By Niamh Withers
A recent New York Post article faced extreme backlash after publishing a feature titled, “Bye-bye booty: Heroin Chic is back.” Although the article might have been trying to bring attention to the recent idolization of extremely thin figures, it did so in an extremely problematic and disgusting way.
The piece starts by making a comparison between women’s bodies and a pair of low-rise jeans with ugg boots, two trends of clothing that were popular in the late 90s and early 2000s. The writer goes on to make similar horrifying statements throughout the rest of the publication that I don’t feel are necessary to repeat. Essentially, the New York Post article treats a woman’s body as a mere object, an accessory to current fashion trends. Rather than continuing to summarize the disgusting statements made in that article, I will work to undo the harm that the writer has done.
Let me just start by saying that a human being’s body is nowhere near equivalent to a piece of clothing. It’s sickening and upsetting to see that articles as sexist and objectifying as this are still being published in the year 2022. The statements made in this piece are not only harmful but extremely dangerous for women everywhere. It is not okay to teach women to starve themselves to fit a “beauty standard” that should not exist in the first place. There should be no “beauty standard” because every single person is beautiful. Additionally, women’s bodies should never be a headline. It’s simply no one else’s business what someone is doing to their body, or their place to comment on someone else’s body. It’s disappointing to see articles like this trying to regress us back to an era of toxic diet culture and extreme sexism after all the progress we as a society have made. We must continue to uplift each other as women to maintain our progression.
The objectification of women has been a pressing issue since the start of humanity. It needs to end. We need to violently reject this sexist social norm and empower each other. Let’s build women up and teach them to have strong, healthy and capable bodies. Everyone and every body is beautiful.