Let’s Talk About the DD Double Standard
The discrimination of women with a bigger bust in today’s society.
The majority of girls with the big, ahem, assets will attest that there is a double standard that is rife in our society. I am here today to bring light to it.
In this day and age of ‘if you’ve got it, be confident and flaunt it’, one would expect this to include every body type.
However, it is becoming increasingly obvious that girls with a larger stature or bigger busts are not being included underneath the acceptance umbrella.
While plus size clothing is slowly being incorporated into regular stores for those that don’t fit the one-size mould they normally accommodate, finding bras of a larger size is practically impossible in retail stores. As a result, we are forced to look online (where it’s even harder to know if a bra fits) and end up paying more money, while women with a-d cups can pop into any store and grab a cheap well-fitting bra and go about their day.
It’s not just retailers that fail to accommodate the larger busts, but society as well.
In my life, I have experienced a big double standard when it comes to fashion.
I developed early, starting puberty and beginning to wear training bras at age 9 (while also standing at 170cm tall, yeah, I’m a big girl). Like any girl who is trying to fit into society and be liked, I quickly came to realise I was held to a different standard to those who had smaller boobs, even though I had zero control over my quickly growing chest.
I distinctly remember starting with a dance group when I was 13 or 14. At this point, I was standing at 183cm and haven’t grown since, and had a cup size of a DD. At first, the group was great! I was having fun, getting to know my classmates and just generally having a good time.
It then came to the stage performance, and we were all so excited about the outfits we were given. A white tank top and these funky circle skirts that flipped and turned when we danced. It wasn’t until the dress rehearsal did the problem occur.
My teacher pulled me aside and told me that I couldn’t wear what everyone else was. I was confused. I knew I was taller and, in effect, larger than the others, but I couldn’t look that bad in my outfit, right?
Turns out, it was because of my boobs, my teacher told me. She said they were too big to be in a tank top and ruled the clothing inappropriate for me to wear. This confused me more because I wore my tank top a lot higher than my classmates, all of whom pulled theirs down as far as they can go, so that their colourful bras could be seen (this was 2010-odd, you’ll understand if you lived it).
Rushing home, I was furious with my teacher. She gave me a very high neck, obviously male t-shirt to wear instead, which made me feel disgusting and I no longer had fun because I was constantly aware of me being different to everyone else.
Immediately going to my mother, I complained and expected her to be on my side, but alas, she was not.
‘You’ve got bigger boobs than they do, sweetheart, it’s inappropriate.’
‘But I wasn’t wearing my top low! I was pulling it up. The other girls were pulling theirs down and you could see more of their boobs than mine.’
‘Yes, darling, but you are the only one with cleavage.’
And there it was. Throughout my adolescence, I cannot count the number of times I was told to pull my top up, or change because the amount of skin I was showing between my neck and my top was inappropriate. I brought the issue up with a few of my friends who also have a bigger bust and they instantly agreed with me and began to rant, too. So, I knew it wasn’t just me.
The double standard is seen everywhere, even to people commenting on celebrities in red carpet dresses who ‘have their tits out’, while ignoring the celeb with the smaller boobs wearing two pasties.
This needs to stop. Unless you have surgery, us big bust girls have no control over the size of our breasts but have to continue with this degrading for our entire lives.
I am now in my early 20s and am a 38GG. While I am very vocal on the double standard if people dare to say my top is too low cut, I still receive these types of comments.
As a result of these comments, my teenage years were filled with anxiety-riddled depression because of my appearance and stature. No teenager, especially since these comments started when I was 12 or even earlier, should have to endure adults commenting on their breasts.
It infers that the girl with larger breasts are somehow asking to be sexualised if she wears the same as the girls with the smaller breasts. It’s saying ‘if you have cleavage, be prepared for it to be stared at and sexualised’. It’s disgusting and needs to stop. Now.
Why should I have to change my fashion and ‘cover-up’ because of something I cannot control?
Ironically, it’s always the same people who comment on my tops that, when I say I want a boob reduction, as a result, will turn around and say ‘but you should be happy in your skin’.
You can only be happy in your skin when you are not told you have to cover it up.
This is a problem that is so ingrained into our society that, if you visit a plus-size section, most of the tops will be mid to high rise, leaving no chance of a sexual cleavage to poke through. They also do not accommodate bigger bust sizes into clothing. If you are not plus size, but with a bigger bust, you will be hard-pressed to find a shirt that fits right. Even if you are in the plus-size range, it’s difficult, because designers like to forget that we have curves and, instead, offer different variations of kaftans.
Unfortunately, because this is so ingrained into our daily society, I don’t think we will ever see much of a difference, despite our protests. Bigger boobs will always be needlessly sexualised, even in children. It’s almost like they think we deliberately grew our boobs that big because we were asking to be sexualised. Just like you can’t decide what skin you were born in, neither do you decide what size your breasts will grow to.
I hope to bring to light this struggle to people on this platform because I think bringing awareness to an issue like this is important, and we can attempt to take steps to remedy this.
Afterword: By this article, I do not wish to diminish the struggles of girls with a smaller bust, but, as I have no frame of reference, I feel I cannot speak for you.
