The following posts have been copied directly from the St Fessdrews Facebook page to provide context for this article:
“Am i being ridiculous for avoiding dating/hooking up/even talking to guys on dating apps because I have small boobs and believe guys will just look past me or cheat on me if we do hook up.”
“I hate my flat chest and hate my boyish figure so this was scary for me getting with someone.”
“I honestly relate so much – it’s the sole reason I have not had sex or dated a guy in like nearly 2 years because I have such small boobs and feel there’s no point…Sick of feeling so unattractive. Feel I have to have surgery just to be able to date like a normal person”
“Idk why there have been so many sad posts about small breasts/slender figures here. I feel like most guys in st andrews prefer that model type body”
“Lol as a skinny girl w no ass, no tits I can tell you men definitely don’t want me ? they want thicker girls”
“Can skinny girls literally STOP with their pity party? As a girl on the larger side, I can say without exception that every guy I’ve ever known has always gone for thin girls”
“having body dysmorphia and being insecure is shit around here considering everyone is just so beautiful ?”
Dear Women of St Andrews,
If you have spent any time surfing Fessdrews recently, you will have noticed the sudden surge of posts in which women rail against the shapes of their bodies, bemoan the fact that men won’t find them attractive because of this or that feature, or, worst of all, devalue the concerns of other women over their phenotypes because the author believes her concern is more legitimate.
This is not another manifesto to remind you that every body type is beautiful (though they are), that you shouldn’t measure your self worth by its perceived appeal to men (though you shouldn’t), and that to be loved and found attractive by others, you must first learn to love and admire yourself (though it’s true). I’m not even going to remind you that what’s within is infinitely more important than what’s without, because even when we know it to be true, it doesn’t take away the omnipresent pressure to be outwardly beautiful. The fact is that sometimes loving and respecting the shape of your own body is tremendously difficult. As we gorge ourselves daily on media bloated with photos of airbrushed, photoshopped, and frankly just genetic lottery-winning models, it is so easy for our perspectives to become wildly skewed, and for our own self-worth to plummet as a result. But you already know this.
I’m here to tell you that it is a myth that you are supposed to love your body every second of every day. No one does. Bodies are weird. They do strange and unpredictable things. They look better from certain angles and at certain times of day, they get tired and run down, they get battered, bruised, sunburned, scarred, and some days simply give up. And that’s ok.
What is not a myth, however, is that just as all bodies are beautiful (in spite of their bad days), all experiences are valid. Dear Women of St Andrews, a woman who feels insecure about her small breast size is every bit as entitled to that insecurity as a woman who is uncomfortable about her weight. A woman who feels “unfeminine” because of her height is as valid in that feeling as a woman who wishes she were tall. We all have things about our faces, our figures, our physiques we wish we could change, and while we may look at another woman and think wow, she’s gorgeous, what could she possibly have to complain about?, we can never know what she sees when she looks in the mirror.
And while we will keep fighting the good fight to increase diverse representation of body types in the media, to stop the subtle yet toxic suggestion that an anorexic build is a healthy build, and to dismantle the social media born conception that we “woke up” with perfectly coiffed hair, a dazzling complexion, and a casual dash of highlighter, for the here and now, we need to learn to give ourselves and others permission to have those bad days, and then move on to the good ones.
Dear Women of St Andrews, you don’t need to love your body every second of every day. You don’t need to feel guilty or invalidated because someone else’s struggles with self-image seem more significant than yours. And you don’t need to accept that beauty standards are societally ingrained truths that can never be altered. You do need to remember this:
If you hear a friend bemoaning a certain feature, tell her she looks great today. If you meet a girl in the bathroom frantically trying to make her hair behave, compliment her cool jacket or cute boots. And if you read a Fessdrews post in which a girl expresses anxiety over her appearance, send her a little love. We could all use it sometimes.