Select images from South African photographer Jodi Bieber’s series Real Beauty, photographing everyday women in South Africa in their underwear, leaving the images untouched so as to counter the incredibly narrow ideals of commercialized beauty propagated largely through popular media.
You know what’s most telling about photos like these?
Every single time I see them, I’m swamped with a wave of relief and normality and contentment with my body.
Interestingly, I also feel closer to other women when I see photos like these. There’s a sudden wave of compassion, identification, pride. That one startled me for a second, until I realized that these are women I could want to be. In their underwear, but safe and strong, in control of their situation. In their own places, meeting your eyes. If you want to find them beautiful, you’re welcome to, but you can’t pretend they won’t have an opinion about it.
I could never want to be an underwear model, with perfectly smooth skin, breasts about to overflow her bra, staring poutily off the page like she’s passively waiting for men to circle like vultures. When the world tells you that’s what women are, who would want to be one? Who would want to respect that?
That’s how powerful this is. That’s how oppressive the media projection of beauty is. And I’m comparatively fairly well-adjusted on the subject. ’Toxic’ does not even begin to describe it.
