It feels like there’s a new plus-sized person shamed by the media every other week.
This past May, Facebook had to publicly apologize to a plus-sized model whose photo they took down after deeming it ‘undesirable’. And in March, a body-positive commercial from Lane Bryant was rejected from TV networks for being ‘indecent’.
Unfortunately, we can add Instagram to the list of body-shaming outlets as it has taken down a plus-size woman’s bikini pic because it “violates” Instagram’s community guidelines.
Blogger Aarti Olivia Dubey, the Singaporean-Indian founder of Curves Become Her, recently became the first plus-size person to write an article in a fashion magazine in Singapore. The post was for Cleo Magazine, and with it came a swimsuit shoot featuring Dubey and two other women.
When the issue came out, Dubey posted a behind-the-scenes shot of herself and the other women featured in the shoot on Instagram, only to have it taken down the following morning for “violating community standards” after it was repeatedly flagged by other users.
“I went to bed content with the article and the overall positive response it garnered, and told myself it was time to look onward to the new week. I really underestimated the malicious power of fat shaming trolls though,” Dubey wrote in a post on her blog following the incident.
“When I awoke at 6 in the morning the next day and checked into Instagram, a screen popped up informing me that a post of mine was removed due to violation of community guidelines … This was not some pornographic image, it was not filled with gore or violence, it did not do Anything save for be an image of 3 smiling fat chicks in swimwear that we can hardly term as ‘lewd’?”
But instead of letting the setback defeat her, Dubey responded with a series of hard-hitting Instagram and blog posts on fat shaming. Over the following days, Dubey was adamant she deserved not only an apology from Instagram, but that her photograph be restored. She added another photo demanding an answer for why her “freedom of speech as a plus-sized blogger to post an image that resonated with so many and for all my posts as a plus sized person that give hope to my followers” was taken down.
Finally, a long two weeks later, Instagram responded to her questions, claiming the incident was the mistake of a staff member and re-added the original photo, to which Dubey called bullshit.
In one final blog post, Dubey shared how everyone can overcome body-shamers.
“The lesson here my dear friends, is that in a world where bodies like mine are still regarded with blind hate and faux-concern..there is only one way to get through the muck,” Dubey wrote on her blog. “And that is to rise above it, create ripples of change, and move forward.”
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