[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_text module_class=”custom-post-title” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_font=”Black Han Sans|700||on|||||” header_text_align=”center” header_font_size=”46px” header_letter_spacing=”4px” custom_margin=”25px||5px||false|false” custom_padding=”0px||0px||true|false” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n
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Words by Ashley James<\/strong><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2024\/04\/GettyImages-1646196919-copy.jpg” alt=”Jennifer Aniston” title_text=”GettyImages-1646196919-copy” force_fullwidth=”on” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n At the beginning of last week, I woke up feeling excited for my regular appearance on hit daytime TV show This Morning. I was there to chat about everything going on in the morning\u2019s newspapers, and I knew I wanted an outfit that would make me feel amazing. I had the perfect choice: a Nadine Merabi suit.<\/p>\n When I first saw the suit online, it was love at first sight. Having given birth to my second child last year, I\u2019m still in that postnatal place where my body is different to what it once was. I\u2019m breastfeeding, my bones are adjusting, and I still don\u2019t quite know what size I am. It\u2019s hard enough getting dressed in the morning as it is, let alone getting dressed when nothing feels quite right. That\u2019s exactly why this suit felt perfect. I\u2019m all for dopamine dressing, and the gorgeous shade of purple was right up my street. Putting it on, I felt happy and confident. Then I came off air, and the DMs came in. It seemed not everyone loved the suit as much as I did.<\/p>\n After the show shared a clip of me talking about how important it was to stop objectifying women and policing their bodies, lo and behold, here were comments objectifying me. The irony is palpable. \u2018Is this why she wore her revealing waistcoat?\u2019 wrote one woman. \u2018Lovely suit, but not for morning TV.\u2019 Another added, \u2018Wants to be taken seriously and comes dressed like this?\u2019<\/p>\n One comment stuck out to me most: \u2018Even as a woman, I do not want to see a vast expanse of your cleavage, and I\u2019ve messaged This Morning to tell them this too. Breasts are beautiful, but not to be shown off on a morning programme.\u2019<\/p>\n Did I have cleavage, I asked myself? It hadn\u2019t even occurred to me that the suit could be anything other than perfectly acceptable. I couldn\u2019t believe what I was reading. I took to Instagram to share what was now a wealth of ludicrous comments about my outfit and body, asking the question, when will we stop sexualising women for merely existing?<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”custom-quote” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_font=”Libre Bodoni|||on|||||” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_text_color=”#333333″ header_2_font_size=”40px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n Having been in the public eye for over a decade now, the comments don\u2019t hurt me the way they used to. I\u2019m done feeling ashamed of my body. What does worry me though is knowing that so little has changed. I couldn\u2019t help but think about all the times in my life I\u2019ve been told to cover up. \u2018You can\u2019t wear that, you\u2019ll distract the boys\u2019, \u2018Gosh, you just love the attention!\u2019 The jibes felt constant. And when the boys at school would ping my bra strap, it would be me that took the fall, my reaction shrugged off as an overreaction. Every time I was blamed, it was further reinforcement that my body was the problem.<\/p>\n I\u2019m confident enough now to know that these comments hold no weight. I\u2019ve overcome the diet industry and unrealistic beauty standards, and even in my postpartum era I refuse to shrink myself to fit anyone\u2019s expectations. But in an ideal world, I actually wouldn\u2019t want to have big boobs. In fact, contrary to what many seem to think, I don\u2019t love my breasts at all. I\u2019ve never loved them.<\/p>\n I developed boobs early, reaching a 30GG by the time I was 14. While friends were picking out their first bras, donned with cherry prints and Winnie The Pooh, I was dragged into lofty department stores. Girly patterns were replaced with practical and supportive so-called granny bras. \u2018Why aren\u2019t there any nice bras\u2019, I\u2019d wonder to myself.<\/p>\n To this day, I remember the vulgar comments I would get from the boys in school (\u2018Can I have a tit wank?\u2019) While teachers seemed to think I loved the attention, the reality was that I didn\u2019t. It forced me to quit playing sports, ever aware of the boys on the side-lines waiting to see if I\u2019d \u2018jiggle.\u2019 From my body alone, boys, teachers, and the people around me had deemed me a slut. At one point, I remember someone saying \u2018Ashley, you\u2019re an intelligent girl, and you have a choice. You can choose to be brains, or you can choose to be beauty.\u2019<\/p>\n Fast forward a few years and I was sat in the GP surgery with my mum, hearing the doctor tell me that I wasn\u2019t old enough for breast reduction surgery, that it was too big of a choice to be made so young. It\u2019s sad to think that a child can be sexualised and shamed to the point that they want to modify their body in order to no longer feel responsible for the attention they bring, and then subsequently have no autonomy over it either.<\/p>\n Even today, I still feel the same stress prickling away when I pick out what to wear. Is it too slutty? It is too much? Maybe I should find something with a higher neckline, but then will I labelled too \u2018mumsy\u2019? Endless questions rattle through my head, an all-consuming battle that leaves me damned if I do, damned if I don\u2019t. [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”custom-quote” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_font=”Libre Bodoni|||on|||||” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_text_color=”#333333″ header_2_font_size=”40px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” theme_builder_area=”post_content” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n Looking at the comments under my This Morning clip, it\u2019s hard to ignore that a lot of them come from women. I think we all have elements of internalised misogyny that we\u2019re unlearning, and many would do well to acknowledge that within themselves. It\u2019s the culture we\u2019ve grown up in, told that boys like girls who leave \u2018just the right amount\u2019 to the imagination. Opening my phone each morning, I\u2019m still faced with an array of tabloid headlines about \u2018flaunting figures\u2019 and \u2018leggy displays\u2019, as if our bodies are objects to be displayed rather than just the vessels that carry us through life. From dress codes to get into bars to our flawed judicial systems that always seem to ask, \u2018But what was she wearing?\u2019, it\u2019s clear that the sexualisation of women is systemic.<\/p>\n When my son was born, everyone told me \u2018He\u2019ll be a heartbreaker!\u2019 When my daughter was born, it was \u2018You\u2019ll have to lock her up.\u2019 I can\u2019t help but think, if we\u2019re going to lock one of the genders up, why not lock up the gender that committed 98% of sexual offences in the year ending March 2020? With incel culture on the rise and men like Andrew Tate celebrated globally, raising good men feels even more of a responsibility than raising daughters.<\/p>\n My message is this: we need to stop putting the onus on women, telling them that by simply existing, they attract attention. When you repeatedly tell little girls to cover up to avoid unwanted attention, you tell her that her body is shameful. That little girl grows up to believe that it\u2019s our responsibility to not get harassed.<\/p>\n Women are consistently dubbed attention seekers \u2013 but maybe consider that we don\u2019t actually want the attention that we\u2019re given. And maybe, our bodies shouldn\u2019t be the focus anyway. It\u2019s a clich\u00e9, but our bodies are the least interesting thing about us \u2013 and I can promise that what we say is far more interesting.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#111111″ divider_position=”center” divider_weight=”2px” module_class=”custom-divider” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” custom_margin=”0px||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”0px||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][\/et_pb_divider][et_pb_text module_class=”credit-texts” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|||on|||||” text_orientation=”center” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]<\/p>\n Photo: <\/b>Getty<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I took to Instagram to share what was now a wealth of ludicrous comments about my outfit and body<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":2539,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feature"],"acf":[],"modified_by":"kschwarz","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2538"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2548,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2538\/revisions\/2548"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}‘From my body alone, boys, teachers, and the people around me had deemed me a slut’<\/h2>\n
By all backwards societal standards, my boobs are old now. I\u2019m in my late 30\u2019s and I\u2019ve had two children. They\u2019re not perky, they\u2019ve breastfed my two babies, yet this past week shows I still face the same hyper-sexualisation that has followed me since girlhood.<\/p>\n‘Women are consistently dubbed attention seekers \u2013 but maybe consider that we don\u2019t actually want the attention that we\u2019re given’<\/span><\/h2>\n