Kate Wasley, a plus model, and Georgia Gibbs, a straight-size model, are best friends who launched AnyBODY, a new social-media initiative which aims to make the fashion industry more inclusive of the bodies brands use as models.
The two post photos of themselves together, inspirational quotes about loving yourself, and reminders to be kind.
But recently, the BFFs revealed that people have been making accusations that Gibbs used Photoshop to make Wasley look bigger, or herself smaller, in photos.
"We posted this picture online, just as best friends going out on the weekend," Gibbs wrote in the caption. "It got reposted a lot and the controversy started."
"'You have photoshopped yourself thinner or your friend bigger, what kind of friend are you?' was one of the comments. It broke my heart because Kate and I are best friends, why would I do that? The fact that a simple picture of two people together went so viral purely because of their body types shocked me… and @any.body_co was created because no one should have to deal with that and it shouldn't even be acknowledged. All I see here is two women… not one 'skinny' woman and one 'curvy' woman; stop comparing everyone to each other and accept every person as beautiful in their own right. #loveanyBODY"
The other issue here, aside from the accusation, is the assumption that thinner is still better.
In a society that has made a lot of progress toward accepting fat and plus-size bodies, it still has a long way to go, and this is proof: The very idea that a lot of people still associate being big with being unattractive is a toxic way of thinking.
The comments have since been deleted, but I'd bet good money that most of them were from women, who are familiar with girl-on-girl bashing that sometimes involves posting a photo where one friend looks "hotter" than the other — so they're not entirely to blame for thinking that Gibbs' and Wasley's photo together was one of these instances (but obviously, it wasn't).
So let's stop hating on each other, 'kay? 'Kay.
