Bikini season sends harmful messages

It’s that time of the year again. Spring break has come and gone, and summer waits just beyond the horizon. As if final papers and exams weren’t stressful enough, women of all ages have yet another seasonal pressure to confront: bikini season. At this point, the yearly campaign to shame women’s bodies into crash dieting and working out is already well under way. Storefronts display picture-perfect shots of models clad in bikinis; magazines boast new shortcuts to a perfect butt and the Internet is abuzz with articles such as “70 Thoughts a Girl Has When Bikini Season is Less Than 60 Days Away.”

Bikini season is in full swing, but it’s not too late to face the truth. There’s nothing wrong with bikinis in themselves, but the meanings and expectations we’ve attributed to two-piece suits need a dramatic revision. Training women to equate warm weather with a perfectly tanned, toned and flawless body promotes an unhealthy belief that a “perfect body” exists, and we need everyone’s help to turn this fallacy on its head.

The first step in confronting the bikini body myth is attacking the source.  At the foundation of this issue lies the media, with its unrealistic depictions of a “normal” woman and its insistence that real women can — and should — change their bodies to fit this image. Too often, retailers’ efforts to capitalize on swimsuit sales perpetuate unhealthy expectations. In an interview with BuzzFeed regarding ModCloth’s February swimwear promotion, the company’s founder and CCO, Susan Koger, addressed the media’s role in perpetuating unhealthy summertime expectations. Koger’s campaign provided a “counterpoint” to the bikini bodies featured in magazines like Sports Illustrated. Koger asked BuzzFeed writer Julie Gerstein, “When is the last time a woman looked at a swimsuit campaign and it made her smile? Like, a real, genuine, feel-good smile?” Despite numerous body-positive campaigns, the answer is never. As if the pressure to look perfect weren’t enough during the rest of the year, it’s more difficult to feel good about your own imperfections when it feels like everything’s out on display. The majority of media outlets privilege one type of bikini body — thin and flawless — so that any deviation from the ideal feels like failure.

Even lighthearted articles like Elite Daily’s “70 Thoughts A Girl Has When Bikini Season Is Less Than 60 Days Away,” reinforce the pressure to tone up by implying it’s a necessary struggle. In the opening blurb, writer Ashley Fern asserts, “There is nothing more daunting than realizing that … summer is less than 60 days away … [A]s every girl knows, two months is probably the bare minimum you need to get your a– in shape.” The repeated use of words like “need,” “important” and “reevaluate” further problematize the issue, preserving the myth by accepting it. Fern assumes that achieving the perfect bikini body is an inherent obstacle for every woman that can be tackled by vigorous dieting and exercise. Of course, this is far from true; emotional eating expert Isabel Duke pointed out in a 2014 HuffPost Live video that body weight is not “exclusively in our control” and that we should privilege the biological mechanisms that tell us what and when to eat above trendy cleanse diets and intensive workouts.

Moreover, advertisements and articles like Fern’s perpetuate an unhealthy fixation on the male gaze, linking bikini season to female objectification. Publications such as Sports Illustrated have sexualized the bikini-clad woman for decades, but Fern’s article takes the bikini fixation a step further, suggesting that even “normal” girls actively evaluate themselves according to male expectations. According to Fern, the 30th thought every girl has “when bikini season is less than 60 days away [sic]” is that waxing body hair will “increase [her] chances of getting laid.” Waxing doesn’t necessitate unhealthy habits, but it’s part of the overall pressure to display a perfect body. Fern revisits the pressure to satisfy men with thought number 58: “You know what they say: Don’t cry over boys, do some squats and make them wish they still had that a–.” As if it weren’t bad enough that the bikini body myth forces women to compare themselves and the bodies of others to Photoshopped ideals, the media often implies that women need to slim down in order to please men.

Overall, body-positive efforts like the ModCloth photo campaign are a step in the right direction, but the bikini body ideal will persist until we step back and reevaluate the abundance of unrealistic expectations put forth by the media. Women should be able to wear bikinis as often or as seldom as they feel comfortable. We shouldn’t hold ourselves back because we’re ashamed of stretch marks or curves, nor should we hold other women to unrealistic standards. We should embrace the bodies we have and rock whatever swimsuits we please — not for men, not for other women, but for ourselves.

Jennifer Frazin is a sophomore majoring in English and theatre. Her column, “Not That Kind of Girl,” runs Wednesdays.