We are a magazine written by (mostly) women for (mostly) women.

I am amazed that almost coming into May, we haven’t had an article about how to get your body ready for this upcoming summer season. I thought that was the main issue women’s magazines had to cover: how to have a nice body, how to look good. Probably nicely completed by articles such as: “How To Choose a Bathing Suit For Your Body Type” or “How To Look Skinny On Your Bikini.”

Well, since nobody wants to cover this topic, I will. Here I am to save you, ladies.

Every year, thousands of beauty companies, clothing companies, food companies, medical companies and gym companies use this time of the year to make us all extremely self-conscious. It is time to show our bodies again. And just like every other year, we aren’t ready.

Too fat, too pale, too hairy. You have stretch marks, and cellulite and scars. Too skinny, too fluffy, too human… who would want to see such nauseating show?

Diet.

Run 10 miles a day.

Jump.

Take this weight loss pills.

Lift.

Swim.

Drink water and green tea and detox juices and try not to eat anything for the following 60 days.

Congratulations. Either you got yourself a beautiful bikini body or you are dead (which isn’t terrible, considering you won’t look bad in a bikini this year!)

Every single year, women all over the world face bikini season with fear. They check their bodies in the mirror, finding more and more disgusting spots that you never see scrolling through Instagram. They see themselves with hate. Sadly, many would rather be dead than have to wear a bikini again.

Tons of girls will stay home, avoiding the sun, the shorts, the beach, the pool. Because they have made them believe their bodies aren’t enough. Because they have made us believe we aren’t enough. Because they have made me believe I’m not enough.

Since I was 14, bikini season has been my weak spot. I have dieted, I have exercised to extenuation, I have undernourished my body and I have put it through hell just to look a certain way I actually never got to look like. There was a summer where I even stayed home for three whole months just because I couldn’t handle people seeing my body filled with stretch marks.

Since I was 14, the “Buy Your Bikini” day has been the worse day of my year. I never looked like the girls announcing that they were trying the same bikini I was trying on, and I never looked like the girls who uploaded pictures to social media wearing it. There was a summer where I even ended up crying in the fitting rooms seeing how ugly, fat, hairy and pale I looked.

When you type “bikini diet 8 weeks” on Google, you get 13,1000,000 results. If you type “bikini diet overnight,” the results surprisingly drop to (who would have thought this, thinking how easy it looks to lose 20 pounds in one night?) to 1,150,000 results. I’m gonna take a risk here and say that 99.9% of the articles related to “How To Get Beach Body Ready” are directly targeted to only half of the human’s population: women. US.

I am tired of being convinced that I am not enough. I am tired of the patriarchy, and every single step along the way, telling us all women that we are never enough. That we can always run an extra mile, lose an extra pound and get an extra tan.

I don’t want to take care of myself because I need to achieve a certain body type that I will never be able to achieve. I want to take care of myself because I love myself and my body. And I want every woman out there to do as she pleases: eat healthy if she wants, eat junk food if she wants. Exercise if she wants, lay on the couch is she wants. Go to a tanning bed if she wants, stay pale if she wants.

And just be happy. And comfortable in her own skin. Convincing herself and the whole world that she is worth it no matter how she looks. Because she needs to worry about politics, and philosophy, and finding the cure for cancer, and ruling her country, and getting her degree, and watching a whole season of the last Netflix’s show. She needs to worry about more than her appearance. Because she is so much more than that.

“A culture fixated on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty, but an obssession about female obedience. Dieting is the most potent political sedative in women’s history: a quietly mad population is a tractable one.” – Naomi Wolf