Billie Eilish 2020 f6528

Billie Eilish Strips In Protest of Body Shaming

by Mayzie Hopkins

Last night Billie Eilish, 18-year-old Grammy winner, and Gen-Z icon began her Where Do We Go world tour in Miami that included a protest about her experiences with being body shamed. Since the teenager’s breakthrough and rapid success in the music industry and online, Eilish has developed a look- baggy, androgynous clothes, neon hair and pointed acrylic nails- which she has mentioned is to keep her figure anonymous. And subsequently avoid the criticism that women, particularly young women, experience from the public.

In a 2019 Calvin Kelin campaign, she said, “Nobody can have an opinion because they haven’t seen what’s underneath. “Nobody can be like, ‘she’s slim-thick,’ ‘she’s not slim-thick,’ ‘she’s got a flat ass,’ ‘she’s got a fat ass.’ No one can say any of that because they don’t know.”

Fan recorded videos showed Eilish’s interlude for the concert as a slowed-down clip of her slowly undressing down to her bra along with a frank monologue about her feelings toward the public’s need to judge a woman for her body.

 

Here is the full speech:

“You have opinions — about my opinions, about my music, about my clothes, about my body.

Some people hate what I wear, some people praise it, some people use it to shame others, some people use it to shame me, but I feel you watching — always — and nothing I do goes unseen.

So while I feel your stares, your disapproval or your sigh of relief, if I lived by them, I’d never be able to move.

Would you like me to be smaller?

Weaker?

Softer?

Taller?

Would you like me to be quiet?

Do my shoulders provoke you?

Does my chest?

Am I my stomach?

My hips?

The body I was born with, is it not what you wanted?

If I wear what is comfortable, I am not a woman. If I shed the layers, I’m a slut.

Though you’ve never seen my body, you still judge it and judge me for it.

Why?

We make assumptions about people based on their size.

We decide who they are, we decide what they’re worth. If I wear more if I wear less, who decides what that makes me? What that means?

Is my value-based only on your perception?

Or is your opinion of me not my responsibility?”

Image Courtesy of Wikimedia 

 

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