to find the term "real woman" annoying?

[CaramelisedOnion]

in the context of a "real woman" being over say, a size 12, with the implication that those of us who are below this are somehow lacking?

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In some (not all) cases these "real" "healthy" women are......fat. Not so healthy.

Actually no, I won't.

It's a rather stupid question and I see no point in stating the obvious.

Hth.

Nothing much worral.
Purple however said
If you have a vagina you are a real woman
I thought it was a silly comment.
I really dislike the phrase "real woman".
I disagree that a vagina makes you a "real" woman, or indeed defines what it is to be a woman.
I took issue with this probably because I know someone born without a vagina.
Apologies for going off on tangent

Sorry Organic, I think purple was just using the standard definition of gender which usually comes down to genitals. Obviously there will be rare cases that don't fall into this definition, but it doesn't really make the definition less valid.

Sweet Jesus on a bike in Paris. Fine

Anyone who has XX Chromosomes and not XY is a real woman.

I'm sure your friend loves being a tool for you to nit pick at people post.

First woman IS NOT OVERWEIGHT. She has a jelly baby belly which will go as the months after child birth pass by.

The second one is overweight.

I think the term "real women" is a stupid term.

I blame Gok Wan. All that 'embrace your curves girlfriend' whilst he makes them dress in ghastly pencil skirts from M&Co.

I loathe this whole 'real women have curves' shizzle. Crock o'shite.

OO yes keep off. I am all for dressing to suit your figure, but it shouldn't be advertised as healthy to be overweight/obese/"curvy".

Sorry OP I think its a bit odd to object to women be branded 'real women' yet be so scathing of women who are on the normal/larger side. Do you want people to say slimmer women are real women and anyone a size 12 or above is overweight/fat?

I think this is part of the reason people have lost sight of what is real or not and I mean that in it's original sense.

One of those pictures is not real, it's photoshopped. I wonder if that's when you can legitimately talk about real or not real women?

We have a warped view on what is normal, on both ends of the scale.

i am an unreal woman.

at least about 2 stones of me is purely in my imagination... :)

Purple I don't know why you are being so aggressive, just because I happen to disagree with your definition of women and your use of the term "real women".
I objected to you saying real women have vaginas.
I thought it was a simplistic unhelpful definition, and I don't like the term "real women" that you used.
You used the term not me. Lots of people are objecting to it here.
Also you are making assumptions that are incorrect about my relationship with the woman in question.
I'm sure the woman without the vagina would find it really hurtful to be labelled as not a real woman by you, more to the point.

They made this poor ladies waist smaller than her head.

I also hate the assumption of you are carrying a little extra weight you are automatically unhealthy- does being slim automatically make you healthy? Far from it. It seems the same cliches are always applied in these kind of debates to make people feel their prejudices are more valid somehow

Organic, I don't think anyone is objecting to the term "real woman" the way you are. Also if I had a condition such as vaginal atresia and I knew my 'friend' was throwing it about on a public forum to prove a stupid point I would be horrified. Especially if she had completely missed the point.

I gave you Chromosomes now give me a break.

Utterly childish.

Some of you seem to be missing the point.

I am a size 6 in today's clothing. I weigh 7 stone and am 5 foot 7. Genetics built me this way and I have just as many hang-ups about my body as the next person. However, somehow I'm seen as 'fair-game' for a bit of verbal abuse here and there. My 'friends' in school were always mocking my lack of curves. Strangers, sadly always women, have told me to 'eat a pie' or 'have a cake, love'. Good friends have confessed to thinking I was an 'air-head supermodel' before getting to know me. A woman made a pass at my DH in front of me by asking him if he didn't ever fancy feeling a 'real woman' underneath him.

My birth certificate and my passport tell me I'm female. Here's a list of some of the things the 'unreal' body of this particular 'unreal' woman has done:

*Survived ovarian cancer
*Carried a foetus for 9 months
*Given birth to a baby
*Breastfed an infant for two years
*And, most recently, gone through a miscarriage.

[Disclaimer: I'm not saying for one second that not doing any of these things means you're not a real woman. I'm just asking how on earth I could have experienced any of these things if I wasn't a 'real' woman].

It must be difficult to be overweight in a culture that venerates slimness. But FFS, the way to fight this isn't to mock women who are smaller. Fight the fact that we're ALL judged by our size; it's just so fucking cruel.

Agree but don't turn it round as an opportunity to bash other women

"In some (not all) cases these "real" "healthy" women are......fat. Not so healthy" Great... who needs the media to make us feel crap when women do it so much better.

Really laughing at 'I gave you chromosomes, now give me a break'

Perhaps men will soon know what this slur feels like, now that Jacamo (clothes for salad dodgers) is advertising it's brand as offering clothes for 'real men'.

I am not 'sizeist' in any way but I do think its important for children to know its NOT ok to be overweight as it is unhealthy and can lead to many problems, it is also NOT ok to be too thin again as it leads to health problems.

Someone mentioned Gok Wan earlier, I do love Gok and think he's funny however I once said to some friends who were going on about how to look good naked and I said that I don't want him to make me think I look good naked, I actually WANT to look good naked, they all looked at me as if I had said something more along the lines of 'all fat people should be shot!' They said we should feel happier with our bodies but my arguement was that if you are a size 28 then you are not healthy so should try to do something about it, you don't have to be a perfectly toned size 10.

This country does have an issue with obesity, especially in children, when I was at school there were maybe a handful of children (in a school of 1100) that were really overweight. Most teenage girls then of say 13-15 were shopping in Tammy Girl etc, looking around on holiday the other week most girls of this age were at least a 12-14 with large bellies and hips etc. Teenage clothes do not actually fit many children of that age!

I think it is unrealistic that society does not recognise this!!!

Well said madeinchina.
My best friend is , and has always been, very slim and athletic looking, and she has had comments since she was a teenager about this, just randomly, and often from strangers. She eats normally, just is genetically skinny, in a healthy way.
I don't think either woman in those pics is overweight, The way the second one is sitting makes her look like she is, but we are so unused to seeing non-models sitting like that, it looks like she is huge! If she stood up, she wouldn't look overweight, just curvy.

It is kind of nice to see the floppy belly in the first one, since many of us have one, and you never see "attractive" women in pics sporting one, so to have it normalised is nice.
Mine still does that when I sit down, and I haven't given birth for nearly 6 years!

But of course we are all real women, and yes, "real woman" is often used in sentences which denigrate slim women.
Be healthy, be happy with what you have, ignore the scrutiny, don't scrutinise other women.