“Body shaming Black female athletes is not just not about race,” said NBA Hall of Famer, six-time NBA champion and multi-time Most Valuable Player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. “Body shaming is a misogynist idea. We need to re-think our ideals of female beauty.”
Misty Copeland recently became the first African-American woman to be named a principal dancer at the American Ballet Theater. “Early in her career, she was rejected from a ballet academy for having a wrong body,” said Abdul-Jabbar. “There’s plenty of evidence showing how harmful this beauty standard is to society.”
Abdul-Jabbar added, “The typical American woman spends about $15,000 on makeup over a lifetime. If that same money was invested into a retirement plan, it would give her about $100,000 at age 70.
“Even though American women spend the most on cosmetics in the world, we are ranked only 23rd in one list of satisfaction with life.”