girl-shaped and proud of it

last night on ACA there was an article about women. they were talking about how women cant have it all, and how women are never satisfied with their bodies and all that good stuff.

well. i have some body issues, i admit. i dont think i know any woman who doesnt. i know i'm overweight, although not a huge amount, no matter what my BMI says. i am convinced i have solid lead bones (when i was 16 and doing Food Technology at school, we had to calculate our BMIs. mine was 19.5 even though i was BONY. i dont know where the weight comes from, other than very heavy bones). (also, most of the weight is hips-legs and bust, which is still not so healthy, but not as dangerous as being on my stomach apparently.) and i know i'll never be satisfied with the size of my legs, no matter how skinny i were to get. i know this because they were my main issue when i was a very skinny teenager.

BUT much as i complain about it, i do not really have a problem with my general bodyshape. i am GIRL shaped. no matter how much weight i lose, i will never look like a super model, because i am the wrong shape, but i'm fine with that. i have HIPS. in fact i have what are generally referred to as 'childbearing hips' - and considering what i went through with my kid, im kinda glad of that*. i also have a bust. (it makes it hard to find clothes that fit me correctly. anything that fits my waist is.. far too small elsewhere. i really need to lose my fear of the sewing machine. sewing clothes by hand simply takes too much time.) i do not look like a supermodel, and i never will. but i do look like a girl. the only way anyone could mistake me for a guy is if i was wearing a cardboard box, or had a double mastectomy and my hipbones filed down. or currently, if they were blind and only heard me talk. my voice is not happy right now.

unfortunately, being girl-shaped is not fashionable. clothes are made to fit people who are not as curvy as me, as i've already mentioned. (especially catwalk stuff. seriously. fashion designers seem to design stuff to fit 12 year old boys. when are women going to realise they wont look good in this stuff if theyre even VAGUELY normally shaped - normal being not anorexic - not that most of it looks good to begin with.....) and i just dont understand that. people are made different shapes: some, like my mother, are straight up and down; some, like myself, are curvy; some, like my sister, have relatively slim legs, and a huge ribcage. why dont clothes people realise this? not everyone fits their clothes proportions, or is even a consistent size all over. i know a girl who wears size 12 pants, and size 8 shirts; i need 3 different sizes - one for bust, one for waist, one for hips - and we are not the only ones.

God made people in a variety of shapes, sizes and colours. when is everyone going to realise this?





*i know having big hips does not automatically mean childbirth will be easier. it all depends on how they move during the birth and the INTERNAL measurements rather than the external ones etc etc etc, but they took the strain of my ridiculously enormous belly while i was pregnant, and the kid was born in only 4 hours, despite the enormo-head which got stuck. probably would have taken longer if i had tiny skinny little hips that his enormous head wouldnt fit through.

and, for me at least, bigger hips sure are handy for resting things - like toddlers and washing baskets - on.