Last week, a saleswoman in a shop replied that at home, the sizes stopped at 42 and that their customers ate “light”. In reality, very often I am made to me: “With us, we stop at size 42”. As if women who wear more than this size 42 did not exist. Now they exist. We exist. I exist.
In fact, the fashion industry for several years seems to be trapped in an obsession with standard sizes, thus marginalizing those which do not enter these pre -established standards.
It is absurd that manufacturers of clothing and shoes continue to ignore the diversity of female morphologies by limiting themselves to standard sizes, often small, even very small. What can those who do not match these criteria? Overweight women, or very large, or those with small or large feet, are often confronted with a market that ignores them.
Why should we standardize people? Each should have the right to express themselves through its outfit without being limited by restrictive sizes. This exclusion of extraordinary women is an urgent subject that requires a questioning of the fashion industry.
In addition, in the rare stores specializing in large sizes or in extreme shoes, the options offered are often disappointing. The models available are too classic, even old -fashioned, not allowing extraordinary women to follow fashion trends and dress as they would like. It is as if we were to punish them for not entering a mold.
Why could these outstanding people or standard sizes be elegant and sexy? The aesthetics should not be reserved for a single category of people. Specialized stores must rethink their collections, offering modern and elegant clothes for all morphologies.
It has personally happened to wipe off derogatory remarks of not very respectful and non -professional sellers because not corresponding to these established standards and not entering these standard sizes of the 36/40. And that everywhere, in several countries of the world, mainly in Europe and Tunisia.
These unpleasant, although personal experiences illustrate a universal reality: the stigma of extraordinary women, often accompanied by prejudices in their lifestyle. They would almost blame them for not knowing how to behave and take care of themselves, after all these people do not know how to eat balanced and “light”, they do not know how to play sports, they have no will … Sometimes these prejudices of weight and appearance can influence the lives of these people, for example on their hiring in certain jobs … We often forget these overweight people, can have santed problems, natural. Besides, what to say for people who are too small or too large, having very small feet or on the contrary very large feet. What can they do against nature?
The remark of last week, supporting the fact that “their customers ate Light”, and therefore in contrast, not me, reminded me of an anecdote reported by the Moroccan sociologist Fatema Mernissi, reported in her book “The Harem and the West”: in a department store in New York, she had wanted to buy a skirt, but the seller had noticed that her hunches too wide Not allowed to find a skirt at its size in this department store. She had explained to him that sizes 36 and 38 are the norm, even the ideal, and that the extraordinary sizes, in particular his, are only available in specialized stores.
Fatema Mernissi’s book addresses this question with critical depth. The Moroccan sociologist, highlights the challenges faced by women who do not comply with the standards established by society.
She expresses her indignation in the face of this arbitrary standard which suddenly devalues her hips, previously perceived as the sign of fulfilled maturity. She raises the fundamental question: who decides what is normal? It disputes the established rules and questions the saleswoman on the legitimacy of the standard 38.
The saleswoman explains that the ideal standard or size is dictated by what we find everywhere, in magazines, on television, on posters, and by big names of fashion. Fatema Mernissi then questions the concept of normality and underlines the influence of the media and the fashion industry in the definition of bodily standards.
Subsequently, the author widens her remarks by evoking the way in which the West imposes aesthetic standards. She criticizes the focus on youth and thinness, denouncing the fact that ideal beauty is associated with unattainable criteria for the majority of women. She recalls that according to the writer Naomi Wolf, the weight of top models, contemporary images of ideal beauty, continues to move away from the weight of the female population as a whole: ” There is a generation, the weight of the average model was about 8 % lower than that of the average American. Today the difference is 23 % (…). This narrowing of the ideal silhouette is the cause of the increase in anorexia and other health problems ».
Furthermore, the sociologist notes that in the West, the fashion industry is controlled by men, who impose their rules on women and enclose them in a “harem”, different from the oriental harem, not imposing an confinement in space, but imposing an confinement in an aesthetic “ideal”.
Fatema Mernissi also refers to Pierre Bourdieu’s theory on “symbolic violence”, explaining how bodily standards are imposed by society and spontaneously accepted by women, helping to maintain a form of domination over them.
In the end, the author concludes that this oppression, although not visible, is real and manifests itself through bodily codes which paralyze the ability of women to access power. It denounces the constant pressure on the physical appearance of women and its impact on their self -confidence, stressing that fixing on thinness is more linked to a desire for obedience than an obsession with beauty.
Mernissi’s reflection invites us to question deeply rooted prejudices and to promote an acceptance of the diversity of bodies and to an emancipation of the domination of men through these imposed codes.
It is time to denounce this domination and free it. The persistent clothing injustice towards extraordinary women cannot be ignored. It is imperative that the fashion industry is evolving towards a more inclusive approach, abandoning standardized sizes in favor of a variety of choices responding to all morphologies. Diversity deserves to be celebrated, and each woman, whatever her size, should have the right to express himself freely through fashion without undergoing stigma. It is time to put an end to the tyranny of the single size and to embrace beauty in all its forms.
Neïla Driss
