Carol Rosetti is an artist with a mission. She’s creating illustrated messages to show women all over the world that their body hook-ups and insecurities aren’t a reflection of them- it’s not them, it’s you. 

 

We all feel pressured to meet societies standards of beauty and lifestyle. Gynosome has made it it’s mission to fight back against the dictatorship of women’s media; we’re sick of being told you can’t wear particular clothes because you’re a certain shape, we’re tired of hearing that we should cut our hair because “everyone on the carpet is doing it” and we’re disgusted by the constant articles on the best looks to impress our men. Let’s get something straight; we can grow our pubes and wear them as a robe, we can don one giant stinking dread lock and we can sit back and wait for ‘our man’ to be pleased with what we’re offering or wave him good bye- because we can do whatever we want.

 

Carol Rossetti is an illustrator that knows this all too well, and she’s happy to help us spread the message. This Brazilian artist has plenty of fire and lots of dignity in her illustrated messages. With a website and Facebook page that is updated daily and has around 205,000 loyal followers (it’s growing every day!)- It’s not long until Carol’s designs are all over the web.

Gynosome spoke to Carol to find out a bit more about her work. “I decided to make a page on Facebook to post one drawing each day to show people what I can do. Then I had an idea and this project just sort of happened, it wasn’t really planned it was really spontaneous” says the graphic design major.

 

Just 26 years old, Rossetti can teach a lot of lessons. She’s not just teaching women how to love themselves, but her messages could help a lot of people learn a lesson in how to be accepting of others. Tackling problems that may seem inconsequential to some, such as not shaving our legs, and issues that may not affect us all but are imperative to our community, like sexual abuse and disabilities is what Carol does so eloquently.

 

The first drawing was a girl called Marina, and it was inspired by the action of a friend. “I was on Instagram and this friend of mine, who is a good person but sometimes people are mean. She took a picture of a random woman in the street who was fat and she was wearing yoga pants. My friend said something really mean, I don’t recall what she said, something like ‘my eyes hurt’, and then I stopped and said “why is she saying that’ it was so unnecessary”” she said.

 

“I thought about drawing a fat girl wearing something that wasn’t yoga pants, as I didn’t want it to appear I was telling only her. I decided to draw a fat girl wearing something magazines say she shouldn’t wear and give her a name and a friendly face”, Carol’s drawings are perhaps not the most integral part of the illustration, her meaningful messages are inspiring and eye opening.

 

“I decided I would use a text that would be like a friend talking to another friend, because I have seen this girl support other people and I am sure if someone said something bad about their body she would say something like “don’t worry about that, wear what you want, don’t let people get you down”, so I tried to get that exactly and say what she would say that would be friendly, so I did it”.

 

We feel that Rossetti’s work is extremely relevant and truly resonates with us that we’d feature her every issue if we could, but she is particularly significant to our Mother Nature issue due to her efforts to accept women as they naturally are. Carol states on her website that her work is motivated by the way the world is making her feel- “I feel very disturbed by the world’s attempts to control women’s bodies, behaviors and identities”.

 

No matter whether you are like the characters in the illustrations, the admirable statements apply to all. Messages such as “you are the boss of your face”, “your freedom has no expiration date”, “your decision doesn’t make you any less of a woman” and “you don’t need public approval to live and express your identity” can inspire all women of all ages to feel comfortable within themselves and what they feel is natural for them as an individual.

 

We asked Carol what her one piece of advice would be to anyone, she said “try and support other women before attacking them, it’s about unconditional support. Think twice before making mean comments that are bad for all women”.

Keep a look at for Carol’s book coming out soon, containing all of her illustrations.