The only way to be a woman is to be thin.

Look around you: you know it's true. I mean, the entire world's backing it up - fashion magazines, books from the trending fictions shelves, screw it, even open a doctor's catalogue and you're bound to see a skinny frame. Who can argue with statistics like that?

The average woman's a size sixteen. But if you're an 8 or over, whoops, you're officially 'plus-sized'. If you need any clarification, if your weight is even remotely close to the norm and you're looking for a career in modelling, your weight will be listed before your actual job. Oh, and darling, don't you even think about trying to get a deal with one of those fancy companies: you better hope there's a famous newspaper (if it's run by a woman, I'll bet you ten bucks she's skinny) calling for 'body diversity' or your chances are the same as a bug winning the Olympics.

Modelling not your cup of tea? Well, I hope you're not going to be a businesswoman or anything like that, because like it or not, nobody's even going to comment on the work you produce. Nope, nada. "She needs to lose a couple of pounds" is what it says - forget being the next Steve Jobs if you dare have some meat on your bones and disgrace all womanhood! 

Here's where "real women have curves" comes in. Re-read the sentence. Maybe twice for good measure. Notice how it didn't say "all real women have curves". It's not saying if you're top-model skinny and you constantly have the sun shining on you and the world telling you how beautiful you are, you're not a real woman. It's saying that women who don't fit in the mold are real: we're not just the angsty teenager on that cheap-ass reality TV show nobody watches.

That's what the media needs to take note of. There's not one type of girl out there. Womanhood isn't some sort of noble title which only the best of the best get to claim: it's not some sort of battleground with the trophy only produced to the cream of the crop. No matter what your favourite issue of Teen Vogue might think, curvy women are real, and we better see some darn results or there's gonna be some real women who are actually quite ticked off that their face isn't on the front of anything.

Now I'm just going to let you think and watch the battleground pour out in the comments.