That’s the other goal of this mission and one we can’t accomplish on our own. All of us who create and consume media need to reckon with unconscious bias, uncomfortable though it may be. We’ve created this space as a kind of mirror, and we hope you’ll challenge yourself to look into it. Ignoring is, after all, an act of willful ignorance. Running from our own biases only adds fuel to the fire. The best thing we can do is run toward these dark corners in ourselves, turn on the lights, and look.

Rest assured, you won’t be alone in there. In developing The 67% Project, we’ve stumbled into our own biases again and again. It’s more than just the knee-jerk responses that crop up in any conversation about size (“Are we promoting an unhealthy lifestyle?”). It’s the worry that, in shining a light on plus-size woman, we’re somehow excluding the thin ones. (All women matter!) This is the choke-hold of unconscious bias. Of course, the goal is inclusivity — that’s why we’re including thin women amid all the other bodies on our site. But to correct an imbalance, you have to focus on the other side of the scale. If you’re worried this is taking something away from thin people, you’re simply wrong. If you’re worried this is upsetting the norm, you’re damn right. There are a lot of norms that need upsetting.

That’s why the success of this project, more than any other, relies on you as much as us. Mainstream media is meant to reflect mainstream values, and right now, it’s doing just that: People find fatness as a concept and an image unacceptable. And they feel in the right to say so.

The bodies you see on Refinery29 today are no different than what you’d expect to see on the average American street. So, if you are surprised by these images or put off in any way, just pause. It is shocking. I am shocked by the effort and expense it took to make this change. I am shocked by all the wary questions it incited, some from my own mouth. But even more than shock, I feel a sense of greatness in its most literal form. Whether or not you are part of the 67%, all of us are part of The 67% Project. We believe that every person is capable of acknowledging the inequality they see and the biases they feel.

No, it won’t be easy. But it’s still not that complicated. Today, we invite you to join us in the first, most simple step: See the 67%. Do not look away.