Lately I’ve been seeing articles praising companies and organizations who are promoting the reality that women aren’t just the airbrushed beauties featured in magazines or celebrities with professional makeup artists at their disposal. We are living in a golden age where women are finally being heard when they shout, “We have cellulite and that’s okay!” and people don’t shut them down immediately. It’s refreshing and empowering and you bet your buns it makes me a little less shy to wear my neon orange shorts.

So why, despite all of this female yeehaw, does this new lingo give me the willies? It’s the fact that we’re using the word “real”. When saying something is real you are implying there is a falsehood to match. When you say that these brave women with extra curves who still totally rock it are real, you’re implying that the other women are not. And that is not accurate or very lady power in my opinion.

Growing up I was one of those unfortunate souls who puberty hit with all it had; my metabolism quit, my face got greasy and I mistakenly tried for a sassy pixie cut. My biggest issue, however, was that my mother isn’t like other mothers. She was born with an amazing metabolism, slender figure and crazy good cheekbones, and as a kid she was the object of all my envy. I would spend hours mortified that by 14 I was too big to wear my mother’s clothes and that despite sharing sweets she never gained a pound. What she did gain was a patience I can never fully comprehend or dare to replicate. I remember as she spent hours every night telling me that looking like her wasn’t a loss, it was the chance to look like myself. Promising that one day I would see myself in the mirror and not be unhappy that it wasn’t her body staring back at me. Putting aside her rare moments of downtime to build me back up every single night after I had spent the day recklessly tearing myself down.

I’ve since grown out of my discomfort and shed my puberty pounds and my mom has continued to age in the strangest and most beautiful way. What has not changed though is the way other women, insecure women, stare at my mother or make comments framed like jokes about her looks. And in this new age of acceptance I find more and more people seeming to doubt her “realness”. In her wisdom and grace she has always brushed it aside and never given these women a second thought. I, however, have not. As women we’ve taken up a new habit, it seems, where we pass judgement on women who look (in our eyes) better than us and decide they aren’t the average woman. We have started to actively put them in a separate camp of women who aren’t “real” but strange enigmas sent to make us feel bad about ourselves. We have decided that the struggles of insecurity and self doubt don’t apply to them and that therefore they are a different enemy in this struggle for “real” women. In doing so, we are becoming ugly.

So let me grant you a suggestion, adjust your new language. Take your pride in this era of change and remember not to let it turn you into the same monster we’re trying to beat. A real woman has curves, imperfections, scars and birthmarks. A real woman has perfect thighs and a six pack to match. A real woman is 5 feet tall and rocking a D cup. A real woman is a slender wisp with a flat chest and long locks. A real woman is tall and hippy with stunning eyes. A real woman is any woman you see.

We’re all real so please, stop saying we’re not.