Welcome the newest member of the women’s body trend family: thigh brows. What are thigh brows, you may ask? They have nothing to do with hairy legs—no, no, no, that is not acceptable. A thigh brow is the crease formed between the thigh and the hip when someone sits down with their legs tucked underneath them. On the surface, it seems like that would refer to a joint, something everyone has, but there are all of the unwritten restrictions.
Celebrities have been posting pictures in high-waisted bikinis of their “thigh brows” while sitting on their yachts, claiming to be promoting body positivity. The message here seems to be clear: It’s OK if your have joints by your hips, but as long as you have a flat stomach, your skin is clear, you are toned and tan, your hair is perfect and—most important of all—you are curvy but not too curvy, you can still be pretty!
WOW! How encouraging.
The problem with these body trends is that they highlight one body part that needs to be a certain way, leaving a majority of women who have different body types out of the loop. Sure, everyone has joints on their legs, but the way the trend has been shown on social media definitely leaves out super skinny women, overweight women and anyone who doesn’t fall into the “curvy but not too curvy” category.
This is just another fad in a line of trends that provides standards for body image that exclude most of the female population. Before thigh brows, we had thigh gaps, a ridiculous trend that only skinny girls with a specific body type could partake in. Now, however, people are saying that thigh brows are the new thigh gaps. Having a thigh gap is no longer in, since curvy is the new skinny.
In an attempt to stop fat-shaming, instead of actually becoming accepting to body types, society has turned to a new scapegoat in the form of thin-shaming. People do not seem to think this is a problem because everyone wants to be skinny, right? However, going and telling a skinny person that they’re too skinny or to “go put some meat on their bones” is just as bad as telling an overweight person that they’re too fat. One of them, however, is socially accepted by society, and I cannot tell you how many times it happens. No one blinks an eye.
It’s considered a compliment to be told that you are skinny, so thin women are trained to just accept the criticism. Recently, it has been seen as more and more acceptable to make fun of skinny women. Meghan Trainor’s popular song, “All About That Bass,” seems to be a message on body positivity, but puts down fat-shaming by promoting skinny-shaming. One of the first lines of the song is “Yeah, it’s pretty clear, I ain’t no size two, but I can shake it, shake it, like I’m supposed to do.” She goes on to tell skinny girls off and, in her music video, actually shows a skinny model being pushed aside and snubbed.
News flash: skinny girls have insecurities about their weight, too.
Dividing people in categories of skinny and curvy and then crapping on one group to bring up another group is not acceptable. They’re teaching girls that the only way to feel good about your body is to compare yourself to someone else and put them down. Why does society feel that they need to pit women against each other instead of supporting one another?
Body positivity is a fantastic concept. Encouraging women to be confident in their bodies, despite their insecurities, is a message that cannot be reiterated enough. We need to stop fat-shaming. We need to stop skinny-shaming. We need to stop shaming anyone because of their body, and body trends are not the way to do that.
Follow Apoorva Bhaskara on Twitter.