Slut shaming: How dare you talk about women's size
Slut shaming. Body shaming. Public shaming. It's a shame that the only way we interact with women is to put them down. This is over and above the regular news stories about rape, physical violence and constant humiliation. Of late, the oddest articles have been popping up on my timeline. The kind that run along the lines of ticking off our young female actors for daring to call themselves "curvy". Seems like they need to recognise that they are fat and then do something about it. Even more alarming is that there is no Twitter outrage about these ridiculously sexist comments. Apparently, Sonakshi Sinha, Parineeti Chopra et al should suck it up and start following the gym routines of the Khans, Hrithik Roshan and every other male newbie who thinks a six-pack is akin to an acting degree. Really? Really? I thought the job of an actor was simply to act. Basing their credibility / talent on shape - does that sound as ridiculous to you as it does to me? I don't see women insisting that Salman and Aamir grow up and at least be the height of an average adult male before they qualify for the silver screen. We could argue that male actors shouldn't need props to …err… prop them up to be in the same frame as an average-sized female lead. But we don't.
The issue of size has always been a contentious one. And a fatal one in the business of fashion. Deaths of models due to anorexia - the Ramos sisters in Uruguay being one of many such cases - led to the European fashion houses of Madrid and Milan to ban skinny models in 2006 and 2007. Soon Paris signed a voluntary charter in 2008. The latest country to follow suit was Israel, when, in 2013 it barred underweight girls from the catwalk and advertising campaigns. And while New York refuses to be part of this citing a violation of their creative freedom models now look like they would actually make a dent on the weighing scales when they step on.
The good news is that back home we really don't have this issue. Indian models have never had to accrue to the strange notion of size zero. Back in the day when shows were largely focused on bridal wear, it was clear that you needed hips and an ass to do justice to a heavily-worked lehenga or saree. With the advent of the first Fashion Week in India, in 2000, our ramps were filled with girls who were taller and yes, thinner, but not skinny. Never skinny. The show stopper always was a girl who walked well - but wasn't skin and bones.
Think Bhawna Sharma, Carol Gracias, Laxmi Rana. A lot of these girls are still getting some of the best clothes in the recently concluded Wills Lifestyle Fashion Week, Spring/Summer 2015. Among the younger lot you just need to look at Sucheta Sharma, Diva Dhawan and Kanishtha Dhankhar. At the Shivan & Narresh show at the same fashion week, the country's finest swimwear designers put the model's bodies to test and they all passed with flying colours. With no room for concealment in their body-hugging creations you could see muscle and tone and a certain lovely Indian curviness. Designer Wendell Rodricks after his show on a later day posted this about his group of models: "The swimsuit worthy bodies. We love them." If the world of fashion is showing its smarts by supporting strength where does anyone else get off telling women to look like girls? Follow this trend. It isn't going out of style any time soon.