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In Defense of Curvy Kate
I debated whether to post this, but eventually decided that I really want to say this. I'm vowing to myself in advance that I'm not going to respond to any comments on this post.
A disclaimer: I have absolutely no affiliation with Curvy Kate. I've never so much as seen a CK bra in person. I like some of their designs, but I know their shapes won't work for me. I don't live in a country that's eligible for any Star in a Bra competition.
To my main point: I think the whole debate on whether CK should allow women with surgically altered breasts to compete in SiaB comes down to a set of 2 questions:
1. Do you think women with breasts that have been surgically enhanced for aesthetic reasons should be allowed to compete?
2. Should CK ask for medical records for confirmation of non-aesthetic breast surgery?
My answer to both questions is: No.
I think the second one is obvious: Where do they draw the line? If breasts were reduced for medical reasons, but the shape was altered in the process, does that count? Who decides what constitutes an alteration and what constitutes an enhancement? What counts as a valid medical reason?
What I'd like to talk about is why I believe it's OK for CK to choose to exclude women with breasts that have been surgically enhanced for aesthetic reasons.
I understand that for most women the choice to have breast enhancement surgery is not taken lightly. Surgery is a very unpleasant experience: it's painful, it's expensive, it disrupts your life. I'm sure that being made to feel like you're being unfairly excluded by CK is very upsetting, and may touch on self esteem issues that you thought you'd left behind.
But I have a little sister (she's 22 now, but she'll always be my baby sister). She is an absolutely beautiful girl. She's thin, but she thinks she's fat because she has boobs and hips and a bum. As a teenager her friends teased her for having the biggest boobs. Until last year, when she was fitted into a 28GG at Bravissimo, she wanted to have breast reduction surgery.
My sister loves the Curvy Kate models. When she looks at them, she sees bodies that are more like hers than those of any other models she's seen. CK's models help her see how beautiful her own body is.
I have two cousins who had breast reduction surgery in their late teens. I am close to one of them, and because she's lost a lot of weight since the surgery, her breasts now have a very strange, unnatural shape. She can't breastfeed her son because of the surgery. I wish that CK's models had been around when she was 18, so that she could have seen bodies like hers before putting herself through the pain of surgery and giving up on the chance to breastfeed her babies.
I've struggled with my body image since puberty. I look at pictures of myself from my teens: I'm either in baggy jeans and oversized tops, or in ballet clothes. The ballet pictures show me how beautiful my body actually was, and how unnecessary the baggy outfits were. I wish I could have seen pictures of CK's models when I was 13, or 16, or 18, because then when I looked in the bathroom mirror instead of seeing a body I needed to hide, because it was so different to the bodies I saw in ads or in television shows, I would have seen a body I should have been proud of.
There are millions of young women and girls around the world who struggle with their self esteem and body image, and feel unattractive compared with the images that most companies (including youth oriented full bust companies like Freya or Cleo) project at them. Curvy Kate do a wonderful thing, by putting out images of a different body type. And their positive effect, I truly believe, is only possible because their models show the bodies they were born with.
My sister and I, and other women like us, can see positive role models in the CK models because we know they were made that way. Knowing that the models might have surgically enhanced breasts would change that image.
I don't think CK are completely blameless for this situation. I think their PR people made a complete balls-up, and utterly failed to get the correct message out.
But when it comes right down to it, they're a business, not a non-profit organization, and they have to make certain choices in order to survive in an industry that becomes more competitive every year. Someone was going to be hurt, whether they chose to include women who've had breast surgery or not.
In the end, I'm glad Curvy Kate are around, and I wish other companies showed as much diversity as they do.
Filed under Bras ups and downs
12 comments
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Why are you not going to respond? I feel like if you post something like this you should be willing to participate in the discussion that it causes. I'm just going to say I completely disagree with you, though, I see women who have had surgery as no different to me, they have struggled with self esteem too, many even more so than the rest of us, but they don't get to see 'themself' in the models. Nobody is saying that all the entrants will be 'enhanced' but would it really hurt to include this large group of women that are already prejudiced against by stupid stereotypes? No.
I'm not even going to mention the fact that they would exclude someone that had had a lump removed from their breast, a potential life saving medical procedure.
amy__rebecca I'm firmly sitting on the fence with this one- I think both sides have made some really valid points.
I do see mokesh's point of view, in that I love that the CK models are like me- busty girls who also carry weight around their hips and legs- and I do feel that CK by using them are publically saying 'you know what, it's ok to look like this, you don't have to change anything', which is such a refreshing change to the usual rubbish churned out about this reality tv star or that pop star balooning to a size 12 and urgently dieting because their so hideously fat. I also see that by allowing women with implants/ those who have had reduction surgery to enter the competition, it could be perceived to be siding with the 'some boobs are so big the just need to be made smaller' mindset, which ultimately does go against the purpose of SIAB.
However, I also can see the points made by Professor_Ace and others, and the idea of being excluded from something you would otherwise qualify from because of something undertaken for you health and well being is horrendous, I also think CK have not handled the debate well at all. The excluding of women who have undergone lumpectomies is wrong- I don't think anyone could argue with that.
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