British Plus-Size Mag "Just As Beautiful" Says No to Photoshopping

by Sarah Menkedick · 2010-10-22 10:00:00 UTC
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In 2007, Sue Thomason started an email magazine for plus-size British women. Now, she's transitioning the magazine to print, and vowing not to include any diet tips or do any photoshopping. The magazine, titled "Just As Beautiful," [ed note: now just "Beautiful"] will feature only women from British size 14 to 20 (US sizes 10 to 16).

The magazine is meant to act in part as an antidote to so many other women's magazines that lay on the pressure to get down to a size 0 and encourage constant self-critique. Content will include interviews with "plus-size celebrities," but supposedly won't focus on their bodies. The first issue's cover advertises: "Smokin' hot big girls," "Bitch fight! We battle with the diet pushers," and "How to win an argument: learn his tactics."

Not exactly groundbreaking material. I want to be enthusiastic about the no-photoshopping and no-diet-tips rules, but here the language of empowerment feels like a front for what is essentially another flighty women's magazine with a slightly different tack.

It's great for plus-size women to see themselves reflected in the media, and it's even better to see a magazine making the choice not to cash in on ubiquitous thinness paranoia, but if the magazine is only about going against the grain of skinny and against the grain of the "diet pushers" -- while simultaneously embracing the other fluff women are offered in these kinds of magazines and replacing one ideal body with another -- then I wonder if it hasn't already relegated itself to the dusty netherlands of the magazine rack: a specialty mag for plus-size women.

To really start to chip away at the obsession with emaciated bodies, I think magazines will have to go beyond simply idolizing plus-size and removing diet talk. I think they'll need to include many different types of figures and to counter the prevalent discourse of thinner-is-better with more insightful and relevant pieces than "Bitch Fight."

Editor's note: Can't we all just get along? Due to disagreement at the "Just As Beautiful" magazine, it has been split into two publications. The magazine being discussed in this article as run by Sue Thomason will continue under the name "Beautiful." The magazine "Just As Beautiful" will continue under the direction of publisher Ronnie Ajoko, who also claims to be the original founder of the publication.

Photo credit: Gelatobaby

Sarah Menkedick is a freelance writer currently based in Oaxaca, Mexico. She has spent the last five years teaching, writing and traveling on five continents. She regularly writes about women's rights.
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