, without… the posts follow the trends, in the race for likes everybody wants to win.
But the real idea behind that fake feminist vibe is to get more likes, more validation from people, and therefore… do the exact opposite of what we said we wanted.
Claiming our bodies back? or our never met in real life followers’ validation?
With every post and story hyper-sexualized, how can we claim to do anything for our freedom when it takes us back to when women were considered beautiful things, but rarely as Men’s equals?
A bad example to set for the younger generation
With hypersexualization starting younger and younger, this is our responsibility to show the younger generation there is a huge gap between being free and having to show our naked butt to feel like it.
It seems like there is no real meaning nor boundaries, leaving our exposed bodies senseless, only there to satisfy what we — once upon a time — were fighting against.
So how to take back what’s ours?
Is there even a right way?
If we show our bodies, we are sluts like those hysterical femen.
If we don’t, we are prudes.
When we do it and it’s political, it’s not for good reasons.
When there is no message behind it, it’s simply for the male gaze.
It seems like there is no right way to link our bodies with our values since simply having breasts seems to mean we can’t also have brains.
How can we be able to make a statement without sexualising our bodies but showing them proudly, when one of the latest TikTok trends “The Subway Tee-shirt” was created to avoid being sexually harassed or assaulted on the French Subway?
Fighting for, not against
Since it seems like a lost cause to fight against the male gaze or against disgusting behaviours in the street, let’s fight for our rights, our safety and the freedom of our bodies. Not by doing so to get more likes or views on Social Media, but because we believe in it. Because we believe in feminism and the power of our voices and the many ways to express our opinions. Some of us would love to speak up by singing, painting, vlogging, taking pictures, and making videos. And some of us would rather do it by writing pieces online.
Any way is the right one, as long as we never feel like it is the only one we have to follow to be heard.
