Dodie

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Joined: Sat Nov 05, 2016 8:22 pm
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kavat wrote: Mon Jan 22, 2018 11:34 am
obsessivelymoody wrote: Mon Jan 22, 2018 8:39 am
VengefulBlue wrote: Mon Jan 22, 2018 7:52 am
captainspacecoat wrote: Mon Jan 22, 2018 6:45 am
I put this in a trigger warning just in case, as it discusses weight and body positivity(/negativity), which some of you may not feel comfortable with.

Did anyone else feel a bit :/ about her tweet earlier: I'm hesitant to condemn her for it or anything, as I understand that she may be dealing with her own issues with body image etc, but as a bigger girl myself it was really difficult to see this tweet. I fully support her pushing body positivity, and working through her own issues, but personally it hurts to see her (and Shout magazine) suggesting that that photo is of a "bloated belly" or "pot belly". It simply isn't - Dodie is objectively a skinny girl and that is not a photo of a big belly. As someone who is objectively not skinny, it just really sucks to see photos like that being lauded as progressive or a positive example of body positivity. If anything, that photo just adds to my insecurity.

Again, I'm not necessarily condemning Dodie, because I understand that weight issues are sensitive and if Dodie feels that she has a "pot belly" and has been insecure about that in the past, I'm glad she's come to think positively about it now. I vaguely remember her mentioning she has struggled with eating disorders in the past (? I could be making that up, correct me if I'm wrong), and so I don't fault her for being insecure about her weight and/or having a flawed perception of her weight.

I suppose the fault lies mainly with Shout magazine at the end of the day- Dodie's issues are her own issues and while I think she should be careful of what she posts on social media to her impressionable, largely young fanbase I also understand that she may not always make the right decisions. At the end of the day she's a young woman trying to navigate a world that's pretty fucking cruel to women and their bodies.

But I just think it's flat-out dangerous for a magazine aimed at young people to suggest that a person who is objectively slim (regardless of her subjective perception of her weight) is embracing her curves or whatever, implying to bigger girls such as myself that that is what a 'bloated potbelly' looks like. Like, if that's big then god, what am I? - is the feeling I got after reading the tweet. Or maybe I'm just being too sensitive, idk :shrug:
i definitely agree that it's discouraging to see it lauded as like, body positivity goals or something. and i'm glad she feels better with herself, even though she has always been quite slim looking. (& yeah, i also vaguely remember her mentioning ED type stuff?) but also: i think the phrase she's using is the most common way people refer to the tiny bump that afab people's organs make? like when they're telling teens 'media images aren't real, people's bodies are meant to have a bump there, it's healthy', they use the phrase "a little potbelly". which is stupid in a few different ways, but yeah. i don't think the wording is intentional on her part, just repeating a stupid phrase other people use and would recognize.

edited(for the third time, jfc my typos) to add: maybe dodie was bloated that day? like maybe she was having her period or trying a new medication or whatever, idk. i don't think you're being too sensitive, it rubbed me the wrong way too. my guess is she's just using the vocab people recognize, because it's easier and not really considering the implications of the exact wording.
just to add on, i recently read dodie's book where she mentioned struggling with EDs. i think that the photo she posted was cathartic for her, and i believe she had the intention to show girls that it's completely okay to look like that, and that it isn't 'fat' (because as VengefulBlue said i'm 99.9% sure that's just what's naturally there to protect her organs). however, as a heavier person, it totally rubbed me the wrong way as well. like, i totally felt envious of her for a little bit because while i've personally come to terms with the fact that i should eat healthy and work out without the sole intention of becoming skinny, there's a part of me that would kill to look like that. i also think that calling it a 'pot belly' is totally incorrect, but i honestly don't believe dodie had any malicious intentions.

whilst i think it's a step in the right direction for teen magazines (who only promoted hundreds of different way to look/get slim when i was reading them), and i believe that dodie never meant for it to be harmful towards anyone, both can do better. especially the teen magazines.
I remember when dodie posted that image in the first place, quite long ago. The magazine took it slightly out of context, if I remember correctly she wrote about how she only ever saw flat stomachs in media and she wanted to show that not even skinny people look like that all the time. He also encouraged people to post their own under a hashtag, to showcase more variety of bellies.

As a larger girl I totally get why people might react to that, especially as slim or just slightly curvy people tend to take up a large portion of the body posi movement, and it was wrong of Shout to just print that image without further context. As a teen I would have thought "wow, if that's a pot belly then I must be obese". I don't think that was dodies intention.
I think what really hurts for bigger girls is the way this is presented. Yeah, it’s probably about normalising natural female bodies and that’s a damn good thing. I know so many skinny girls who are upset about their bellies and don’t know that they’re supposed to have them because internal organs have to go somewhere. But the implication I get, intended or not, is that that’s how a female body should look like: Natural, not photoshopped, but still skinny. And that’s what’s so upsetting about stuff like this to me. Not Dodie’s fault at all but a reaction I also have, created by years and years of fatshaming. When you get told your whole life that you look wrong and need to change yourself to look right, it’s just upsetting to see skinny girls, who already “look right”, promote body positivity about things that seem so little to you even though to them it might be a big thing of course.

Tldr: Something’s clearly wrong with the way female bodies are shown in media and every little bit helps but as a bigger woman it’s just upsetting to see body positivity only ever focus on skinny women and smaller issues. That’s not Dodie’s fault at all, it’s a problem with the way mainstream media portrays the movement, taking the focus away from actual bigger women and the acceptance of all kinds of body shapes and making it all about skinny people and their issues.
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