Over the past few days, boys and men have been going viral, championed for their choices to stand up to sexist rules of dress—especially when it’s hot outside.
Women, however, have been fighting societal standards of what is deemed appropriate to wear since the beginning of time—and then shamed for whatever decisions they make or even the natural shape of their bodies.
Take, for example, 20-year-old Tori Jenkins from Tennessee, who was asked to leave the pool in her own apartment complex for wearing a swimsuit that was deemed “inappropriate.”
Her boyfriend, Tyler Newman, took to Facebook on Tuesday to explain that the couple and their friends were at the pool for three minutes before a leasing consultant came up to Jenkins and told her she had to cover up, change, or leave for wearing a “thong bathing suit.”
Since she was not wearing a thong, as she demonstrates on Facebook, Jenkins and Newman went to the leasing office to privately discuss the matter with the agent. However, according to Newman, the agent took a photo of Jenkins and made her look at her body. She then asked Jenkins if she didn’t understand how what she saw in the photo was inappropriate, it’s because she doesn’t have kids.
Jenkins explained that she’s a woman who has a butt and that “95% of the things she wears ride up when she walks”—something I, a person who struggles to find comfortable underwear, can personally attest to. The agent wouldn’t hear any of that, though. “She was told that her body, because it’s built more curvy than others is ‘too inappropriate’ for children to be around,” Newman wrote. “She was told ‘there are a lot of teenage boys in this complex, and you don’t need to excite them.'”
https://www.facebook.com/tyler.newman.79/posts/1321444714571292
Newman’s post received nearly 20,000 shares and numerous comments siding with Jenkins and her message of body positivity. On Thursday, Jenkins wrote a Facebook post of her own, thanking everyone for their support.
“It hasn’t even been that long since it happened but I can tell you that I’ve felt really shitty about myself since,” she wrote. “Being distracted by friends and work and your wonderful comments have made this process a whole lot easier.”
She also went on, as women often feel they must, to combat the negative comments and questions she’s received, explaining what size she is and what she ate that day. However, she ended by saying, “The ENTIRE POINT of this post is that no man or woman has the right to make me feel uncomfortable in my own skin. No right to police me or any other human.”
https://www.facebook.com/tori.jenkins.716/posts/10207484943276575
Amen. This is especially true if you’re already paying a $300 monthly fee to use that pool.