Profile: Sophie Ward, founder of Bristol’s first Body Positivity Society

The body positivity movement is a new and growing one. It promotes acceptance of all body types and is, I believe, highly relevant for students at Bristol. So for the first Profile article of the year I met Sophie Ward. Sophie is a third-year English student at Bristol, and founded the Body Positivity Society here, which she created as ‘A safe space for the people of Bristol – regardless of gender – to spread the bo-po lurrrv and support one another on our journeys to self-acceptance’.

Firstly, why did you think it was important that Bristol, in particular, should have a body positivity group?

I found that Bristol is particularly image conscious, and there’s a certain accepted style (which is usually skinny, wearing baggy clothes) and I didn’t fit into that. I’m curvy and I have bigger boobs, and even though at home those things were praised, here it wasn’t the desired look. Everyone was focusing on being thinner, and that made me feel like I needed to be on diet. This lead to disordered eating habits, and hating my body to a point in second year where I was in quite a bad place. I didn’t want to even leave house or put my clothes on. I felt like I really needed to talk to someone about it but it was really difficult, especially at Bristol where everyone is so ‘care-free’ about their appearance I actually found it embarrassing to talk about. So I wrote a post on the FemSoc Facebook page asking if anyone wanted to form some sort of body positivity group, and I got loads of responses. I realised that others were struggling even though they didn’t look like they were.

What did the group look like at the beginning compared to now, and how did the popularity come about?

So after writing the post on the FemSoc page, I was asked to write an article by Her Campus, and not to blow my own trumpet too much but it did really well. It got the most hits, shares and likes of the year, and within a few weeks there were over 300 members. The Instagram page now has nearly 1500 followers. So social media was massive in making the group bigger.

Obviously social media has been great for bringing people together, but do you think that it also partly created the need for the group in the first place?

Yeah definitely. When I was at my lowest point there was constant stream of skinny girls and people looking so happy and care-free, and it made me feel even worse. I was guilty of this too though – my Instagram made me look like I was having a great time and I was actually really unhappy. Even my mum would say ‘but you look like you’re having so much fun!’. Unfortunately that’s the world we live in, and I think this is a really good away to counteract all of that. My posts on the bo-po Instagram page try to show a more realistic side of what’s going on.

Has there been any cases in particular that have been really touching?

There’s not one thing that really stands out, but I’ll be on nights out in Bristol and people will come up to me and thank me. They’ll say things like ‘over summer the pictures on Instagram made me feel so much better in my bikini’ and that’s really nice to hear.

And would you say there’s been any negative responses to anything to do with the group?

There was some disagreement over trigger warnings. It’s hard because we’re the first generation to have social media, so we’re making all the rules, and nothing’s set out for us. It’s quite a new thing to put trigger warnings on stuff, and I only knew about it after I started the group. Once I realised people needed them though I outlined it in the group manifesto. Also, the group was accused of ‘white feminism’ which is also a hard one, because obviously I am white, and I don’t want to speak for others’ experiences, but Bristol is predominantly white Uni so most of the people in the group are white. That being said I try to share articles and pictures in the group that cover a more diverse experience.

What are your hopes for yourself after you leave Bristol this year, and for the future of the group?

For me I’d like to find a job where I’m helping people and not just sitting at desk. I want to be doing something positive, maybe making documentaries or that sort of thing. For the group, I have a really good committee so I’m positive I can hand it over to someone who can do really good things with it. It’s a fairly new official society so I’m still going through all the formalities of setting that up, but I have a lot of good ideas for the near future. There’s going to be monthly themes, and one support group a month to discuss issues like sex and nudity or body hair. Then there will be another meeting which will be more action based, so how we want to combat the issue. There is way more structure to the group now and I’m excited about the future.

Links:

Sophie’s Her Campus article

Bo-po Instagram: @bopoportfolio

Bo-po Facebook

• body positivity
• Bristol Profile
• feminism