[BrifsGefel]

Back on topic, I don't think Madonna is too skinny, and she looks overall really healthy. I just wish she didn't have such muscular arms, because I don't think it looks very feminine. Yes, god forbid we don't look feminine enough! Seriously?

As has been pointed out, Madonna has the body of an athlete because she is extremely, extremely physically active. And while I don't personally know what her eating habits are, I'd imagine that she's very strong and in great physical shape. That, even at such a high level of physical fitness, we'd criticize her for not looking feminine enough, points out that 1) despite all arguments to the contrary, women are held to a standard of beauty that has nothing to do with health or wellness, but apparently, silence and submission, and 2) adherence to this standard is more important than women's actual strength or physical capacity.

Also, as to whether thin people are equally marginalized. You need look no further than our own pop culture texts to see that fat people are either turned into public grotesques (the shameless/insatiable fat woman)- usually when they are transgressive in their fatness and act in a manner not aligned with the public expectation of how a fat person should act, ie ashamed of themselves- or else, they are either 1) the sassy best friend, or 2) invisible/nonexistent. We may police people for being too skinny, but look at the images with which our pop culture visual economy is inundated.

Look, obviously I don't approve of policing anybody's body. Especially not the bodies of complete strangers. I also have a lot of ire for people who legitimize their own bodies by delegitimizing the identities of others. As a trans woman, I know what it's like to be told that I'm not a real woman because my body is different from the standard. But at the same time, let's not pretend that this "real women have curves" bunk is totally neutral, or that it didn't grow out of a context. It's a reaction against the cultural narrative, roughly contemporaneous with the emergence of 60s mod, that excess flesh is disgusting and shameful, evidence of lack of self-control. It's equally problematic, make no mistake. But the idea that fat people and thin people are equally scrutinized and marginalized for their bodies is incorrect. Who stars in the movies? Who smiles from the billboards? In this day and age, seeing a fat person who is unapologetic and unashamed is still pretty radical- and that's totally fucked up.