Bryony Gordon Why other women are the first to judge us
It wasn’t just ‘curvy’ ladies who wanted to thank us. It was thin ones, too
Idon’t know what I’ve found more bemusing over the last week: the frothing at the mouth people have done in anticipation of what the new royal baby might be called, as if the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge might have considered naming him Dave or Clive or, worse, calling him nothing at all; or the righteous indignation displayed at the Duchess’s appearance upon leaving the Lindo Wing. “It puts a ridiculous pressure on new mums!” screamed almost everyone, as if, by birthing a baby and following it with a blow dry, the Duchess had single-handedly let down all women the world over, and set back feminism several decades. Did we honestly expect her to shuffle out in a Primark nightie, a pair of tracksuit bottoms and some worn-down Ugg boots?
When I saw the Duchess in her lovely Jenny Packham dress beaming over her new son, I didn’t think: “How dare she have the gall to look amazing just seven hours after giving birth?” What I thought was: “Here we go again: watch as mainstream and social media mock and pillory the woman for simply doing her job.”
Male, female, corgi – when in public, members of the Royal family have to look presentable and neat. The Duchess is damned if she does and damned if she doesn’t; being a human being with emotions and feelings and all those other things humans have, she’d probably rather be damned for looking good than looking bad.
Who could honestly blame her? Many people, it seems, taking easy potshots at a new mum under the guise of making everyone else feel better. I don’t know if I mentioned this, but last weekend I ran the London Marathon in my underwear with my friend Jada Sezer, the plus-size model (my second marathon, just in case I forgot to mention the one I did last year). It was a breathtaking experience, and not just because of the distance and the heat. The whole way around, we were approached by other female runners (and some men), thanking us for being brave enough to do what we were doing – as if, by running in barely any clothes in 24-degree heat, we were going into desert battle.
We did what we did to try to give other people permission to start running – the people who, because of the tendency for the media only to portray bodies of one size, might not have the confidence to get out and exercise. But still, it surprised me quite how many women told us about their body confidence issues. It wasn’t just “curvy” ladies who wanted to thank us. It was thin ones, too, the ones whose insecurities we tend to dismiss.
“What do you have to worry about?” we snipe, at those “lucky” enough to be a size eight. “You have a thigh gap and perky boobs!” But the grass is always greener. It is not for any of us to undermine the way another person feels, whatever their size or shape.
Of course, there were people who wanted to criticise us – the people who said we were “promoting obesity”, even if we happened to be doing so while running a marathon; the journalist who somehow equated our running in sports bras and knickers with working in a brothel, telling us that there was nothing liberating about a woman taking her clothes off (tell that to the umpteen marathon runners who considered joining us by mile 19, when the tarmac appeared to be melting under foot). But these people were in the minority.
What was so overwhelming was the amount of support we received, and not just from our bras. It was evident on the streets of London and in our in-boxes and through our fundraising target (over £16,000 for Heads Together at the time of going to press).
As one “curvier” friend said to me after coming to cheer us on: “What your knicker run meant to me was this: I got to see women who looked like me achieving a physical feat, enjoying it and, most of all, being supported for it. In a culture where bigger bodies are often seen as incapable of exercise, that was truly inspiring.”
Jada and I were very clear when we came up with the idea of running in our underwear: we wanted to show that fitness is for everyone and exercise is for all. That nobody should ever be judged on their appearance alone, whether they are fat or thin or something in between. That there is no one way to look. And that it is never OK to make disparaging comments based purely on someone’s physical form, even if that person happens to be a Duchess. Underneath our clothes we are all the same: human beings with flaws; human beings with feelings.