Let us count the ways we love Jameela Jamil: fearless actress, vocal feminist, fierce advocate for body positivity.
It’s the last of those things that has been making headlines recently, as Jamil has been taking aim at the toxic beauty standards that women are subjected to in the media; namely, photoshop.
And with her popular Instagram account, @i_weigh, Jamil has been fighting body-shaming on the daily, encouraging followers to submit selfies that celebrate the very qualities they are subliminally told to despise.
Now, Jamil has taken aim at the toxicity of magazine airbrushing, describing airbrushing as “the devil” for selling an artificial vision of flawlessness.
Taking to Instagram, Jamil shared a heavily edited photo of herself in a leopard print dress and heels, annotating the ways the publication had altered her appearance.
The caption begins: “I was just doing a new spoof motivation sultry pic and was struck by how heavily edit this picture of me is.
“How dare they? It made me so mentally unwell trying to live up to this image in person. Airbrushing is the damn DEVIL.’
Jamil goes on to highlight how her figure has been severely photoshopped, her skin lightened, and her stretch marks erased, annotating the photo with candid comments.
She continued: “I don’t look like this they airbrushed me to death.
“Where are my stretch marks? My arm wasn’t this thin. I am darker-skinned than this.
She added: “This airbrushing is why women hate their normal knees! They even airbrushed my ankles! Imagine thinking something is wrong with ankles?.”
Ending her Instagram post, Jamil reinforces the negative impact of constantly seeing unrealistic beauty standards. “It made me so mentally unwell trying to live up to this image in person. Airbrushing is the DEVIL.”
Since posting, Jamil quickly racked up close to 250,000 likes, with followers praising the presenter for her honesty.
In an op-ed for the BBC last year, Jamil argued that airbrushing has been “weaponised” against women, explaining how the ubiquity of photoshopped images and celebration of one beauty type contributed to her own self-loathing.
“I suffered from eating disorders as a teenager and so I know how damaging “perfect” images in magazines can be,” she explained.
Jamil goes on to suggest how airbrushing is a lie to the consumer, as well as gradually eroding the confidence of women who repeatedly see the effects in the media.
“When you filter a woman’s photo you are legitimising the patriarchy’s absurd aesthetic standards, that women should be attractive to the straight, male gaze at all costs.
“We need to see spots. We need to see wrinkles. We need to see cellulite and stretch marks. If not, we will become almost allergic to the sight of them, even though we all have these things on our own bodies. We need to be honest with ourselves and with each other so that we can all be free.”
Preach.
