Celebrating women of all sizes: just a myth

Vogue annually publishes the so-called Shape Issue, whose aim is to celebrate women of all sizes and silhouettes. In 2009, Vogue published this video, combined of short interviews with Adele, who was supposed to represent all the plus-size women; Doutzen Kroes, a Victoria's Secret model, and Zoe Kravitz and Olivia Thrilby, two good-looking actresses. The combination of women at the first glance look like women of all sizes are represented indeed. In the beginning of the interview, Vogue's Fashion Editor, a lady called Phyllis, claims that Vogue is trying to show how ''anybody can look chic and beautiful". Needless to say that I agree with this statement. Shortly after, however, the hidden sexism appears. The next scene depicts Adele dressed in something that looks a lot like a sack - huge and without any shape or style. Five seconds after, you can see Doutzen Kroes dressed in nothing but her underwear, showing off her athletic body, exercising and living a healthy life. The message I got from that is - look at Doutzen, she's hot, tall and skinny, so let's represent her as a piece of meat, while Adele, on the other hand, can be represented as a sack. The two actresses, Zoe and Olivia, are pretty and in shape. Yet, according to Vogue, there is something wrong with them - they are both short! Therefore, Vogue put on them on extremely high heels in order to make them look more like supermodels or, in other words, come closer to "the ideal of female beauty" Vogue is trying to promote. What is sad is that the actresses loved that act. As a matter of fact, one of them said that the message they want to convey is "don't just sit there if you're only 5'3 tall - do something about it". There you go. Even when it is trying to be more feminist, Vogue can't avoid being harsh on women, stereotyping, objectifying and, above all, being sexist. I am sure Vogue has received a lot of praise for coming up with Shape Issues, for originally there was a good idea behind this project; unfortunately, all one needs is to be a good observer in order to realize that shapes and curves belong nowhere near Vogue's philosophy.