Pro-Ana and Thinspiration: Can #MeToo Finally Spark Body Positivity?

More than 150 women and girls have asserted that USA National Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar sexually abused them over the past two decades. Aly Raisman, 23, a six-time Olympic medalist who was team captain for two years, was one of many who testified against Nassar, who pled guilty to several counts of first-degree criminal and sexual assault.
Raismanhas joined the #MeToo movement, which is dedicated to spreading awareness of widespread and often-ignored sexual harassment. She also campaigns for body positivity and size inclusion.

Just weeks after Nassar’s sentencing, Raisman was featured in the Sports Illustrated “Swimsuits 2018” issue, part of SI’s new project “In Her Own Words.” According to a press release, the issue is meant “to deliver a message of empowerment, beauty, confidence and self-acceptance.”

Although Raisman wore an athletic swimsuit in the 2017 edition, this year she traded in the traditional bikini for a black marker.

In the photo spread, Raisman is depicted nude (her private parts are hidden), with phrases such as “Abuse is never OK,” “Fierce,” and “Survivor” inked across her body. The statement “Women do not have to be modest to be respected” is one of the larger, more noticeable messages, written from her shoulder to her ankle.

“Women (or anyone) should be able to wear whatever makes them feel comfortable and happy,” Raisman explained in an interview the magazine.

Raisman’s statement represents a current feminist theory that women shouldn’t be victim-blamed, body-shamed, or slut-shamed when they are the targets of sexual harassment.

Earlier this year, fashion designer Donna Karan defended producer Harvey Weinstein by saying, “How do we present ourselves as women? What are we asking? Are we asking for it? By presenting all the sensuality and all the sexuality?”

Heidi Stevens, a reporter for the Chicago Tribune, said in response, “It doesn’t matter what you wear. It’s not about clothing. It never has been. It never will be.… “You don’t ‘ask’ to be harassed because harassers don’t wait for an invitation. That’s not how harassment works.”

Raisman reiterated that she was “honored” to be a part of SI’s campaign that used “women of all shapes and sizes with various backgrounds.” Echoing her reasoning behind modeling for the clothing brand Aerie as part of their “new role models” and ongoing body positivity campaign, Raisman said, “Our society puts too much pressure on women and young girls to look ‘perfect,’ and we have to stop doing that.”

According to Allure, in 2014 Aerie, a subsidiary of American Eagle Outfitters, stopped using Photoshop to retouch images of their models who advertise lingerie and swimwear, a practice that is part of the #AerieReal body-positive movement. Many news outlets, including Business Insider, have dubbed Aerie the “anti Victoria’s Secret.”

Unlike Aerie, Victoria’s Secret and its “angels” are not strangers to limited size ranges and airbrushed images. The brand was heavily criticized in 2015 for obviously Photoshopping away half of a model’s posterior to achieve a “thigh gap,” and their most controversial campaign featured the slogan “The Perfect Body” alongside thin, one-sized models.

“Their use of the word ‘perfect’ [is] not only offensive to the 99.9% of the female population who don’t share the models’ ‘perfect’ proportions, it’s also deeply irresponsible, if not downright cruel,” responded Sarah Vine in an op-ed column for The Daily Mail.

The issue affects young women on a local scale as well. Santa Fe High senior Sonam Rabgay said, “Social media and influencers pressure women to look a certain way. People in entertainment are thinner than what I believe is normal, but at the same time when you see it so much you begin to think it is normal and the way you look is abnormal.”

Although the outrage, including a petition with over 20,000 signatures, pushed Victoria’s Secret to change the slogan to “A Body for Everybody,” the company still faces frequent backlash for its overuse of photo retouching and the lack of body diversity in its campaigns. Recently, it was slammed for failing to include racially diverse models and was heavily critiqued for cultural appropriation in the 2017 VS Fashion Show in Shanghai, where the segment “Nomadic Adventure” featured “Native American-inspired” headdresses and several “tribal” motifs.

Aerie and its campaigns, on the other hand, are largely endorsed by plus-sized models like Iskra Lawrence, 25.

Lawrence has been at the forefront of an all-inclusive beauty industry, and in 2016 criticized France’s ban on extremely thin, underweight models. The law, which according to CNN went into effect in May 2017, requires models to “provide a doctor’s certificate attesting to their overall physical health, with special regard to their body mass index (BMI) – a measure of weight in relation to height.” In addition, as of October 2017. retouched photos must indicate that they were digitally altered.

In an interview with People, Lawrence stated that the change, while a step in the right direction, was only a “temporary solution,” adding that she believes one’s BMI is not an indicator of health. “Muscle weighs more than fat,” Lawrence said, “so actually if you were to do the BMI of a bodybuilder, they would be morbidly obese.”

Indeed, as reported by Time, “BMI can’t distinguish between fat and muscle, which tends to be heavier and can tip more toned individuals into overweight status, even if their fat levels are low.”

In addition, Lawrence stressed the importance of being inclusive toward all body types, not just pushing for one extreme or the other. “Some models are naturally slim, and it’s a shame for them to miss out because of this law,” she said.

When asked what she believed the real issue was, Lawrence responded, “Runway models have less of an effect on women now. What is now more of an issue is social media. You get more varied body shapes, but they’re seeing it every day and it’s not really real. People are still using Photoshop.”

Rachel Simmons, author of Odd Girl Out and The Curse of the Good Girl, agrees, dubbing social media a “toxic mirror.” Simmons warns of the dangers that come with Instagram fitness and wellness accounts that promote “clean eating” but in reality are pro-anorexia (“pro-ana”) or “thinspiration” websites. “Both contain strong language inducing guilt about weight or the body, and promoted dieting, restraint and fat and weight stigmatization,” she said.

In addition, according to Time, “Psychologists found robust cross-cultural evidence linking social media use to body image concerns, dieting, body surveillance, a drive for thinness and self-objectification in adolescents.” CNN and a Common Sense survey revealed that of the teens who are active online, “35 percent are worried about people tagging them in unattractive photos, 27 percent feel stressed about how they look in posted photos, [and] 22 percent felt bad about themselves if their photos were ignored.”

Australian teenager and “instafamous” model Essena O’Neil completely rebranded her Instagram account in 2015, surprising her more than 600,000 followers. According to The Guardian, she deleted more than 2,000 pictures “that served no real purpose other than self-promotion.”

Her reasoning behind the change was because she believed “social media is not real life.” She even recaptioned some of her most popular photos. One caption under an image of her “candidly” laughing, wearing a two-piece sundress, explains that the photo was a paid promotion from a clothing brand.
“This has no purpose. No purpose in a forced smile, tiny clothes and being paid to look pretty,” she wrote. “We are a generation told to consume and consume, with no thought of where it all comes from and where it all goes.”

Another caption for a photo featuring her wearing a white dress reads, “NOT REAL LIFE – I…took countless photos trying to look hot for Instagram…made me feel incredibly alone.”

According to Time, O’Neil announced she is working on a satirical book titled How to Be Social Media Famous.

Yet while O’Neil may have quit social media, realizing she was “hungry for social media validation,” many other models, fitness accounts, and admirers have not done so.

Perhaps the #MeToo movement and an era of feminist agenda have sparked a body positivity that is different from its predecessors. Raisman agrees, believing that everyone is a survivor of something: “Often times, we feel pressure to keep things in, and being a part of the social media age, we sometimes want to act like everything is perfect,” she told Sports Illustrated. “I want to help change the conversation where we encourage people to trust themselves and use their voice…. everyone deserves to be heard.”