As we sat in one big circle on the wood floor, Melody led us through a hands-on examination of popular magazines, asking us to rip out every page we came across that had images of those who were BIPOC and/or had visible disabilities, scars, acne, or larger bodies and put them in the center of the room. The collection was painfully small. And all of the photos of bodies larger than about a size 6 were accompanied by weight loss copy. Melody taught us about the economics of the global beauty industry, currently worth $511 billion, which depends entirely on women feeling that our bodies are wrong
...more
