I'm Just as "Real" as You

Excuse me for a moment while I step up on my soapbox.

*clears throat*

Can we please stop with the never ending comments about what constitutes a "real" woman?  It's sexist and demeaning to women everywhere.

I am Facebook friends with a number of highly fit and healthy women, many of whom I consider inspirational and role models of healthy living.  These women are very strong and have incredibly toned/fit bodies.  However, I am so tired of seeing some of the comments people make on their pictures.  Such comments that assert that these individuals are the epitome of "real women."  I know these commenters are trying to be nice and supportive of women with muscled physiques, but I think their choice of words is misguided.  Body size or types does not make one woman more "real" than another.  Women come in all shapes and sizes (and races, ethnicities, sexual orientations, etc.) and being overweight or being a bikini model does not make one more of a woman than the other.

A variation to these comments that is perhaps more common is: "real women have curves."  Can we stop trying to externally define what makes a woman a woman?   I'm not a woman because I have boobs and wide hips, and I'm not less of a woman because I'm overweight.  Choosing to lift weights does not make me more or less of a woman than my friend who loves the elliptical and looks at the weight room with disdain.   We can argue the health merits of different exercise regimens and body compositions, but that doesn't change our womanhood, our essential female-ness, our gender expression.

So, people of Facebook, I ask you to stop defining what a "real" woman looks like, how she should act, and inadvertently tell all women who fall outside that look that they aren't good enough.  I propose that a better expression to use when you find a person's physique inspiring, that you describe that physique as what it is: a great example of someone committed to living a healthy and fit life.  She is not the embodiment of the perfect or most "real" woman.  She is but one of countless expressions of what it means to be a woman, no more or less valid than any other.

/end soapbox/

Stay healthy friends!


PS

I wouldn't be surprised if the same thing happens to men, and my same thoughts apply to that phenomenon.  I just haven't seen it in my Facebook or broader social circle, and this rant is focused on my lived experience.