My research surrounds the topic of plus-size women in fashion and media. I want to know whether there should be an increase in plus-size models in the industry, as to represent the population of women more accurately, and I am arguing for its benefits.

This isn’t necessarily a fact, but I think something that most people don’t consider, and I didn’t right away either, is the take that we actually counter the progress in normalizing different bodies in the media by placing so much emphasis on labels, and the stories when representation does happen. I think this is something really interesting to consider, and something that I will explore at least a little bit in my essay.

I found this idea from Theresa Avila on Mic. In the article, she says we’re “obsessed” with plus-size, and how our need to categorize, combined with the lack of clarity of the term in general is actually damaging. Part of the solution she seems to support is moving away from terminology altogether, but I wonder whether this is even possible. Again, it could be something to explore in terms of the complexity of the topic and how realistic both sides of the larger debate are.