Chidera Eggerue, a UK-based social media personality, launched #SaggyBoobsMatter campaign in protest of the biased view of “perfect breasts” presented by the media.
Image: Chidera Eggerue
The Instagrammer who currently has 51,000 followers said she was inspired to launch the campaign after suffering from body shame when she was younger, and has since gained huge support for her brave stance on the female body.
Chidera sees the shaming of saggy boobs as a vicious cycle.
“Saggy boobs are underrepresented,” she told a reporter with Buzzfeed. “Being underrepresented makes you feel alien to society. This fosters insecurities in people who don’t have the mental strength to see value in themselves beyond other people’s standards.”
Chidera, now an aspiring radio star, has been flaunting her boobs on social media to shame those who targeted her for trolls.
Admitting she was body conscious as a teenager, the girl now posts snaps of her braless-and-bold self, with confessions that she was so sick of seeing “perfect boobs” on TV and in shop windows.
“A lack of representation of saggy-looking boobs when I used to go bra shopping in M&S made me realize that something is wrong with the way the world views women’s bodies,” Chidera said in the interview.
She added that bra packaging worsened her situation because they offered no guidance or consideration for women in the plus-size category.
In her words: “The packaging would always have a picture of a white woman with perky boobs, yet when I’d try on the same bra in my correct size, my boobs just wouldn’t look like the model.”
how to style saggy boobs: a tutorial
step 1 – wear the damn outfit.
step 2 – remember not to care. we are all dying. #SAGGYBOOBSMATTER pic.twitter.com/tnqM6ttl1O
— THE SLUMFLOWER (@theslumflower) October 11, 2017
Her pains and dwindling self-worth got so bad that at 18, she nurtured thoughts of going under the knife, but somehow along the line she decided against the boob job.
Chidera admitted talking herself out of it, and choosing to rage against breast prejudice, an effort which has yielded the desired fruits in some quarters, and huge criticisms too.
““I reached 18 and didn’t get a job, let alone a boob job, so I continued self-loathing until I reached 19 and became tired of feeling like a stranger in my own body. I decided I’d had enough and made the choice to stop wearing a bra,” she said.
Chidera added, “Most of the responses have been horrible and disappointing, but I’ve learnt to not take them so personally.
“Women’s bodies are picked apart as if we only exist to satisfy.”
“Fast-forward to 23: I’ve now reached a position of feeling comfortable in my body, but I wanted other women to feel like this, so I had to start the conversation by using my own body as an example,” she said.
“Through creating #SaggyBoobsMatter, I have been able to help women articulate their own body image hangups – especially slim women who don’t really know where they stand in the body positivity movement.”
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