Fat We Can Fix, The Excuses Are Trickier
I need you to try to learn to love the lush overgrowth of your body. Let it grow wild and untamed as a garden you loved as a child. Love it for the way it sustains you, keeps you warm, goes to such lengths not to let you get hurt. Its only job is to care for you. I need you to try to love it if you intend to love me.
In the pages of Everyday Feminism, an anonymous woman of girth, a size 26, wants other people to stop trying to lose weight and to stop acknowledging their own fatness, except in flattering terms, as this makes her – our anonymous, rather demanding woman of girth – feel bad about herself:
Every discussion about bodies — whether in the media or amongst friends — is about how to avoid the horrible fate of looking like me… When you say that you shouldn’t have eaten that lunch or dessert, or when you announce your new year’s resolution to lose 5, 10, 25 pounds, you are saying that you don’t want your body to end up like mine.
Well, at risk of being indelicate, yes.
I know that all of us are impacted by body shaming, and that everyone has real, valid, deep, hard feelings about our bodies. I still need you to stop perpetuating it, especially when talking about yourself. No amount of caveats or prologues make it hurt me less. I need you to know that I’m taking it personally because it is personal.
So if any readers are planning to drop a few pounds by cycling, or jogging, or walking the dog, or just eating less, this makes you complicit in the sin of body shaming, and therefore an oppressor of those with surplus flesh.
I need you to remember what you know from feminism… that we question social messages and systems of power that dictate what our bodies are and aren’t allowed to be.
Ah, yes. Society’s to blame for that dress that doesn’t fit. And for the prickling annoyance with other people who’d prefer not to be fat, and who, scandalously, do something about it.
I need you to remember what you know from economic justice: that individual work ethic can’t hold a candle to the systems stacked against us. And we can’t attribute poverty to poor work ethic any more than we can attribute harassment of fat people to low self-esteem or weak willpower… I need you not to forget your social justice values when I tell you about my experience.
Because not wishing to be excessively fat is now a form of harassment, apparently. And that weight gain, all size 26 of it, wasn’t her fault because the system was stacked against her. I’m not overly familiar with ladies’ dress sizes, but I gather that a size 26 is more or less Trigglypuff proportions. Or put another way,
Fat enough that some stores for fat people don’t carry my size. Fat enough that some doctors will refuse to see me. Fat enough that getting on an airplane makes my blood run cold.
Which is to say, a size of such impracticality and inconvenience that one might wish to avoid it. Say, with dieting and exercise, and other things we mustn’t mention. And which, needless to say, isn’t ideal if you want your body to “care for you” for as long as it otherwise might.
We’ve been here before, I think.
The creative genius of these people is revealed in the caption accompanying the first link:
A person stares into the camera with concern against a grey backdrop. They have bright pink lipstick and a short, black bob haircut.
It is hard to believe some people don’t take them seriously.
If she was really happy being so fat why would she care if other people diet?
If she was really happy being so fat why would she care if other people diet?
‘Well-adjusted-fat-activist-and-social-justice-warrior’ does seem a contradiction in terms, and certainly improbable. Not because of being fat, I think. I’ve known big people who were, so far as I could tell, quite content about their size, sort of cheerfully resigned. I think the contradiction is more to do with the kinds of personalities attracted to fat activism and “social justice” generally.
In the pages of Everyday Feminism. . .
I’m shocked! Shocked!!
Maybe she ought to deploy all that social justice jiggling around her bum and midsection by skipping a couple of trips through Old Country Buffet.
Ok, off to the correction booth!
There’s a whiff of contrivance and dishonesty about the whole thing. The anonymous author blurs distinctions between, on the one hand, a social gaffe and accidental slight – someone expressing a desire to diet within earshot of a much fatter friend – and on the other, any acknowledgement of fatness as an issue, in the media or wherever. (And while herself listing many practical problems caused by being heavily overweight.) She then rails against both, as if they were equally rude and were both something to be stopped in the name of “social justice.” Such that she urges fat people to “love the lush overgrowth of your body” and to “let it grow wild and untamed.” Until they have trouble breathing and their knee cartilage gives out.
an anonymous woman of girth, a size 26,
That’s big for a snowflake.
Milo, in his inimitable fashion, provides something of a palate-cleanser on this topic.
But by judging her friends and criticizing them isn’t she shaming them for being smarter than her?
Would you call that brain shaming or dumb shaming?
Caption;
“That’s NOT funny!”
Fat lives matter
the lush overgrowth of your body
Have weeds taken over? What?
R.Sherman,
Skip trips through the buffet line, eh?
You have all you can eat! You go now! You here four owah!
That’s big for a snowflake
The basic dynamic seems to be: “People are accidentally reminding me of how enormously fat I am, which I hate, even when they’re actually talking about how fat they are (and even though I’m totally cool with being enormously fat, honest). Therefore people shouldn’t acknowledge their own fatness or do anything about it. Because social justice.”
I can’t help thinking there’s another, more straightforward option.
Oi! Fatty!
I’m a bad person because I squatted and deadlifted last night instead of Sunday afternoon pints and ice cream for dessert.
Got it.
People are accidentally reminding me of how enormously fat I am, which I hate, even when they’re actually talking about how fat they are (and even though I’m totally cool with being enormously fat, honest).
If Miss Yourfatfriend is totes cool with being Brobdingnagian (honest), why does she hate being reminded of it ? One would think she would take it as a compliment.
#Grrrlpower#SJWlogic#Denial.
“Would you call that brain shaming or dumb shaming?”
Health-shaming, Shirley…
It’s amazing how the rational contradictions (if not outright hypocrisy) is consistently ignored. I’d suggest deliberately but there’s nothing suggesting the required level of cunning.
*
on a similar feminista note…
“Which, indeed… begs the question… what kind of straight-laced, totalitarian monster
would choose to deny poverty-stricken septuagenarian women their maternal
due?”
*
jabrwok: Thanks for that pointer to Mil’s essay. Very refreshing, and god knows I need to hear straightforward talk these days.
The problem is that all SJW wimmen think they are goddesses, if only they were more like the goddess Aidos (the Greek goddess of shame, modesty, and humility).
The SJW left of course love a bit of shaming, as long as it is from their approved list of things, tax, white, men etc. The sugar tax is in response to the rise in the little fatties costing the NHS too much, does this mean the fatties are being victimised by this tax, or is it ok because as all consumers have to needlessly pay it is it is not discriminatory?
Maybe someone could create an app ala Pokémon GO where you point your phone at a Trigglypuff and get points? Double points if they have blue hair and hipster glasses. As they run/waddle away from you maybe they will loose some weight.
I’m off to have a sausage roll or a pie.
“A person stares into the camera with concern against a grey backdrop. They have bright pink lipstick and a short, black bob haircut.”
Is that one of those place holder things that editors use for laying out a page, a bit like Lorem Ipsum?
Maybe it is deep and meaningful poetry in the form of a quatrain and it is just missing that last line, what can you add?
A person stares into the camera with concern against a grey backdrop.
They have bright pink lipstick and a short,
black bob haircut
and carefully concealed pie.
Is that one of those place holder things that editors use for laying out a page, a bit like Lorem Ipsum?
No, I think they are just unoriginal idiots. Occasionally there will be something like, “Image from Shutterstock”, but there but there are lots of these sorts:
A person looks distressed and uncertain as they touch their forehead, looking down.
Given who runs the site, I imagine it is their version of closed captioning for the deaf reading the site.
Have weeds taken over? What?
Kudzu, mebbe?
Surely this lady is triggering other ladies who happen to be bigger than a size 26. The inescapable logic is that, in order not to shame them, she herself should pile on as much fat as humanly possible, then (a) explode like Mr Creosote* or (b) suffer a terminal heart attack or stroke and require two teams of firemen and a JCB to extricate her from her abode.
Furthermore, if she is so proud of being a land-whale, why is she ‘anonymous’?
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxRnenQYG7I
The inescapable logic is that, in order not to shame them, she herself should pile on as much fat as humanly possible,
As a rule, I don’t much care how fat or thin a person is, but the transparency of the lie was hard to resist. Our supposedly liberated feminist denounces “fat shaming,” which apparently includes all efforts to stay in practical proportion, however innocent and free of malice. You see, it isn’t enough that people be polite to her. They must also accept her standards for themselves: “I need you to try to learn to love the lush overgrowth of your body,” says she, thereby suggesting that she can’t be happy about being very fat until everyone else is happy to be very fat themselves. In other words, Our Proud And Empowered Size 26™ needs other people to feel as she pretends to feel in order not to feel bad about being overweight.
IVF for 70 year olds.
I guess all of India’s and the world’s problems have been solved. Good to know.
Make that Jameson a triple, my work is done.
‘The camel’s hump is an ugly lump
Which well you may see at the zoo
But uglier yet is the hump that we get
From having too little to do..’
(Kipling).
“Fat enough that some stores for fat people don’t carry my size.”
On the other hand, your local camping supply store will sell you a tent. Or you could pick up a tarpaulin at a DIY place, cut a hole in it, and wear it like a poncho.
This bit “Fat enough that getting on an airplane makes my blood run cold.”…has she any idea what the sight of her making her way to the seat next to YOU does !
You beat me to it, Ed.
Earlier this year, Atlanta to New Orleans I had seat 18B and boarded late…..
“Holy shit, how am I supposed to fit between those two lardarses?”
I’m 6ft tall and sixteen stone (“built like brick shithouse” as they used to say round our way), but I was a teenage gymnast compared to them.
My travelling companions turned out to be gentle and gracious people with impeccable manners, as most southerners of whatever race and of my acquaintance seem to be, and it all turned into a bit of a bit of a giggle. Thankfully it wasn’t a long flight.
I think at the very root of her problem is the issue of “other people insist on talking about themselves, when what’s really important is that I talk about myself” The classic definition of a bore.
“Fat enough that some stores for fat people don’t carry my size.”
She would learn to sew or alter her own clothes but that’s too stereotypically feminine.
I’m a size 20 (having been a 12 during the 20th century) and I subscribe to catalogs that carry my size, such as the ones by this company: http://www.fullbeauty.com/
If the catalog only goes up to size 18, the clothes are probably too young for me anyway, seen here: http://www.sahalie.com/
PROBLEM SOLVED!
(Or is problem-solving not the point of the exercise? SO confused!)
I wonder what song this woman will sing when she develops Type II diabetes? When her diet is curtailed, when she has to take shots of insulin daily, and when she loses the feeling in her fingers, will she blame the same system that told her being fat wasn’t good for her?
Have weeds taken over? What?
Kudzu, mebbe?
If you’d studied Wyndham you’d know that eventually the earth would be dominated by slow lumbering plant life whose main weapon is blinding you with it’s toungue.
Tsk.
Damn you auto-correct
Hal,
Kudzu, the plant that ate the South.
Ed Snack,
…has she any idea what the sight of her making her way to the seat next to YOU does !
Ah, hell nah!
Or is problem-solving not the point of the exercise?
Heh. Quite.
What caught my eye was the slightly pompous opening, which echoes the conceits and cheap emotional blackmail of so-called “critical race theory,” and implies a kind of ‘fat authenticity,’ as if some otherwise hidden truths were about to be revealed to ignorant thin people. (“I need you to listen closely. I need you to believe me when I tell you what happens… I need you to care for me enough to feel unsafe. I need you to join me for a moment where I live every day,” etc.)
And then what follows is presumptuous, irrational, sometimes slyly evasive. Which just goes to show that these rote tactics should probably trigger a mental flag. A warning of imminent bullshit and grandiosity.
My travelling companions turned out to be gentle and gracious people with impeccable manners,
Speaking of plane seats, I was reminded of Lindy West, another feminist and “fat activist,” whose “work focuses on pop culture, social justice and body image.” And who, having struggled to squeeze into her seat on a plane, decided to needlessly pick a fight with a male passenger, and who then found it amusing to deliberately knock him with her luggage as he tried to sleep. And who then wondered why “nobody wants to sit next to a fat person on a plane.” When not writing about herself for Jezebel and the Guardian, or testing the endurance of plane seats and fellow passengers, she makes videos of herself eating biscuits and junk food.
Again, what’s interesting isn’t the fatness; it’s the kinds of personalities that seem to be drawn to fat activism and other “social justice” claptrap.
Fat enough that getting on an airplane makes my blood run cold.
Cargo is like that.
“Fat enough that getting on an airplane makes my blood run cold.”
She could buy two adjacent seats; but that’s probably not acceptable to a reality-denying fat activist.
Is she related to Alexei Sayle?
personalities that seem to be drawn to […] “social justice” claptrap.
Or is it active recruitment by the “handlers”?
Or is problem-solving not the point of the exercise?
“Problem-solving” is a patriarchal tactic for the oppression of Womyn! IT’S NOT ABOUT THE
NAILFAT!Let it grow wild and untamed as a garden you loved as a child.
I neglected a front lawn for several years to just to a point just this side of criminality. Wild, untamed plots devolve into heinous patches of dry earth filled with aggressive weeds. Reforming them into something worthy of being called a garden requires months, even years of vigorous physical effort, a significant amount of creative vision, no small expense, and daily maintenance for three seasons out of four.
One wonders if the personalities typified by the author understand how anything works.
*for several years to a point just this side of criminality
One wonders if the personalities typified by the author understand how anything works.
They, and others of the victicrat mentality, don’t understand, let alone want to understand. They merely want the world to conform to them rather than adapt to the world. This crap is no different than the current Krop of Kampus Krazies who demand entire universities change their curricula lest they encounter Uncomfortable Badthought™.
With Persons of Gravitational Enhancement, it is not as if they were born blind, or lost limbs, or have some real disability and need some accommodations. You want to fly and are too elephantine to sit in steerage ? Fine, use the big seats in the front of the plane, but don’t expect carriers to start having first, steerage, and leviathan classes, and if they do (though it would mess with the CG calculations, I imagine), be prepared to pay for more to sit in the XXXXL seats.
These ladies belong in this thread. Apologies if I’ve linked to this before
Franklin: Right. Even Voltaire ends “Candide” with a character brushing off the latest flurry of sophistry with “enfin il faut cultiver son jardin” (if I got the quote right).
Henry: I love it. I’m married already, else I would have to find that videoing lady and propose.
Come to think of it, she probably deserves a trophy for being fat.
“Everyday Feminism”
Does this suggest there may be a higher level of Feminism? One not so everyday; one that is swank, of a higher polish?
“Wasn’t her fault because the system was stacked against her”
The only thing stacked against her is a huge pile of empty pizza boxes.
One not so everyday; one that is swank, of a higher polish?
Perhaps they are like Masons, they start out as Everyday Feminists, but can work their way up to 33rd Degree Grand High Mystic Queen of Meteors Feminists complete with glittered macramé hats. No aprons though, because they are a cisheterosexist symbol of kitchens.
You know I get being happy in your own skin and trying to maintain a positive outlook. Healthier for you and all. But if you find yourself out of breath just turning around and sweat butter, you probably should lose some god damned weight.
First they came for the fat-shamers, and I said nothing because I wasn’t a fat-shamer.
Then they came for the plus size clothing stores, and I said nothing because I wasn’t a plus-size clothing store.
Next they came for the personal trainers, and I said nothing because I wasn’t a personal trainer.
Then they came for me, and no one said anything, because they’re mouths were full of cake.