Who is a Lepa?
Being a skinny girl in Nigeria
‘We are all beautiful.’ ‘We are all sexy.’ Has become a slogan amongst body positivity activists and promoters. Yet, I beg to disagree that we all need to be somewhat conventionally attractive to be treated as humans.
Being skinny in Nigeria as a young girl was a rather eye-opening experience for me. Of course now, I feel absolutely comfortable in my skin and bones, how others might put it.
Young girls generally are exposed to certain comments and societal expectations and are judged early from the onset of puberty. They are either called slow or fast. Again, young boys are not subjected to such scrutiny.
‘Why are you flat?’ is a hilarious question I heard when growing up. Such questions ingrain a mindset that something is inherently wrong with you for being the way you are. Which begs the question: what exactly is wrong with skinny girls?
Skinny girls are not spared from misogynistic rhetoric and expectations that assume, as a woman, you exist to curate every part of yourself to appeal to the male gaze. To be considered attractive, beautiful, and sexable. For me, it boils down to the last one. So, my body was expected to be round and fleshy not protruding with well…bones and sparse skin.
I do wonder why it upset young men and teenage boys then; you were not attractive to them. Or they don’t find you appealing enough to hit.
I remember thinking, “A man can be allowed to exist type of form and shape, and for some reason, he is not said to be unappealing because he has a little buttocks to compensate for his terrible facial harmony.”
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Of course, men have specific body standards to be considered hot, like the fictional men I write in my romance stories to pass time giggles, but in reality there isn’t a craze to look good-looking for women. We see how it outrages men when a woman insists her ideal man should be ‘tall.’ A standard is mostly achieved by just looking for smaller, short women to partner with.
I also remembered being bullied by my male teachers then for towering over them. Again, something my body did that hurts their feelings. I feel proud.
I could count a million beauty standards women all over the world are trying to achieve, from hourglass BBL, having your legs toned and slim to being hairless, having a thin nose, fox eyes, anti-aging, smaller waists, fuller lips, etc. I feel we are stuck in a paradox where society term women who don’t feel the need to and aren’t built to appeal to such standards as unattractive and masculine.
In Nigeria, male entitlement reeks bad, and with more women conforming to certain beauty standards, it encourages it more.
Nigerian women, on average, are beautiful, healthy women with curves and fleshy molds of body; being an anomaly to this median shouldn’t expose young girls to unnecessary scrutiny and unbridled comments. Most healthy, slim teenage girls constantly curate the internet to look for weight gain pills to enhance their features.
With the presence of social media, it makes us more prone to comparing our bodies to unrealistic-looking ones and putting down ourselves. ‘Oh, I need to lose weight, gain weight, appear taller, smaller, etc.’
I am reminded of that this skinny body of mine functions in various beautiful ways that keeps me alive. Also not to be a faux hypocritical person that tries to be positive and kind but find what beauty standards across the world you fit in.
Find countries that consider you pretty and curate your spaces online to be about people who represent you; immerse yourself,, in their spaces and if you find none, curate your beauty standard. ‘I love how my eyes are shaped, I love how full my lips are, I love the little mole on my neck, and the little dark patches on my sclera are beautiful, I love my skin.’
Also, I have learned not to let people project their insecurities on me; even with careless comments from those around me, I deflect around the conversation or reiterate my confidence in my body.
Regardless, beautiful or not, women should be allowed to exist, refrain from dishing out careless opinions and comments about people’s bodies, and simply mind your own.
Peace.
