Another week on Instagram, another way to compare our bodies. Not content with the lipsticks and mountainscapes, there's nothing we seem to love more than taking to social media to size each other up. From weird challenges comparing yourself to a piece of paper, to seeing if you can store your loose change in your collarbone, there's aaaalways something going on to make us question ourselves - however mad. The latest hashtag to blow up is the #mermaidthighs, which at first seems like a welcome change of pace. With 'mermaid' it's referring to shape rather than scales, mermaid thighs essentially refers to a body shape where your thighs touch each other all the way down. Presumably if you squint it might look a bit like the one-piece lower half of a mermaid, get it? Great.
This is all well and good. It's wonderful to see women embracing their bodies (even if they look a bit fishy) however, as with most things online, it isn't without its problems. The mermaid thighs movement seems to have sprung out of backlash against the 'thigh gap', long hailed as something women should aspire to, with prescribed ideals ranging from just having a gap at all to more bizarre classifications like the ideal space between the two legs as measured in Weetabix. Telling women they ‘should’ have a thigh gap is nonsense - but equally I think telling people they ‘should’ have mermaid thighs is rubbish too - because it's still a 'should.'
As soon as you get people hailing something as good, it's a short step to just criticising whatever the alternative is: ‘Keep your thigh gap, I've got mermaid thighs.’ ‘We've got the better deal.’
Even if you're in the majority, or you're hitting back at an unrealistic goal that's been forced upon you, when we talk about body shapes and set them up as ideals to aspire to, everything becomes about competition or a comparison. Which is mad because this is what we were upset about in the first place! This is where the positive trend came from!
It just seems like a shame to taint expressions of self-love and self-confidence with judgments on other people. I know, I know, they judged you first - or made you judge yourself - but why do we have to make ourselves feel better by saying one way or the other is better? ‘I like my legs. I look like a freakin' mermaid!’ can remain, by itself, a happy proclamation - but that means equally people should be allowed to say ‘I like my legs. There's a gap between my thighs!’ without it being taken as a judgment on the people whose don't.
So, while it's nice that people are celebrating their thighs, gapped, mermaidy, or thick and saving lives, it's worth bearing in mind that your celebration shouldn't have to include a jibe at anyone else. We all want to feel like we're normal and we're part of the club, but really who wants to be in a club based on the shape of their legs? The gang we should be aiming for is that of the girl variety - no thigh examination required.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.