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Judging Thandile Sundaza: When is too far too far?

Last week, a 7 month pregnant MP, Thandile Sunduza, wore a ruched lime green dress to the State of the Nation address. (Yes, the dress was green, not yellow. Okay, chartreuse if you will.)

Social media and comment forums went wild. With every new tweet or post it was as if people were trying to outdo each other: Who could be the meanest, which comment can be the most dehumanising, who can make the peanut gallery laugh the hardest at an overweight, heavily pregnant woman in an ill-fitting dress.

Cartoonists, journalists and sickeningly, even a doctor joined the bullies on Twitter. I’m not going to repeat the insults here. Suffice to say it was fat-shaming, sexist and vile.

Ms Sunduza is currently under strict medical supervision after she collapsed at the airport on her way home after the event.

At this point it is still speculation as the doctors haven’t released a formal statement yet, but most assume the stress and trauma of intense cyberbullying at a stage when women are especially sensitive and fragile has caused her collapse.

When Jana, our fashion editor, wrote this piece condemning the bullying, a blogger accused us of being hypocritical.

Can we condemn the treatment of Ms Sunduza when we do worst dressed galleries? Isn’t making fun of celebrities’ outfits the same thing we spoke out against?

I don’t think it is.

To comment on what models and actresses - many of them who are paid to be beautiful (sad but true) – choose to wear with the help of personal stylists and with all the dresses in the world to pick from, is not the same as body-shaming a pregnant woman whose job it is to represent a political party in parliament.

But is it only a case of varying degrees then? Is it anti-feminist and anti-women to have best and worst galleries, even if the teasing is gentle and only focused on the outfits?

I don’t know. I’d like to think that as women we are allowed to criticise silly things such as fashion choices while still remaining true to the important things such as rejecting body hatred without blurring the lines.
I also know the women in my life can and do criticise my clothes without making me feel ashamed of my body and helping me dress better to boot.

What do you think? Do you think we should move away completely from things like worst dressed galleries and be 100% encouraging, positive and supportive?

Or are we as women capable enough to know how to play the dress and not the woman inside?

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