You know an article is going to be bad when it’s titled Letting it all hang out: For many young women, one size fits all – no matter how that makes them look.
And, not surprisingly, it comes with a fair bit of fat-shaming. Of women, of course — men are mentioned once, as the article applauds them for hiding their fat under baggy clothes. Women, though, are referred to as “Sausage Casing Girls” for wearing too-tight clothing.
The Sausage Casing Girls are everywhere this summer, their muffin tops hanging over their hip-skimming jeans, clothes shrink-wrapped around fleshy bodies that look as if they’ve been stuffed — like forcemeat — into teensy tops and skintight pants.
Has this writer been to LA lately? Because women of all sizes stuff themselves into teensy tops and skintight pants. I suppose its just more offensive if the women doing the stuffing are heavy.
But this phenomenon does not appear entirely to be about self-acceptance and the conscious abandonment of repressive physical ideals. It is far more complicated than that. Yes, there are plenty of young women who can confidently say that they are happy with their less-than-svelte shapes — and that is to be applauded. But there are many others who in the rush to be fashionable are unable to admit that they are larger than they wish to be, or that their bodies just don’t look good in the clothes they are choosing. Instead of reveling in their big, beautiful bodies, many girls instead are deep in denial, pouring themselves into clothes that are putting them in a python squeeze.
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