All Of Y'all Are Bad Bitches Idcccc - Blog Posts

The Goddess of Beauty: Hips, Dips and All

TW: BODY IMAGERY: BODY DISMORPHIA: ED

Hello everyone! I hope your day is going well. I have had this thought in mind for quite some time, and I want to post about goddesses and the cross-cultural depictions of beauty. In astrology, Venus is the planet of love, fertility, beauty, and harmony. However, within the depictions, cross-culturally, it seems like she is depicted as a full-figured woman with hips, dips, and all (I know all these women are not called Venus, but when I say that, I mean the goddesses of Beauty). But, within the times now, it seems that women whose bodies are full-figured are often hated and told to "lose weight" to fit the skinny heroin chic or the BBL body and skinny waist. It's extremely unattainable for all women, and I want women from every corner of life to not feel bad for their bodies, as all bodies are beautiful.

Let me show you depictions of the goddess of beauty across the diaspora.

Aphrodite (Greece):

Venus of Willendorf (found in Austria):

Kichijoten (Japan):

Lakshmi and Parvati (India):

Oshun (Africa):

Venus (Italy):

There are a lot more depictions of beauty as well.

These depictions of beauty are very vast and all different (due to cross cultures). I just wanted to note the different versions of beauty, and how each version of beauty is not lesser than the next.

Within America's standards' however, I want to note some famous women who are beautiful within the standards and some of their words about their journey's and struggles with this topic.

Bella Hadid

" I always ask myself, how did a girl with incredible insecurities, anxiety, depression, body-image issues, eating issues, who hates to be touched, who has intense social anxiety—what was I doing getting into this business"

“I wish I had kept the nose of my ancestors,” she says. “I think I would have grown into it.”

“I’d pack my little lunch with my three raspberries, my celery stick. I was just trying, I realize now, to feel in control of myself when I felt so out of control of everything else.”

We also know her relationship with her mother Yolanda, and how harsh she was to both Bella and Gigi about their eating habits :(

Beyonce:

"I remember when I started hearing people criticise me after I had put on some weight. I was 19"

"During my recovery, I gave myself self-love and self-care, and I embraced being curvier. I accepted what my body wanted to be."

"I think it’s important for women and men to see and appreciate the beauty in their natural bodies. That’s why I stripped away the wigs and hair extensions and used little makeup for this shoot."

Marylin Monroe:

Quotes from someone close to her:

A common ‘Marilyn quote’ that seems to pop up a lot on social media is “Don’t worry if you’re not a size 0. It’s society who’s ugly.”

Marilyn actually stuck to a rather extreme diet regimen to maintain her tiny frame, with her weight fluctuating quite frequently.

Jennifer Lawrence

In article: Lawrence then told Harper’s Bazaar UK that she was told by people in the industry (when she was younger) that she was fat.

“Today, if anybody even tries to whisper the word ‘diet,’ I’m like, ‘You can go f*** yourself.'”

Rihanna

“But, you know, it comes with a price. You want to have a butt, then you have a gut.”

Demi Moore

Her experience with a photographer at 14.

“The perfect example is when I was told to lose weight multiple times. The producer pulled me aside. It was very embarrassing and humiliating. But that’s just one thing."

Jennie Kim

Some comments under the post:

"Why does it look like you're pregnant?"

"She needs CK team to photoshop her bloatedness"

"Either she has a bloated stomach or is preggy with g-drugon ijbol"

Nicki Minaj

In the article: “There are questions that you can’t just google,” she explained. “Every day a mom has to wake up and be a supermom no matter what they’re faced with. It’s gotten so easy to be alone physically, where young people spend 12, 16 hours a day in their rooms on their phones, looking at these false realities, comparing themselves. I’ve seen artists gone way too soon, and I wonder if that could have been avoided if they’d just had the chance to talk about what they were going through.”

These are women who are considered beautiful, and these are their experiences with body issues, shaming, and the culture surrounding health.

I know that these depictions of beauty are across different cultures, and they speak from a different period than what we are now, but why shouldn’t these depictions of beauty be embraced today? These different varieties of beauty should be celebrated, not restricted. All these depictions are different varieties, not a one-size-fits-all-all, why do women have to restrict and fight for a body they do not have to be seen as beautiful? Body standards change over time, and it's crazy to force women into this form of beauty when all these forms of beauty depicted earlier are of Venus, goddesses of beauty, fertility, love, and harmony.

To anyone reading this, I just want you to know that you should not force yourself or restrict yourself to fit a standard that is not meant for you. Your beauty is not a one-size-fits-all-all, nor should your body be.