I'm Ashley and if you knew my last name you'd probably make an obnoxious mustard joke, so I'll save you the embarrassment. I come from a cray cray suburb in Tejas, but I'm now spending most of the year living it up in D.C. I enjoy making metaphorical love to my platonic soul mates, passing for a lesbian, drinking chai tea in coffee shops, writing esoteric poetry, being a gay rights activist and laughing at my own jokes. Also, Fitzgerald is the love of my life. Oh, and just so you know, if you have facial hair I require that you shave before reading my blog because I have a slight case of pogonphobia. Grassy ass.
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twerkinfortheweekend:
uberbananarchy:
twerkinfortheweekend:
uberbananarchy:
feministblackboard:
OPEN FORUM FOR DISCUSSION
stupidityinmyhead wrote in saying the following:
”Women do not need to be SKINNY. But we DO need to be healthy. Articles, media etc. encouraging unhealthy people to stay overweight and unhealthy in order to “be comfortable with themselves” annoy me just as much as the media encouraging weight loss.
Eating healthy does NOT equal a diet where you have to starve yourselves and live on carrots and lettuce and work out for 8 hours a day. It means staying active, resting and eating what you want without completely living on McDonald’s.
Why is it that people only see the two extremes (skinny, ED’s vs fat, unhealthy etc.) and not the middle position of this argument? “
I personally will not comment on this one. The only reason being because I want to make this an open forum for you to voice your own opinion on what was said. If I say more I’ll muddle the begining opinion. Ready… GO!
This. This. This. Fuck “thinspiration”, fuck “fat pride” it’s all about being healthy relative to your body type.
I say this as a person who has a hard time finding pants because places don’t make clothing for women who have derby thighs. I say this as someone who’s overweight but watches what they eat and exercises regularly.
Everyday I strive to be HEALTHY above all. Some days I succeed, some days I make bad choices.
OP hits the nail on the head.
~thinspiration~ and fat pride are two totally different ballparks, though. The fat positivity movement is a response to society’s treatment of the obese (who are obese for a variety of different reasons that can’t all be treated through diet and exercise) as subhuman.
There’s also a pretty prevalent phenomenon of folks policing and criticizing fat bodies with the pretense of concern (i.e. “concern trolling”), when really a stranger’s health habits are absolutely nobody’s business but the person whose body is in question. Seriously, all this “everyone needs to be healthy” bullshit is invasive and, according to a lot of fat activists I’ve read, pretty detrimental. Nobody needs to be healthy if they don’t choose to be.
I think the recent events about the topshop model being accuesed of anorexia show that “concern trolling” can work both ways.
Fat activists who don’t work towards the goal of overall health at every size from both a personal and medical-treatment standpoint don’t make sense to me in the least bit. I don’t want to advocate people starving themselves or eating themselves to death. Or, if they’re overweight or underweight for medical reasons, not seeking treatment simply because they’re “accepting themselves for who they are”. But, since people have free will, they can choose to do so. However, I’m not going to stay silent to avoid hurting someone’s feelings if discourse is underway. That’s not saying that I would go up to a stranger, assume I knew anything about their life, and make a value judgement. It’s not my place to do so.
We may just disagree on this issue. That’s fine.
I don’t know anything about this Topshop model, but the fact stands that attacking people for being thin isn’t the same as attacking fatness, since our culture (at least in the West) prizes and promotes thin bodies in women. When the female-directed media stops publishing article after fat-shaming article about weight loss, diet and gastric bypass surgery, then the whole “goes both ways” argument might be valid. As it stands, though, thin bodies still have privilege over fat bodies here, so it’s not a fair comparison.
Fat activists who don’t work towards the goal of overall health at every size from both a personal and medical-treatment standpoint don’t make sense to me in the least bit.
I don’t think that was ever the main agenda of the fat positivity movement, though. To my knowledge, they’re trying to change society’s attitude toward fat folks, not encourage everyone to diet and exercise.It’s more about telling society to treat fat people like people rather than saying everyone needs to jump on a treadmill and eat their greens. Some do discuss the ways in which access to organic/healthy food and workout facilities is a privilege that not all socioeconomic classes (as well as the disables) have access to, which is something that has been absent from this discussion so far.
Or, if they’re overweight or underweight for medical reasons, not seeking treatment simply because they’re “accepting themselves for who they are”.
Why shouldn’t they accept themselves, though? What’s so absurd about someone being content with their appearances, with the knowledge that their health and lifestyle choices are theirs to make? There’s also the fact that many people who appear overweight actually do eat healthfully and exercise, so are you saying they don’t have the right to love and appreciate their bodies without struggling to alter those bodies?
However, I’m not going to stay silent to avoid hurting someone’s feelings if discourse is underway.
Again, why? I am genuinely curious as to why it’s so important to police people’s personal choices when they don’t affect your own health. I mean, if you’re concerned for a family member or friend? Perhaps, if they’re comfortable discussing their weight and having their habits analyzed (which, shit, I wouldn’t be!).
Otherwise, to me, it’s akin to policing people’s sex lives or something like that. If they’re not hurting you, it ain’t yr business.
I can totally agree to disagree. No disrespect! But I think these sorts of conversations are important.
This. I’ve actually been thinking about this a lot lately since the new labels on cigs came out.. I think too much emphasis is placed on body image rather than health. Which opens a new pandora’s box because what you put in your body is and should be your own choice and we shouldn’t shame people for whatever choice they make.
But then, those unhealthy foods are marketed to kids, and our bodies are evolved to crave fats. On top of that, process food is cheaper and already prepared, blurring what is and isn’t choice as well as bringing privilege into the picture.
And then there’s the whole question of education. Everyone laughed when I told them my diet led me to have a cholesterol problem that put me at risk of a heart attack because I ate healthier than many of the people around me, but I was a super unhealthy eater. I come from a privileged background with a lovely mother who cared about my health. If I thought I was eating my body but really poisoning it… well, let’s just say I’m not the only one. I think there needs to be a huge push in public education, but ultimately, people make their own choices and if you want to be unhealthy more power to you.
But all this is a little irrelevant. Or only somewhat relevant. People are people regardless of their weight and should be treated as such. I think there’s a lot of misinterpretation of what the fat positivity movement/message is about. Just from reading stuff online I’ve been confused about aspects of it. And no, fat-shaming and thin-shaming are DEFINITELY not equivalent. I mean, MAYBE you could make that case if you literally look like those pictures they used to scare us with in middle school of women with hardcore anorexia that don’t look like they can even stand up, but I’ve never actually seen anyone like that. There’s just not stigma for being thin like there is for being fat—or even a tiny bit overweight.
No, honestly one of the privileges I am most thankful I have is my weight. Is that PC to say? I don’t think it should be a privilege, and I’m not thankful I get privilege from it…I honestly don’t know how to put it. Let me explain. Last year I gained 20 pounds and honestly, it wasn’t that noticeable, so I thankfully only had to deal with my own feelings about my body image and irrational paranoia of what other people think. But I was self conscious all the time about my body and it basically controlled my life until I lost it. I dunno, it just gave me so much respect for people who are overweight—or even normal weight but on the heavier side and face stigma for it—that don’t let that control them.
Weight issues aren’t really anything I have authority to speak on though. So you know, call me out if I said something stupid/offensive/ignorant.
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