We are all ‘real women’

The media likes to tell us that there is such a thing as ‘real women’. In truth all of these people are real women:

• Tall women, short women and average height women.
• Larger women, average sized women and very slim women.
• Disabled women and able-bodied women.
• Black women, Asian women, Caucasian women, mixed race women, Latin-American women and any other race in the whole world that has a female population.
• Gay women, bisexual women, self-identifying women.

The list goes on and on…

Nobody is a ‘fake’ woman or somehow inferior just because they don’t look like the ‘real’ woman on the Special K cereal box.

‘Real women’ is a useless term that pretends to promote ‘healthy’ figures when in fact it only belittles women who are perhaps genetically different to the image of a ‘real woman’. For example, it is possible to be naturally very thin but to also be very healthy. However, even if that individual were not healthy, is it really right to suggest they are somehow not ‘real’? Are we not human beings that exist in our own right?

The truth is women are women; whatever background, body shape, sexual preferences or lifestyle that we might have. Every single woman in the world is real because they are individuals that live and exist. Even if you had your entire body altered with plastic surgery you would still be a real person. Being a woman has nothing to do with your exterior, it is about identity and individuality.

‘Real women’ present women as ‘things’ and ‘types’ rather than as individuals. This popular media catch-phrase is demeaning and unhelpful to women. All it does is replace the admiration of one female stereotype and generalisation, for another one that is equally false.

Do not be seduced by the media’s pretence of female ‘empowerment’ and do not listen to these empty phrases that have nothing to do with womanhood. Women are women and by calling ourselves women we should acknowledge that no one can claim to be more ‘real’ than anyone else.