Talking about fashion’s body image debate just two days ago, a new guy writer friend told me: ‘Anne, most of these guys hate women? They’re not into you at all, except for the money you put in their coffers. You’re just not their sexual cup of tea, dear. Or political either. There’s a high-ranking Republican gay elite in Washington politics — parading around with wives, of course. They scorn women and all you stand for. Anne, they want a man’s world, just like Aristotle wanted. Your vagina gets you nowhere, baby. ‘

This man’s words stung but rang true to me. So who owns fashion — them or us — the girls buying all the stuff? Politics is much more complicated, but women should be able to manage our own closets. If we can’t keep our own beauty ideals under control, what makes us think that we even deserve the corner office?

Thin and Extinct

Personally, I have no interest in seeing my species become extinct. And yet when the ideal woman to a certain group of men has no breasts, no hips and a BMI that causes her to stop menstruating and therefore bearing children, I’m forced to ask: how then are women different from the slim little designer guys in their tight pants? 

It’s simple: I say buy no baubles or any other product from any designer or fashion editor who believes that the ideal woman looks like a thin man. Articulating these principles last December, today I’m adamant about them. 

Lara Stone for Vogue France Cedric BuchetMy view is not contra the reality that many tall, thin women with no bustline or hips do represent one gorgeous arm of womanhood. In what’s our #2 article for two weeks, I honor Ralph Lauren model Ubah Hassan, but I do not aspire to her body type. 

Yes, I’ve struggled like so many American women to love the person in the mirror, but I never wanted to look like a non-Somali version of Ubah. Personally, I like my curves. 

Fashion should embrace all body types, but the ultimate idea and exclusive aspirational image for the world’s women should not be a female who is no longer capable of childbearing.