Fitness Blogger Responds To Dress-Shaming At Wedding

Blogger starts kindness campaign after being harassed by women for wearing a short dress

A fitness blogger experienced some ridiculous body-shaming recently prompting her to tell her Instagram followers what happened. It’s a sad reminder that women can be so terrible to other women and that bullying absolutely doesn’t stop once you’re past junior high.

Fitness instructor Liz Krueger shared a photo of herself in a mini-dress she wore to a wedding. Her caption explains the fallout of that sartorial selection, and spoiler alert; it’s not pretty.

She writes, “If only I knew that choosing this dress for a wedding on a 90 degree day meant so many women would be out-rightly rude to me, and even come up behind me slap my ass as I’m standing alone. As quote “it was a dare from her friends, because I was a target.” And then proceed to spill a full beer down my arm.”

Um, what? A target? So….looking smokin’ hot in a dress that isn’t a muumuu makes one a target? Good to know.

Krueger sarcastically adds, “Just one of maaaaany acts of kindness of the night! Yup. That happened. Good thing for thick skin, being able to laugh at things and not take it personally, and good friends/hubby by my side.” She included the hashtag #adultsarebullystoo, because apparently, they are.

First of all, let’s be clear — nothing any woman wears makes her a target. For anyone. Not only is that body-shaming, it’s perpetuating rape culture. So she’s in a mini-dress, that means her body is fair game for being touched and slapped? How about, fuck no. That is disgusting and these women should be ashamed of themselves.

Secondly, she says it was 90 degrees that day and as someone who sweats at the slightest provocation, I completely understand why she would go with something light and short. Was her crime looking too amazing in that short dress? Because hello, she does. Not to mention, though the dress is definitely tight, her bottom and breasts are covered. Has no one ever seen a woman wear a short dress to a summer wedding reception before? Or maybe just not on someone who looks this totally incredible in it. That’s clearly too much to take for some horrible and jealous individuals.

Luckily, Krueger has a great attitude about how she was treated and decided to turn her crappy experience into a force for good. She’s created the hashtag #KruegerKindness and is encouraging other women to use it to spread their stories of being kind to fellow women.

She writes, “I’m starting my own kindness movement #KruegerKindness! Whether it’s just a party of 1 (me), or others want to join me! I’m going to actively make it a priority to do good things for other women, every single day from here on out. I’m hoping to inspire others to do the same, just as I have with [my] fitness journey.”

Krueger says the act of kindness can be as simple as complimenting another woman, buying her coffee, or talking to someone who’s been bullied or is having a hard time. She says the goal is to, “kill all the mean girls with kindness,” and it’s hard to think of a cause more worthy for women and girls in this age of social media bullying and cruelty.

No woman deserves to be bullied or harassed for what she’s wearing, even if it is “inappropriate” (which Krueger’s dress certainly wasn’t). Can’t we just be nice? Can’t we agree that men give women enough shit and that we all need to band together instead of making each other feel worse? Some of us are raising daughters and they’re watching our every move and hearing many of our snide remarks. Let’s try to let them hear us supporting fellow women instead of tearing them down.

As Krueger says, “We live in a world that needs more women willing to put themselves out there for a good cause!!! Who’s with me!?”

Count me in.