instagate - heros and hoes

The above quote by Neal Brennan is on the money. The backlash to any woman posting pictures either nude or in clothing others think is inappropriate screams of the sexism that many criticising say that are against. As Neal commented, two different sized women posing naked will receive two very different critiques. A man posing nude or revealing parts of his body is never vilified for being a bad role model or implied to be a “slut”. Dictating how some women should act, telling them their behaviour, which does not impact you is inappropriate, and belittling them for the same decisions as others only limits the freedoms of those women.

In March this year, Kim Kardashian posted a picture on Instagram of her naked with blacked over her private parts. You could see no more than any other nude “artistic” picture that is posted over all social and more traditional media, for example, the classic nude pregnancy celebrity photographs. Kim herself has posed naked before for Playboy and Paper magazine, but the March post got people angry. From Better Midler to Piers Morgan to Chloe Grace Moretz, the daggers were out for Kim K. Yesterday, football star Nic Naitanui posted on his Instagram a picture of the latest cover of Men’s Health magazine with him on the cover wearing a t-shirt. NRL star Sam Burgess, who has previously posed on the cover of the same magazine shirtless, commented telling Naitanui he should have got “the big rig out”. So for men it’s fun to show off their bodies. For some women, it’s brave. But for others like Kim K, there is criticism. How dare she show off her body? She is a role model for women, and you can’t be proud of your body and a role model. Oh wait that is exactly the underlying confidence that we do want young girls to have.

So here lies the debate – do we tell women and girls to not post revealing photos on social media because they are more than just “bodies”? Or do we support whatever they choose to do because shouldn’t we have come further than that now? Shouldn’t we be saying women have the right to wear what they want, post what they want and be as sexual (or not sexual) as they want. Anytime you let a man or women dictate what a woman “should” be doing as a woman, then as a society we are not where we want to be in terms of treating woman as equals.

I certainly don’t want young girls thinking that showing your body for likes on Instagram is the only way to get attention, to be a good person. But I am also certainly not going to start telling other people how they “should” and “shouldn’t” act when it does not affect anyone else. Whilst I haven't received criticism for what I post online (and if I did I wouldn't care), I do not condone that others do. Because I want everyone, but especially women and girls, to be more concerned with what they think of themselves than what others think of them. I want them to be more concerned with being better people than requiring the validation of others. But when faced with criticism, whether from strangers or those you care about, you can sometimes forget what is truly important.

I post bikini pictures, and other maybe “too revealing” for some, photos on my Instagram because I can. I wear whatever clothes I want because I can. Because that doesn’t define who I am as a person. If you bother to speak to me or get to know me I have done a lot more in my life and there is a lot more to me. And if you just want to admire my body, then hey, go ahead. Because no matter what people admire about me I will take it as a compliment, and what they don’t, as long as I am not hurting anyone, I will ignore. You can only feel as good or bad as you allow other people to let me feel.

Anais Nin said “Had I not created my whole world, I would certainly have died in other people’s”. Every day you have the choice to get up and live a life you are proud of. To be the person you want to be so that no matter what anyone else thinks, you are unshaken. That is the most important thing that everyone should be communicating to girls and women. So that they themselves have the confidence in their decisions and themselves, whether or not that means posting a revealing picture to social media. There are far greater problems in this world than what someone posts on Instagram and the more we all spend time worrying about that is time taken away from being educated about the real issues.

To live the happiest life you can, you have to not care what others think about you. When you get to that point you are free to spend your time on truly more important things. That doesn’t mean you are not a good person, actually it means you have more time to be a good person, to do the right thing by you and by others. To have the confidence and freedom to be yourself is one of the greatest lessons you can learn. So to those that have been criticised for what they post online, that defines them and not you. And to those criticising others, if it doesn’t affect you move on. We should all be too busy improving our own lives, and the lives of other people, that we have little time to criticise the harmless decisions of others.