Actually we are all 'real' women living in the 'real' world

[Bumpitybumper]

I am fed up of people declaring that because someone has some form of privilege or is different than the majority that their experience or very existence isn't 'real'.

The idea that 'real' women are a certain size is ridiculous. We are all human females that are alive and therefore are 'real'.

We all live in planet earth and therefore exist in the 'real world'. Some of us have an existence that is more representative of the majority or has more contact with difficult and hard parts of society but that doesn't make it more 'real'. It's just such a easy lazy way of dismissing different opinions and people's lived experiences. Kate Middleton is just as much of a part of the 'real world' as you are. Equally your experience of the world is as valid as someone born in the most deprived areas on Earth.

Basically my point is we all are part and in many ways form the 'real world'. It's not only reserved for those that feel that they have had enough struggle or difficulty in their lives to justify their place. You may struggle to give advice and bond with people with different life experiences but this doesn't mean you don't live in the real world.

The idea that 'real' women are a certain size is ridiculous. We are all human females that are alive and therefore are 'real'

I absolutely agree with this, the whole 'real women have curves' thing makes me want to scream. I've never had curves, I'm a skinny little thing and always have been, it's just the way I am. Am I less of a real woman because of it?

Interesting perspective. I think saying that others aren't living in the 'real world' most often is just a phrase to show how out of touch people like the rich elite/ government are. It's just a turn of phrase to communicate that others do not live in the same way they do. They lack empathy and are not being considerate of the needs of people of lower socioeconomic standing.

As you said, we all live in bubbles, but some people's bubbles actively rule over and dictate the others'. THAT is what they mean when they say 'you're not in the real world'. Whether or not you think the context it was used in was offensive is another matter 😆

@Glitterybug

I'm not going to accept Kate Middleton pretending that we are all in this together for eg lockdown when she's got an army of nannies, cleaners, cooks, drivers, gardeners to do all the grunt work for her. She's never had a proper job and she lives off hoarded wealth that she hasn't earned, firstly her parents and now her equally over privileged husband. I'll happily say she's got no idea about the real world. She hasn't got to worry about fuel shortages, or gas price rises, or the cost of school shoes when your kids grow out of them. She can get to fuck pretending she's just like the rest of us.

I guess OP’s point (that I think I agree with if I’ve understood it correctly) is that who decided that worrying about fuel shortage, gas price rises and the cost of school shoes is “the real world”. DH and I are ok, financially. Not rich, but as things stand, don’t have to worry about whether we can buy DD new shoes. Are we not living in the real world? And there are people in the world who don’t care about gas prices rising because their home doesn’t have gas or electric. And they don’t worry about their kids outgrowing school shoes because their children don’t go to school, or have shoes. There are people who would look at your problems and think “you don’t know you’re born” in the same way you look at Kate Middleton and think it. Which group of people are living in the real world? You seem to have decided it’s people like you, with problems like yours, when people worse off than you might think you’ve got no clue what you’re talking about.

Precisely @SickAndTiredAgain, who decides what not living in the 'real world' looks like. I think when people use this term they mean someone living differently than them and often (but not always) with more privilege.

People can suggest it's just a turn of phrase etc but I think it's more insidious than that as it's used to ridicule and undermine people's views and invalidate them.

we might all be in the same storm, but we are in vastly different vessels.

Exactly. People who don't have to worry about whether to turn on heating or buy food, because both isn't possible, does not share my reality. That's how it is.

I think that's a very facile way of looking at it. Of course we are all in the 'real' world but there's absolutely no denying that the material reality between different groups of people is so huge as to render them existing in two different worlds. I know someone who forgot a bit of his uniform and had the family pilot fly it to him. His parents owned a private jet in the same way mine owned a car.

Nope, I am convinced that some people on here are at best, deluding themselves or at worst, purposely spouting nonsense about how wonderful they and their lives are (whilst literally sitting in disaster).

@VladmirsPoutine

I think that's a very facile way of looking at it. Of course we are all in the 'real' world but there's absolutely no denying that the material reality between different groups of people is so huge as to render them existing in two different worlds. I know someone who forgot a bit of his uniform and had the family pilot fly it to him. His parents owned a private jet in the same way mine owned a car.

I don't deny that huge difference doesn't exist between groups of people for so many different reasons and in so many different ways. In a way that's my whole point, if there is so much difference then who decides what the 'real' world is and who is and isn't part of it. You might say this clearly quite rich person was outside your definition of living in the 'real' world, but I'm sure there are lots of other people on this planet who would say the same about you. We can acknowledge difference and privilege without having to dismiss people for not living in some fuzzy concept of a singular definitive 'real world' that is normally defined by your own terms of reference of what you view as normal.

Sorry I mean huge differences DO exist