What do you weigh?
For some women, this question makes their blood run cold.
We live in a world that that treats every belly roll, every cellulite dimple, every thick pair of thighs like a crime. An outrage. A joke. Some sort of personal failure on behalf of the woman to whom the body belongs.
But British television presenter, radio presenter, model and actress Jameela Jamil is pushing back against weight and body shaming with instagram page ‘@I_weigh‘
Our mothers had to deal with seeing celebrity womens bodies splattered across magazine covers with captions like ’40 best and worst bikini bodies! ‘ and ‘celeb bodies! The weird, the wobbly, the wonderful. ‘ Don’t believe me? Look here.
And we have our phone screens pretty much permanently glued to our eyeballs, churning out picture after picture of precisely one body type. Skinny. Usually white. With a pert, round ass.
In this movement women post photos, sharing exactly what they ‘weigh.’ That is, what favourite attributes, achievements and relationships their person is made up of, instead of the number on the scale.
“Hi I’m @jameelajamil this is my ‘I Weigh’ movement,” Jamil wrote in her bio. “For us to feel valuable and see how amazing we are, and look beyond the flesh on our bones.”
“I weigh: Lovely relationship, great friends, I laugh every day, I love my job, I make an honest living, I’m financially independent, I speak out for women’s rights, I like myself in spite of EVERYTHING I’ve been taught by the media to hate myself about. F—– KG,” she wrote.
Celebrities such as Emmy Rossum, and Kristen Bell have jumped on board.
The account is growing every day with more women sharing the parts they love best about their lives, and themselves. Proving to themselves and to others women are worth so much more than their dress, or bikini, size.
So, what do you weigh?