The Female Figure

The female figure is always a topic of heated debate. With magazines boasting perfectly airbrushed beauties to the Dove campaign expressing that every woman is beautiful in her own right, people aren't too sure how to feel about a woman's body – women in particular.

I won't lie. I believe that every woman is beautiful whether fat or skinny, primped or natural, yet I find myself chasing after those magazine images. Scolding myself privately in the comforts of my own bathroom mirror for putting on an extra pound or two.

However, I wouldn't entirely blame the media for a woman's desire to be of societal standards. Woman have been trained from the get-go to look at their bodies in an entirely incorrect way. The foundation for a woman's self-loathing and poor body image stems from the very art that we often find release in.

In most figure study courses, the female figure is classically categorized into four shapes: Apple, Banana, Pear, and Hourglass. Although these shapes are seemingly organic enough to define the female figure, they are hardly so. The definitions of each shape are as follows:

• Apple: downwards triangle
• Banana: rectangle
• Pear: upwards triangle
• Hourglass: downwards triangle meets upwards triangle

The female figure does not consist of geometric shapes, and these hard-lined definitions have skewed society's perception of the female body. A woman's body is organic, not linear. Full of mysterious and beautiful curvature. Art categorized women this way to diminish the worries of capturing the unruly curvature of the female figure.

I have what would be categorized as a hourglass shape, but I would be silly to say that my body looks exactly like two opposing triangles. My breasts are entirely too big for my waist while my hips dominate my rather skinny legs. There are no triangles or rectangles, simply wild lines that move and create a shape not found in any art textbook.

Women are designed to be organic. That's why we carry more fat than men, and I thank my body fat for my unique design. Stop thinking of women as linear beings. We are free-flowing, each with individual designs. This is possibly why most men desire to see as many of us in the nude as possible.

When women stop seeing geometric shapes, they will no longer let them define their bodies and struggle to chase unattainable straight lines. They will no longer be marred by societal demands of the female figure, because there will be no foundation for it. Women perpetuate the current image. We keep it alive by believing in it. By striving for it.

The female figure is without definition. There are no triangles. There are no rectangles. Only free-flowing movement that creates a unique female figure for every woman.