Some people do believe young thin white non-disabled women look better than women with other descriptors. This is an oppressive belief, but one that is informed by an image-saturated western commercial culture that continues to hold those characteristics up as ‘better’ through constant repetition. If that body is always (or at least most often) presented to you as an ideal, you will likely come to believe it is the ideal – unless you undertake the long and difficult work of deprogramming yourself, by actively changing the balance imagery you consume. It is a legacy of colonialism, a factor of imperialist white supremacist capitalist heteropatriarchy. These are major systemic issues, both historically and to this day – but that doesn’t mean they can’t be broken down.

Read “This Editor Thinks Plus Size Fashion Will Fail – This Is Why He’s Wrong” on Refinery29