The body-positive movement is obsessed with the "pear shape."
Pear-shaped women have slimmer torsos and larger bottoms, which gives the illusion of a pear, or a larger Coca-Cola bottle. Within the movement to recognize larger bodies as worthy of better clothing and legal protections, the pear shape reigns supreme.
It has, in many ways, become a new body ideal.
For instance, many of the women touted as body-positive leaders, like Ashley Graham, Gabi Gregg, and Danielle Brooks, are pear-shaped.
There's nothing wrong with their gorgeous bodies. They should be included in conversations about body positivity.
However, the movement must also include bodies that fall outside of what mainstream society considers "acceptable" and "attractive."
Many women are tweeting their anger at the body-positive movement's exclusion of bodies that aren't traditionally curvy.
These Twitter users are making a valid point that all members of the body-positive community should listen to.
Refinery29 polled 1,000 women in September about how they perceive plus-size bodies.
Their researchers found that plus-size women with hourglass — or pear — shapes were more accepted than those with other body shapes.
They asked participants to associate photos of women of all sizes with positive, negative, and neutral words. Overall, negative words were more associated with plus-size women, but those with curvier figures were often considered "neutral."
As Refinery29's senior writer Kelsey Miller noted, pear-shaped women were "neither aspirational nor repellent, but normal."
Furthermore, women on the smaller end of the plus-size spectrum, like Graham, were considered the "threshold of acceptability."
They weren't considered too small or too large and had curves "in all the right places," according to Refinery29. She is the "ideal" — and that's the problem.
Women who aren't pear-shaped are fed up — and it's time for the body-positive movement to get the memo.
Not too long ago, bikinis weren't even made for women of size. Beyond that, plus-size women rarely rocked bikinis, and were met with criticism when they did. The body-positive movement pushed women of size from the fringe to the center. They were rewarded with their own swimsuit collections and plus-size bikinis in stores ranging from Forever21 to Torrid.
Now, it's normal to see plus-size women in two-piece swimsuits on the beach, social media, and in fashion campaigns. That's the power of the body-positive movement, so why not use that collective energy to center women who've felt ostracized because of their size and their shape?
It's possible to normalize different kinds of bodies. It has happened before. So, in 2017, can the body-positive movement stop focusing so much on pear-shaped bodies?
It's time.
