Personal Experience
Part 1 – A beautiful lie
To be a girl or not, this is the question I often asked myself during my childhood. One moment there’s laughter, love, care, excitement and joy. But then suddenly it starts to faint into these cruel unrealistic expectations. I am a sports person, and I am also brown skin so naturally longer hours in the sun means getting tanned faster and darker. In a normal world, people might ask, is this a problem? Really? Well it is, no matter how trivial it sounds and looks like, in a thirteen year old girl’s small world this was a problem. Several medals and certificates had no impact on the people around me except for the fact that my skin turned darker with each win. You might wonder how is it a problem? Well here’s the answer, India is obsessed with fair skin ironically for a dark skinned and a tropical country. The mindset of beauty means being white and only then will you land a good husband seems ridiculous. Well this took some time to settle down in a child’s head but as years passed by myself confidence and the art of ignorance helped me a lot in not paying heed to absurd societal norms .
Chubby or fat? How do you differentiate it? Well you don’t because that’s how inarticulate people are. As a healthy baby I was 2.5 to 3 kg in weight. So naturally as I grow up I have a strong build for my body. Unfortunately, people lack the knowledge of basic science of the human body. As a chubby kid, enjoying life my days passed by until one day when the remarks as -” you’re a little fat ,you need to do some exercise or you need to eat less” started popping up. I mean I am a Sports woman ,you think that didn’t help me lose weight? The truth is simple, being fat is unhealthy sure but chubby is not. Being chubby and healthy should be normalised. Till date skinny or unrealistic standards are set for women, which you know none of us needs to be tormented.
This story is powerful, and the data that follows shows that it is far from alone…
Part 2 – Wrongful vindication
Like the colours of a rainbow, humans vary in colours. The lack of understanding and knowledge makes people set unrealistic standards in beauty. The influence of the west or the giant beauty companies plays a pivotal role in people’s minds. A woman’s colour is a simple entity in one’s life. The variations largely depend on the country,race, geographical location, family and genes. This topic is even now widely spoken about. In fact the different shades of beauty should be a huge blessing and a celebration . Imagine a world where everyone looked the same? I guess it’s not worth it.
Size matters
Fat or just chubby. It is common knowledge that being overweight and obese can cause a plethora of problems. Definitely being extremely fat is unhealthy and should be strongly discouraged and recommendations of a healthy lifestyle should be suggested. What about women being chubby, curved or having a good healthy body? General public lacks the basic knowledge of how women exist and how they come in different shapes and sizes. This again has many reasons, one’s genetic makeup,the diet, the geographic location etc. Women naturally tend to store more fat than men due to various reasons. But in today’s world zero size and anorexic bodies are widely sought after. This should be widely criticised. Women undergo many such societal expectations each and every day in India. This only tells us everyone seems to know more about a woman’s body then she should about her own.