Plusses And Minuses, Ctd

by Dish Staff

A reader responds a recent post:

Thank you for making me laugh out loud. Another so-white-it-hurts posting, this one about plus-sized women by Tyler McCall. There was nothing provocative about reading this article because “people I talked to” isn’t real research – it is a limited sphere at best, and boy was her sphere white.

WOC (women of color) are missing from this.  I live in New Orleans, and from what I have seen, they make everything in my size here (20). Style is incredibly varied because Black women, Latina women and Asian women are great customers.  This article had no mention of Igigi and Kiyonna, higher-end plus-sized houses, or discount retailer Ashley Stewart and Dress Barn. Or even Torrid. Of course all these sites prominently feature WOC as models. There was recently a successful Twitter campaign to get Torrid to not use only light-skinned models.

If you click on her hyperlinks throughout, they lead to other articles that sometimes contradicted the part she had highlighted.  The elastic waistband that women wear at size 16 or 18 – click the link and it is her railing against them. I am sure her editors just linked to whatever keywords they could.

It was an oddly lazy piece – “we” = white women. Market testing is fallible. Size 14 is not 22, so choosing between a model who is an 8 and one who is a 14 is odd and would not show me even vaguely what the dress would look like on me. So I would skip it.  But my closet is not empty. And all the brands I mentioned above are doing great. Plus there is Zulily and other online-only retailers, as well as the thriving eBay market for reselling if you do gain or lose weight – something she did not consider.

The use of only-white perspectives in McCall’s piece is something feminism is very much having a problem with. The article is prescriptive without even including WOC.  And telling WOC that they need to go out there:

if we’re not seeing ourselves represented, then we need to go out and represent ourselves, and that’s why the Internet is so amazing because there’s so many beautiful women with really strong voices making names for themselves

When WOC are already out there, but not celebrated, interviewed or included in these types of postings, it’s ridiculous. And when their style does get recognition, it is because a White Women co-ops it … Katy Perry, anyone?