> Part of my own liberation was the discovery that I was not defined by my appearance.

That my truest beauty lay in my soul, my personality, my talents. For a while, I rejected fashion altogether; dressed in sweats and baggy things until I proved to myself that I could catch people's attention without the outside trappings.

When I felt good and sure of that, something interesting happened. I returned to fashion with an awakened consciousness. Fashion and image became tools for my self-expression. My stringent rules relaxed, and my closet took on multiple personalities, with everything from sweatshirts to suits to sundresses. Now I listen to myself and wear whatever the hell I want. I like to augment my presence in a world that sometimes wants me to stay silent. And I enjoy treating the world to a little shock therapy when my pants snugly silhouette my round stomach and thick thighs--areas that Cosmo would surely advise I keep covered. There's a bit of activism in that.

DeLores Pressley, founder of the Plus USA Woman pageants, would agree. Pressley, 42, held the first pageant in 1984, with a mission of proving that women of any size can enjoy health, style and self-esteem. Billing herself as a "perfect size 20," Pressley began her own modeling career in 1983.

"I went to maybe ten agencies and they all turned me down," she recalls. "Said I had a nice look, but was much too big." Pressley was finally accepted into a small modeling school in her Canton, Ohio hometown; soon after, she won a national Full Figure Model Award. The victory led her to start Dimensions Plus, an Ohio-based modeling agency for plus-size women.

Today, Dimensions Plus manages 60 models, landing print campaigns and accounts with major national corporations. "Our pageant is much more than a pageant," says Pressley."It's sort of like a coming out. We have seminars on health and fitness. We're not advocates of obesity; we still want people to be healthy. But we also want to say, 'No matter how much you weigh, you can still look stunning with the right wardrobe, the right accessories.'"

Okay, but what about the women who can't afford those? After all, size discrimination has economic ramifications, too. Many people living below the poverty level are fat. This is partly based on employers' prejudice--fat people are stereotyped as lazy and lower-class, and are less likely to be hired in many instances. The National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA) has documented stacks of legal cases where employees were harassed, fired and forced to resign on the basis of body size.

NAAFA's policy states: "Fat people are not hired as often as those of average size, are not promoted as often, are paid less than their thinner counterparts, may be charged more for employee insurance coverage, and are sometimes fired because of their weight. Higher insurance costs, increased health risk, client or customer size biases, job performance, grooming, and employers' aesthetic preferences are reasons cited for firing or for refusing to hire or promote qualified fat workers." Hmmm....coincidence?

And let's not forget that "plus-size," in retail terms, means sizes 12, 14 and 16. Since the majority of U.S. women are plus-size, are we really just repackaging "average" women into a new consumer order? We're marketing products to the masses -- a sound business decision, but hardly a subversive political act.

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