Whenever I read about a super model’s experience with body shaming over the course of her career, my initial reaction is sympathetic. I am sure that such incidents are terrible and can have a negative impact on a person’s self esteem. I absolutely believe that when your multi-million dollar career depends on what the scale and the tape measure say you can easily become preoccupied with weighing yourself and checking your measurements. I also know that you have an ability the average person with faced with the same challenges doesn’t have. You can walk away and not worry about having a place to live or enough to eat.

When a waitress at the local nightclub is confronted with those same issues, she can’t walk away because her earnings are barely enough to live on and certainly not enough to invest in such a way that she can retire at thirty-five years old. When the receptionist at the local modeling agency is told she is getting too chubby to represent the agency well, she likely has to remain in her position and lose weight as fast as she can because she needs her job to keep a roof over her child’s head. To be clear, all three women are being treated inappropriately and have the absolute right to be upset and seek to redress their grievances. Only one has the resources to make real choices about how to respond. That is a form of privilege we don’t hear many people talking about, but we definitely need to talk about and recognize privilege in all its forms.

In our culture money is perhaps the ultimate privilege. It does cover a multitude of sins, both our own and those of others. Money affords us choices that the average person doesn’t have available to them. It doesn’t remove the sting of mistreatment, but it does offer many escape routes not enjoyed by the average person.  You will have to excuse me when a millionaire wants to carry on about their struggles, because I am not that interested. I would much rather hear about and address the struggles of the average person. Sorry, Chrissy.