Russian bodypositive: 8 activists about the body, discrimination and standards
Body-positive movement in Russia developing rapidly - communities in social networks and dozens of popular personal blogs share useful links and debunk myths. The modern perception of appearance is changing a lot, and the fatfoot attacks are less and less unanswered. However, news like the recent appearance of Tess Holliday as the "Cosmo girl" - perhaps the most famous plus-size model in the world shot for the cover of the British version of the magazine - still leads to a loud debate, is there "fullness propaganda" here. We talked with eight instagram activists of the Russian bodipositive about what they do, how they see the perfect future and how others view their views.
a turning point in my life. I started an instagram, where I started writing texts on the subject of body-positive a year and a half ago, and became an activist. Initially, the main resource for learning for me was the public books "VKontakte" - first of all, "Bodypositive", as well as the community of my friends. Basically there was a copy-paste from a tambler (photographs and illustrations with motivational inscriptions), but then it seemed fresh and inspiring. The most important book at that time for me was Naomi Wolf, Myth of Beauty. I think it is necessary for everyone to read, especially women.
About bodipositive photos
I have been taking pictures for the fourth year already. After the photo school where fashion photography taught us, I finally formed my position on retouching. I call my surveys bodipositive because I do not do cosmetic retouching in principle: I do not retouch my skin, I do not correct my figure and facial features; but at the same time I process photos in accordance with my stylistics. I don’t objectify my models, it’s important for me to be comfortable on the set.
In Europe, they are much more relaxed about how women can look, but most of the covers of magazines and advertisements are still heavily retouched, which creates unrealistic ideas about appearance and reinforces the myth of "beauty." Even in the field of customized photo shoots, retouching is sometimes so strong that it is sometimes difficult to recognize yourself in a processed photo. It may be that someone likes it, but it is important for me to preserve the individuality of the model and show her body as it is.
I wish that in the ideal future all people (but first of all women, as beauty standards put pressure on us the most) did not bother, do they have perfect makeup and is there any makeup at all, did not suffer from acne or wrinkles and something like that - but they just lived, loving themselves. I photograph people as they appear in life, thereby helping them to accept themselves as real and, perhaps, bringing this ideal future closer.
About discrimination
My skin does not look standard, so I constantly catch people’s eyes on myself, insults on the Internet and attempts to diminish my problems like “yes, no one looks at your skin, you're just fat.” Some people constantly come to my blog with the questions "what's wrong with your skin?" or "why is one foot smaller than the other?" and justify their tactlessness with phrases in the style of "well, she has a popular blog, so she should be ready for attention and answer such questions." I feel at this moment an exhibit of "circus freaks" that were in the XIX century. People still do not understand that such questions are offensive and unethical, and also perfectly demonstrate their privileges, because in the modern world, health is still a privilege.
If we talk about my disability, the people around me, not knowing anything about me, nevertheless often find reasons for commenter comments. I am so accustomed to living in a world where fat people have to justify themselves for their appearance, that I still sometimes catch myself on bad thoughts. But then I remember that, in general, I don’t have to make excuses why I weigh so much, why my legs and skin look the way they look. I have the right to live the same way as people around me: go out, post my photos on instagram, without discussing my health and condemning my appearance.
About harmful myths
Many people believe that supposedly body-positive is only for those who have injuries, disabilities, or visible shortcomings, and not for "fat women who are too lazy to lose weight."
This is the most common misconception that can be heard from people who do not understand the topic. Of course, bodypositive is important for people with disabilities, for people of color, for transgender people, and even for thin white people. But it is important to understand that body-positive grew precisely from the struggle of fat people for their rights. People who say phrases like “I'm for body-positive, but ...” are simply Lucists and / or fatfobs who want to continue to control other people and their appearance.
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and Anya. They pushed me to take decisive action. Now I really love the essay of your fat friend blogger, she writes articles on Medium on how fat women live. On Twitter, I follow Kivan Bay - a very interesting analysis of pop culture and important facts about discrimination against fat people.
I myself began to write about body positiv, because I have something to say. I consider my main task to inform people that Fetfobi is systemic and that this system can be fought against; that all the rules established by this system are a lie and we are not obliged to obey them.
About movement tasks
I consider body-positive in the first place as a political movement aimed at combating discrimination against unhealthy, fat, non-white, non-cs-genre bodies. For me, bodypositive is not about loving yourself, but about how you treat other people's bodies and whether you believe that body and body should not be a reason for discrimination and public censure (although acceptance of your body comes when you believe in the equality of all tel and that's cool).
About harmful myths
The most stupid myth is that body-positive activists urge not to wash or brush their teeth. The most harmful is that supposedly there was some kind of “original bodypositive” for people with disabilities, and fat feminists stole and perverted everything, although in fact the bodypositive was created by fat feminists.
I have never hated my own body, but body-positive helped me to take more care of myself, taught me self-esteem, building personal boundaries that other people should not violate. I began to listen more attentively to my own desires and feelings, to appreciate them and separate them from what could be imposed from the outside. I have become more tolerant and understanding towards others.
About turning into a "face" movement
In those years, I was constantly looking at photos of amazing body-positive activists from other countries, but I had never seen similar examples in Russia. Then I understood: "Who, if not me?" At that time, my activism was as superficial as possible; it was enough to upload my “bold” photos and boldly respond to the offenders on the Internet, without going into details about the materiel, not referring to feminist scholarly works, research, statistics. But it so happened that suddenly they began to call me the “face” of the movement, they began to invite me to participate in events, projects and photo shoots, to interview me.
Once I was offered to be a speaker at a rally in honor of March 8, which flattered me insanely. Many subscribers told me that I helped them to accept myself, it made me very happy, but my most vivid memory was the moment when my girlfriend, with whom we lived together for a long time, standing in front of the mirror, said for the first time: ** aya "- we hugged and burst into tears of happiness. Now in Russia, body-positive activists have become much more, they are all on the ear, more savvy, more consistent, every word they can back up with data from reliable sources, and this is incredibly cool, they are real instructors.
About harmful myths
There are people who believe that there is a "right" and "wrong" bodypositive. I often heard the phrase: "You justify your laziness with a body-positive. Body-positive is necessary for those who cannot correct their features, such as scars or birthmarks, but you, fat, can lose weight, but you are lazy." It turns out that if you do not have the opportunity to make your appearance socially acceptable due to injury or illness, then so be it, you will be allowed to be what you are. In other cases, bodypositive is considered a cover. At such moments, it begins to seem that they are trying to exclude you from the circle, which was created for you, because the bodypositive was originally about combating fetfobia. Any attempts to divide body-positive into “right” and “wrong” devalue the problems of a huge number of people and contradict the ideas of feminism.
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I find it easier to follow activist activities through instagram. The first people I subscribed to were ochen.panda and milliyollie. I learned about both from bodipositive publics. Then I subscribed to a large number of cool girls, for example, Anya Sakharova, which I found after the Wonderzine article. Most of the accounts I found thanks to Nick Vodwood. Of the foreign blogger women, my very first inspiration was octoplum, then I found frances_cannon. Now, I also watch alokvmenon, sonnyturner___, lushawnay, ladyist, elotepreparado, modachrome, tessholliday and many others.
About movement tasks
I see the main task of the movement to eradicate institutional systems of discrimination based on weight, appearance and health (both mental and physical). Creating a safe space for those who are discriminated against on the listed grounds. Deconstruction of industries that dictate the standards of beauty, which supposedly should be followed by a person, regardless of their capabilities and desires.
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I couldn’t find blogs on feminism for a long time (I was looking badly) and decided that I would start writing about it myself, so I began to talk about bodypositive. For six years I was a model and every year I tried to lose weight consistently, I hated my curly hair, my height and my skin color. Therefore, I want those who read me not to waste time on useless hatred, but to do something more pleasant. Bodypositive in general helped me worry less about my appearance, I stopped straightening my hair, losing weight and doing a lot of unnecessary things. My relationship also became better when I realized that they didn’t love my appearance, but all of me. In my social circle there are no more toxic people, now I am absolutely comfortable.
About movement tasks
I consider the main task of the movement to spread a simple rule: you need to stop crawling towards people with criticism and advice about their hairstyle / weight / height, generally focus on their appearance and devalue their opinion. I was not perceived for a very long time by my peers due to the fact that I was “not like that”, I don’t want people to continue to face this.
About harmful myths
Many people are not good at body positivity because they think it promotes obesity, colored hairy armpits and so on. This is incorrect and will become apparent after reading a couple of serious articles about bodypositive. Bodypositive is the freedom to be yourself. Bodypositive is a setting to not make comments to another's body and not to criticize it. Bodypositive - that a person can have pink hairy armpits, and can be shaved and this should not affect our attitude. Bodypositive is about relativity, not the "evidence" of beauty standards. If you go to Central Africa, you will see that there is a fat woman - the standard of beauty. Therefore you should not make hasty conclusions, you can always go to a proven thematic community and find simple answers to complex questions.
About movement tasks
The primary tasks of bodipositive, in my opinion, are the eradication of fetfobia, the struggle for the right to physical integrity (first of all, women) and an increase in the representation of the most diverse bodies in the mass media.
About harmful myths
I am annoyed by the confidence of some that body-positive is a movement only for people with disabilities, scars and other features that cannot be changed. And fat people allegedly hide behind them in order to continue to lead a "passive lifestyle and eat harmful food." No, fat people do not hide behind a body-positive — they come to him after many years of pressure and discrimination. They need this movement to defend the right to independently dispose of their body and live in peace. And the “argument” above perfectly illustrates the concentration of fetching in our society. There are no such myths about thin and “medium” bodipositive people.
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in video format. Now, fortunately, the number of cyber-activists is growing every day. I love the informative posts of Katie ekaterinaxiii, they show the life and activism of a fat woman well.
Once I tried to analyze the beginning of my activity and I realized that everything turned out inadvertently. Just as I went deeper into body hypositiv, I began to photograph my body more and more, began to write small posts about how I was tired of losing weight and that it was time to learn to accept myself. And then people began to talk, they learned about the body positivity from me - and I felt that I was also doing my bit. As a result, I was one of the first fat activists in Russian instagram.
About harmful myths
I do not like it when they say that body-positive is a course of lectures on the topic "how to love yourself." Bodypositive is the same movement for the rights of people as feminism, they are inseparable and fight against oppression. "And in general, all fat activists promote obesity and tell everyone not to look after their health." No, activists oppose debilitating diets and the stereotype that thinness is synonymous with health. One of the main tasks of cyber-activity is representation. The fact that fat people began to lay out their bodies without retouching, can not be called "obesity propaganda." Remember that your health is only your business (and your doctor).
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feminist, I made my own. For five years, a lot of avatars, artists, admins worked on the content. Now on the public working eleven representatives of the feminist community.
About movement tasks
The main task of bodipositive I consider the return of their bodies to women. Our bodies do not seem to belong to us, we treat them as things, as punishment, as a broken instrument, we criticize other bodies — instead of just being alive and free, learning about the world and ourselves in it. The concept of "time to get your body back to yourself" includes everything: sexual safety, and sex-questions, and questions related to health and motherhood.
On the effect of bodypositive
Bodypositive releases a depressed resource and works for variety. The pursuit of diversity lies at the basis of evolution, the most natural thing we can want is the right to differ. And when we stop worrying about our appearance, hating our bodies and criticizing the bodies of others, we become happier. Even not necessarily more efficiently or creatively - just calmer, we can more comfortably build our lives and relationships with people.
About harmful myths
Probably the most harmful is the myth of health. Health for some reason is necessarily connected not even with weight, but with anxiety about weight. At the same time, concentration only on weight and compliance with social ideas about beauty is a way to block sensations, a way to alienate oneself from the body. Roughly speaking, a woman who throws all her strength against cellulite (which is difficult to avoid when normal bodies are called sick and ugly) simply does not notice that her relationship with food is somehow not good and her stomach has started to hurt. A state of mind and internal organs is more important than the outlines of the figure.
What to read about body positiv
Now I really like the book by Yulia Lapina "Body, food, sex and anxiety" and her channel in telegrams. I myself am a pretty tough person and I love sharp social texts, but Yulia has written very carefully about painful and difficult things, it really helps.
Cover: Lola Nordik