FAT RANT

Fat Chicks Rule

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Women and girls in our society are inundated from birth by the need to be thin and beautiful. Giraffe like models prance on every magazine cover, shrinking starlets grace all the red carpets, and every other show and advertisement on television is about how to lose weight, firm up, or hide your not yet skinny body with strategically draped clothes. In a time when we have almost outgrown the stupidity of other kinds of publicly accepted discrimination, making fun of fat people is still absolutely okay. Fat people are ridiculed, held up as examples of what not to be, made the butt of every joke, and are always the ‘before’ picture in any magazine spread.

When fat women have the audacity to embrace their bodies and celebrate their innate beauty and live the life they want to live regardless of society’s demand that they worship at the alter of anorexia and sacrifice two hours of their day to the treadmill gods, they are looked at as freaks, weird monstrosities that no one is quite sure what to do with. We all know how to handle fat women who feel shame and embarrassment about their size and who constantly profess their need to diet and work out, but when a women looks at her fat self in the mirror and says ‘I love my body’ and struts her hot stuff in a mini skirt and a tank top we all gasp in disgust and whisper to one another that she should not be wearing something like that, has she no shame, and shouldn’t she go to the gym? Doesn’t she care about being healthy?

That is one of the most disgusting things about fat discrimination, that it is done under the sickening guise of concern for the fat person’s health. I have heard some of the most convoluted and offensive defenses of fat hatred, ridiculous enough to make my head spin, but contrived concern over the health of the fat person in question is a whole new low. I have even heard it suggested that we should not ‘allow’ fat people to accept their bodies and celebrate their fatness because it is the easy way out for lazy people who just don’t want to do the hard work of exercising and being healthy. Excuse me? When a fat woman chooses to go against every single voice, image, and message in our thin worshipping culture, and decides to own her fatness and rock her hotness in spite of this, that is most definitely not the easy way out.

I’ve written many, many times before about how being overweight is not a very good judge of someone’s health. A fat person can be just as healthy, or just as unhealthy, as a skinny person. It is just that in our culture we have been taught to equate fat with instantaneous deathly health problems and thinness with the pinnacle of fitness. This brainwashing can make it hard to recognize the fact that weight does not directly correlate with health. Judging someone’s health by their size or the weight is inaccurate and baseless. But that is beside the point.

What if someone is fat and unhealthy? So what? Who cares? Do they have a duty to be thin and healthy? What is the problem if they want to eat nothing but junk food, do no exercise and be fat and unhealthy? Why do people feel they have a right to say anything or judge someone who is not hurting anyone?

People feel they have a right to say something because in our culture it is acceptable to insult and belittle and demean fat people. They are one of our acceptable scapegoats, they are not worthy of respect or kindness or even the fucking dignity that another human being deserves. We are allowed to pass judgment on their lives, their clothes, their food choices, their workout habits, their very existence just because they are fat.

Can you imagine if this pertained to other people? You out there reading this right now, you drink 2 or 3 glasses of wine every night. I don’t drink, and I don’t think it is all that healthy, so should I shame you about that? Should I make sure that you know how gross I think you are? Should I rally all my friends so we can cluck our tongues in disgust and ‘worry’ about your awful habits? What about you over there? You, the person who smokes cigarettes. Come one. Everyone knows that is unhealthy, let’s all point and laugh at this person now! And what about you? The woman who eats only 15 foods, all raw, all unseasoned, and proclaims health and well being. I disagree, so should I shame you loudly and in front of everyone? Can I ‘worry’ about you? And then there’s you. The person who spends all their money on fancy shoes and coats their face with 10 different kinds of make-up before stepping outside. What a waste of time and money! That isn’t healthy at all. And besides, shouldn’t you be required to donate all your money to charity anyway? And what about you, the person reading this who just had a fried donut and coffee for breakfast. Eeeww…how could you? Don’t you know that only a green juice and a colonic is an appropriate breakfast? And you…..

See what I mean? Where does it end? Whose level of fitness and dietary perfection do we need to aspire to? Who gets to decide what level of exercise and what amount of calories is healthy enough? What level of enjoying food and splurging is too much? At what point do I cross over from being thin to being fat enough to merit your ‘concern’? When do my habits become wasteful and bad? At what point does my dessert pass over from indulgence to mindless gluttony that needs to be punished? When do I get labeled unhealthy and slothful? When do you? My definition won’t match your definition, so which of us should get shamed and harassed and made to feel like shit? You or me?

Yeah, what about me? I mean, I exercise, but not obsessively, I eat healthfully, but I also love to inhale vats of chocolate and bags and bags of potato chips. I work out and have fun, but I am often stressed out and I don’t meditate like everyone says I should. I also still eat white sugar which people tell me is poisonous. Ooops, I also sometimes eat greasy street food which most definitely is dripping in transfats. So, what do you have to say to me? Maybe I should be more concerned about my health? Maybe I’m pretty disgusting? Oh wait, no, I’m not, because I’m thin and therefore I could never be anything but super healthy.

But you know what….I have plenty of fat friends who eat less than I do and they still rock their fatness. I’ve got friends who eat way more than me, and exist almost solely on junk food, and they are even more slender than I am. And back during college, in my pregan days, I existed on a bottle of whiskey a night, and nothing but loads of cheeseburgers, fries, and cigarettes during the day. And guess what? This will really short-circuit your fat hating brain…I was just as skinny then as I am now.

Nowadays, I am all for being healthy, I love being fit, but that doesn’t mean everyone does, and it doesn’t mean everyone should. If you want to be really fit and exercise all the time, have at it. If you want to spend your time painting or reading, or gardening, or volunteering at the old folk’s home, or reading to underprivileged kids, or making awesome cupcakes, or reclaiming abandoned lots, or studying, or going camping, or skydiving, or doing anything else other than working out or dieting, good for you. That is your choice.

So if you are one of those people who cluck and moan over fat people and their supposed ill health – shut up. You don’t know what you are talking about, and you sound pretty ignorant and obnoxious. You aren’t perfect by any means, none of us are. We all make our choice, we should all be proud of our bodies, no matter what size we are.

The whole world is set against women and is built to tear us down and keep us weak and ineffectual. Please, don’t add to that noise. Don’t shame your sisters for what they look like, their fitness level, or what they wear. And for dog’s sake, if they have the courage and confidence to stride with pride, no matter what they look like, applaud them. They are brave women on the front line of misogyny and they deserve your support. Fat, skinny, strong, weak, short, tall, whatever the mold, we can all be ferocious and phenomenal, and that is all that matters.

Too Big for My Skin – this is so beautiful, it makes me cry every time.

Fat Dinosty – This is genius, whimsical and sweet. It will make you laugh and cry!

Here are some of my favorite feminist, fat acceptance blogs:

Shapely Prose – Snark, feminism, body-love, and hilarity team up in the fantastically feminist bog.

Shakesville – One of the best feminist blogs period. Lots of fat pride and body acceptance here, too. You cannot go wrong with this site.

My Unacceptable Body – A fat Acceptance blog that I just discovered and can’t get enough of. The writing is phenomenal!

Fatuosity – On fat embodiment and sexual subjectivity, all wrapped up in one PhD thesis!

Axis of Fat – I love love love this blog, all things fat and feminist here. You must check it out!

Fat Lot of Good – More goodness that will make you think and make you laugh.

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There will be absolutely no fat discrimination tolerated in the comments. If you want to spew misogyny, you are welcome to start your own blog.