Although the men of Queer Eye’s Fab Five usually make over men, they really seem to understand women too.
Take Karamo Brown for example. Resident ‘culture’ guy, bomber jacket connoisseur, activist for the rights of his differently abled audience, and defender of women’s right to look like absolute sh*t whenever they damn feel like it.
The latter is in reference to his response to an irresponsibly judgmental tweet posted by Entertainment Tonight. It features pictures of a very pregnant Carrie Underwood on the red carpet at the CMA Awards, with the caption,
“If @carrieunderwood can make pregnancy look THIS glam minutes before the #CMAawards, what’s your excuse?”
Karamo was quick to respond to the post, calling out ET for shaming pregnant women who don’t keep up a glamourous, feminine glow of perfection while literally growing a human inside of them.
His tweet reads,
“I love you @etnow but who the hell wrote this tweet… You owe women an apology. You’re shaming pregnant women/ women im general and that’s not okay! Women listen, you are beautiful if you are in sweats or glammed up. And don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
The expectation that is forced on women to always look put together is exhausting. No one should feel obliged to put in this level of effort into their appearance, and especially not pregnant women.
Attaching the concept of ‘beauty’ exclusively to looking glowed up and classically feminine is outdated, and while we don’t need Karamo Brown to tell us we are all just as beautiful in sweats, it feels pretty damn good.
Karamo makes an effort to empathise with people outside of his own breadth of experience, and he stands up for them when he sees injustice. Shaming women for not looking super put together might seem like a minor injustice, but it feeds into the greater systemic oppression of women, so calling it out is important.
Basically, Karamo Brown is lovely, and he’s the kind of man and role model the world needs more of.