Come for every woman’s right to wear a swimsuit, and you’d best prepare to feel wrath as hot as the beach.
Dana Duggan, a swimwear designer from Massachusetts who believes Amy Schumer shouldn’t wear a bathing suit, was dragged by a handful of wise women after she shared this opinion in the comments section of InStyle’s Instagram account.
The magazine posted a photo of its May “beauty issue” cover, which features Schumer looking great in a white Ralph Lauren one-piece. “Come on now!” Duggan wrote under the account of her South Shore Swimwear brand. “You could not find anyone better for this cover? Not everyone should be in a swimsuit.”
Oh, Ms. Duggan. Where to begin?
Naturally, some of the mag’s followers were quick to clap back. One reminded Duggan that “swimwear is not just for women who are a size 2! She is a real woman with a real body. Bravo to @instylemagazine for showcasing her. She looks beautiful.”
Another commenter wrote she feels sorry for anyone who dislikes the cover, as well as “all the other people you judge and shame for their bodies.”
Duggan stood by her tone-deaf opinion in the comments, citing “freedom of speech” and adding that Schumer looks “like a pig.”
Duggan started her swimwear business in the late 1990s, according to a 2012 profile in the Quincy, Massachusetts Patriot Ledger. Her Facebook page says her business is by appointment only, though it is not currently accepting appointments. As recently as 2015, she was sharing swimwear shopping advice for women with different body types in Boston magazine.
Shocked that a swimwear designer would balk at any woman wearing a bathing suit ― much less a size 6-8 woman like Schumer ― we reached out to Duggan. As she requested we include that “The Huffington Post is the biggest piece of crap publication out there,” she stood by her words.
“I appreciate the free press. It’s called Freedom of Speech,” she said. “I can have my opinion and you can have yours. I’m tired of the media and publications trying to push the FAT agenda. It’s not healthy and it’s not pretty. What is wrong with featuring healthy and fit cover models?”
For starters, unless you’re a doctor you really have no business commenting on someone’s health. No one has any idea at all how “healthy and fit” someone is based on their appearance. And if Duggan’s idea of a more acceptable magazine cover includes exclusively promoting the unrealistic standards of beauty that women have been harmfully conditioned to believe are normal and aspirational for decades, she is quite frankly on the wrong side of the beach volleyball net.
Lastly, if anyone really still needs a reminder of who should and should not be wearing a swimsuit, might we suggest checking this handy infographic?
We’d go on forever, but commenter @Kristinbarnett9 really summed it up best.
You are entitled to your opinion, I never said you weren’t, but that doesn’t mean you are right! “Some people just don’t belong in a swimsuit???” I guess when I say I feel sorry for you, I also mean I feel sorry for you having some person or event in your life that made you think your self-worth is based on your size, and if you aren’t perfect that you should hide or not participate in everyday events. We have the freedom of speech in America, true, but I don’t think our forefathers realized they needed an asterisk adding *even though you can speak freely, that doesn’t always mean you should. Doing so could result in you looking like a shallow idiot.
Because buying anything from South Shore Swimwear seems impossible even if you wanted to, check out some of our favorite swimwear brands for women of all shapes and sizes instead.
