The image above features Michaela Stark on display at the Milan Fashion Week in 2024. Michaela is an Australian “body-morphing” artist currently located in London, who has made several headlines for her ‘Panty’ clothing line, which consists of lingerie and undergarments geared for “all bodies.” She perfectly captures the ways in which our clothing shapes and defines us, and never the other way around. I found Michaela in a sea full of Instagram models, body dysphoric rhetoric, and promotions of every possible procedure to fix every possible flaw of the body, media we consume every single second. Her work was eye-catching, shocking, and…normal.
What is possibly normal about contouring the body in such outrageous ways only to be put on display? Exactly. And yet it has been normalized in every other context by labels. The thin bodies we have shoved down our throats (while completely dismissing our own) are fit to be morphed and changed however need be, whether that be through soft shapewear or restricting corsets. Thin bodies are the ideal, and they must be accompanied by hairless and flawless skin. There mustn’t be a blemish in sight, a wrinkle to see, a stretch mark to grieve. Michaela Stark does this same thing, but we know it’s different. Except we know it’s not different but media has told us it is and so it must be. We all share the burden of having a “broken” body, the only difference is whether your body was born “broken” or conditioned into being “broken.” We all have something we must be desperately fixing at any moment.
And even through political, social, and public statements that individuals like Michaela Stark make (whether that be through voice or body) where is the representation for men? Society holds tight to how a woman should be, and perhaps we are given some lenience because our bodies are meant to change (not by much though, don’t get ahead of yourself) through the natural processes of pregnancy and birth (yes, I know how demoralizing that is to women anyway), but men don’t get this recognition because it’s socialized to us that they don’t need it. A man’s body should only change for the better: gaining muscle, growing taller, being smarter, stoic. Women are the clay that is never left untouched, always malleable in another person’s hands. Men are the statues, the pyramids, never to fall or be broken down. And a statue should NEVER change. Who knows what waits for you when you don’t identify as either of those things.
My point is that labels are damning, the same way our bodies are socialized and conditioned to be damned. Whether you learn this through the words of Stryker’s My Words to Frankenstein, the sociological concepts of Patricia Collins, or the memoirs in Duane and Rajunov’s Nonbinary, we need no explanation for how this affects us. Through personal experience, we already know. The next step is how we break down these labels that separate us from our bodies, and innovators like Michaela Stark are a perfect example of such. It’s also critical we nip this body-dysphoric-rhetoric in the bud, right at the source: by teaching our children to evolve and grow for their own personal empowerment and not to fit social code. Our girls must know courage and strength the same way our boys receive it. Our boys must know emotion and compassion the way our girls receive it. Most importantly, I think, is instilling these traits as good qualities of a person, rather than subjecting them to a gender binary that supports no one.
Michaela Stark represents a movement of bodies, and in that name we must assume this includes EVERY BODY. If we wish to combat the social construct of the body as its ingrained in our everyday reality, let us begin with abstract thinking.
Sources (and/or more to read):
Unruly Bodies 
I appreciate the images you used in your writing. I can definitely see what you’re saying about the expectations on mens and women’s bodies. When I had first come out as nonbinary around age 14, there was a concern in the back of my head that maybe I wasn’t nonbinary, maybe I just wanted a reason to not fit into western society’s expectations of women. Turns out, I’m still genderqueer, but that idea really illustrates how meaningful these pressures are on people.
One thing that always sticks out to me when I read written pieces on body image is the mention of social media. A lot of the time in similar works, the author mentions the impact that social media influencers have on body image. I am curious of people in this class’s demographics experience with that. Personally, I first got Instagram this year, and my recommendation page has never been related to bikini photos or dieting. The most that my recommendations get into body image is probably muscular mid-size women, which has gotten more appreciation in recent years. Does anyone have personal experience they’d like to share about the impact of body image influencers on their page?
These images are so powerful! I remember being a kid and being told to suck in my tummy for family photos. I started wearing pants that were too tight so it suck my tummy in for me.
After years of that my stomach is permanently damaged and if I wear anything too tight I get massive stomach pain and become dissy.
These photos spoke to me in a way I cannot even explain. Thank you.