How has the Skinny Bitch Collective survived to see 2019?

The Skinny Bitch Collective made headlines over the weekend as posts and stories from a Kenyan retreat surfaced on Instagram, revealing a group of spandex-clad majority-white model types  working out against a literal backdrop of the local Massai tribe. The workout classes, which are a celebrity and model favourite, boasting clients such as Ellie Goulding, Suki Watershouse and Victoria’s Secret models like Sara Sampaio, were quickly and rightly called out for cultural appropriation, tokenism and racial insensitivity. As the situation shed light on the collective, however, it became clear that its founder, Russell Bateman, should not be anywhere near women – which is probably why the website, Instagram and every other public channel was taken offline by Monday.

At first glance, the SBC may seem like any other fitness craze, which focuses on achieving an ‘ideal’ body, but hearing Bateman talk about the training and seeing how he markets it makes the sessions a bit more sleazy than a barre class, Soul Cycle or pole fitness session. For starters, the invitation-only class caters exclusively for those who are already thin. The London trainer told W Magazine two years ago,“There’s nothing interesting for me about making someone who’s overweight a little bit less overweight.” He describes his class as a mix of Tarantino and Terry Richardson and he tells women to have sex almost as much as he tells them to eat salmon. In class, he has the women crawl around the floor, fight each other and “smack someone’s ass.” Diet Prada took screenshots of Bateman’s Instagram account, before it was shut down, filled with photos that look more like a men’s magazine shoot of a gym than women actually working out. While we don’t doubt that all of these things burn calories, is this someone you want shaping you?

It’s the thigh-gap fitness model that was once the norm, which focuses more on exclusive aesthetic results rather than health or strength. It’s the same model that luxury gym, Equinox used back in 2012 when they had photos of model-thin women on the walls with a giant red circle, asking if they were “skinny fat,” or when they actually hired Terry Richardson to do a campaign that featured a spread-leg model in an evening dress with a heavy amount of side breast popping out, who had a large camera pointed at her by a man standing over her from his crotch region. It’s the type of fitness that tells women to workout so that men will want to sleep with them.

In the age of inclusivity, where everyone from plus-size celebrities to thin models and 85-year old Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg share their workouts online, it seems shocking that SBC was still even a thing. As a society, we have largely cancelled Terry Richardson – not only for the way he treats women, but also for the way he depicts them – Vogue and GQ will no longer work with him. The idealised bodies of the Victoria’s Secret Angels thatBateman trains are no longer who women want to buy lingerie from as more size-inclusive brands like Aerie and Fenty are taking over the market place and the “very sexy” underwear brand closes more and more stores. Even Kate Moss regrets saying, “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels,” so maybe its time to put aspirations of being a “skinny bitch” to bed and stop glorifying perverts for their ability to make you into someone they want to sexualise.