Hey, it's me again. That's right, I haven't retreated and decided to live under the rock and away from the internet just yet.
This past week and a half has been, as cliche as it sounds, a total roller-coaster. Despite what other publications may be telling you, we took back the beach by storm. I'm facing backlash daily and almost all of my social media feeds are filled with hateful messages. I'm even getting sent abusive emails. All of these responses have definitely be interesting, some merely just trolling whilst others genuinely believe they are helping me with their nasty comments. I almost considered ignoring it all and not writing about it until I woke up this morning and found that the Telegraph had called us "chubby".
I normally use internet trolls as a form of motivation. FYI: anybody who starts a debate then proceeds to insult you is almost definitely a troll. I've been accused of branding anybody who disagrees with me a troll and let me tell you that is not the case. You can disagree with me - that's fine. If you're all up in my mentions with abusive comments about my looks, you're getting blocked. However, this week it has been particularly tough to use all of this to motivate me. Today, the Telegraph is the straw that broke the feminist's back.
Photograph by Michael Mendones.
People have thought of absolutely every reason they can to render our "protest" pointless. I've been called fat, jealous and insecure so my opinion doesn't matter. I've also been called normal sized rendering the whole thing pointless and have been accused of being too sensitive - thus proving that women can never win.
On Saturday both Fiona and I spoke to a range of journalists together and still only her quotes are being used. It pains me to say it but even the media who appear to be on our side still seem to favour one body type. By discrediting me as one of the organisers, all these publications are doing is proving us right. The media only care about one body type and therefore only care about what Fiona has to say.
The pair of us merely represent just two different body types and by ignoring one but calling us both chubby, the media is alienating and disheartening thousands of other women out there.
Our resentment isn't towards the model in advert and it isn't towards each other, it's towards the media for still, in 2015, continuing to body shame women on a daily basis whether it's through advertisements, articles or alienation.
All that this has done has is show thousands how much people love to shame women on the internet for having an opinion and wanting to be the change she wants to see in the world. From Protein World's shameful responses on Twitter, to The Telegraph and thousands of others calling me chubby and to people still trying to make feminism look bad... I thank you.
All you have done is help me illustrate my point, have motivated me to keep doing so and reminded me why we still really need feminism.