Dear ladies, never apologize for your nudes

It’s an odd day when I find myself defending Kim Kardashian.

But as read through the responses she received after posting an almost nude photo on Instagram – ranging from Chloe Moretz calling her a bad role model, to a Tab article saying she’s creating a “norm of self-indulgent nudity” causing young girls to post risqué photos as a cry for attention – I feel compelled to plead her case and the case of women everywhere who may feel the impulse to post a ‘scandalous’ photo from time to time.

I think these critiques come from a good place; as feminists we want women to be free from the societal expectations that have caged women in, which includes being constantly sexualized. Maybe to you empowerment means putting pictures on your Instagram of you reading a book, accomplishing something at school, going on an adventure, showing off that great inner self you’ve got going on.

But your version of empowerment isn’t everyone’s. I’ve never personally posted sexual photos of myself online because that doesn’t feel right for me, but I know that my feelings don’t apply to everyone and for some empowerment means taking a photo of a body they are proud of and they feel beautiful or sexy in. And that’s OK.

We should question why we hold female celebrities to such high standards. Why do we get personally upset and say they’re no longer a good role model when they do something we don’t like? We don’t do this to male celebrities, and there are plenty of famous men who have posted nearly naked photos. To me it seems like this happens because we all have ideas of what women, more than men, ‘should be’ and we want our female celebrities to be an influence creating this type of woman. So even if your type of woman is a super independent, feminist hero who doesn’t care about the way they look, when you define what is acceptable and say that’s how a woman should be, you are contributing to a system which puts women in a box.

For that matter, saying someone put a sexual photo online because they want some superficial, male driven attention is the same as saying someone wore a short dress out because they were looking to be hit on, not because they liked the way it looks on them. Our culture already ignores self determination and assumes women’s actions are driven by men enough, that mentality needs to be dispelled.

True freedom comes from being able to live your life without any influence saying what you can and can’t do. True freedom is a woman posting a naked photo without the world freaking out and analyzing whether it’s OK or not, and pretending they know what’s going on in her head based off what their conceptions of gender are.

I have friends who post ‘sexual’ photos on Instagram and I have never thought they were searching for attention or had low self esteem. In fact, I applauded them and was happy for my friends because it was clear they were comfortable in their bodies and were feelin’ good that day.

We should be upset about the sexualization of women that occurs in movies, TV’s, magazines, that robs women of their context, their personality, their depth. But we shouldn’t condemn how people chose to express themselves on their own personal pages, that is their choice, and there is power in choice. Kim Kardashian can take whatever photos she wants.

So, to all my foxy ladies out there who feel the need to show themselves off every once in a while: you do you girlfriend.