Body Equality

Let’s talk again about fat hate and quite possibly fat discrimination. Recently Marie Claire had one Maura Kelly post a blog about a new American sitcom about a fat couple. In her post as far as I could stomach to read, she basically says fat people are disgusting, ugly, and they make her want to lose her lunch. I’ve also read several articles in response to her blog post and while the articles themselves are very balanced and often…well not exactly pro-fat but very fat and skinny and average are equal. The comments however leave something to be desired.

Many of the comments are full of fat hate or the whole ‘health concern’, and comments about how having to sit beside a fat person on a plane or on public transport is just so traumatizing. But what I really want to address is the idea that because of free speech people are allowed to go out and spout any kind of acidic comments they want to about fat people.

Ladies and Gentlemen, freedom of speech does not protect your right to harm others. I cannot stand up in a packed theater and shout fire. I am not allowed to call a black person the ‘N’ word. So why should freedom of speech protect someone’s right to fat bash? It is causing harm, psychological harm sure, but psychological trauma as we’ve all seen can easily lead to physical harm of one’s self. And don’t you dare tell me that racist comments are different from fat hate, they are both the same! You are judging someone and discriminating against them based on how they look!

On top of the whole freedom of speech thing, fat bashing is no different than what the news has been going on about for weeks about bullying! Bully’s bully because they want to make themselves feel better, or they think if they make that person feel bad enough about themselves they’ll change. Well fat haters (hell all bullies/haters/bashers/whatever) life doesn’t work out like that, you hurt people and they tend to lash out, either at you or in many people’s cases at themselves. Even if they bottle it up for now eventually it’ll come out.

Now onto the issue of another comment: why should a complete stranger’s opinion matter? Well it really shouldn’t, however, most fat people have been attacked and ridiculed so much throughout their lives that they have virtually no self-esteem left to combat the hate this complete stranger spews at them. And when I say they’ve been ridiculed I mean they’ve had family members telling them to lose weight, they’ve had diet coaches, they’ve had gym memberships, and they have the whole of the media telling them how horrible and worthless they are because they’re fat! Even the First Lady has gotten in on this! On top of it some people receive unwanted and unwarranted attention while in public: people making snide comments in pseudo low voices, people taking pictures to make fun of the fat person, people reposting photos from facebook or any other photo sharing sites to fat hating sites or groups. So now tell a fat person that a stranger’s opinion shouldn’t matter. To most of them that’s the only attention they’ve ever gotten so they start to think that that’s the only attention they deserve. So don’t tell me that we fat people should have the self-esteem to just ignore it.

Now my dear fatties, I feel we are justified in our attempt to speak out about the issues surrounding our fatness. Because if we don’t say a word it’ll just continue in the way it has, and that to me is unacceptable. We deserve to be happy and to be able to go to a restaurant or on a plane, bus, or train without having to worry about if someone is going to be cruel, or if we’re going to be kicked off. Our plight is no different than Civil Rights back in the 60’s, we want body equality.

Jeans Jeans Jeans...Pants

Today I'm going to get upon my soap box for a minute about something many women have, a pair of jeans or pants. Recently I had about 3 pairs of jeans or pants get rips. One of them in places that it's going to be virtually impossible to fix unless I have an industrial strength sewing machine (rip is right on the edge of a back pocket). So I went out and got one new pair of jeans at walmart to keep myself clothed until I got the pairs I can fix fixed.

Well, what did I find at walmart? Every single pair of jeans in the women's section, and the larger women's section in particular, had a 'slimming panel'. Now I don't know about you ladies but I really really don't want certain parts of me squished, and that's basically what a slimming panel does, it squishes in the bits other people find offensive because you're fat. But they don't squish in all the bits that people find offensive. On top of that they made me feel a bit crappy because the slimming panel is there it makes the jeans fit differently and therefore I needed a bigger size. I got over that real quick though. And there are certain times of the month when having those bits squished is very uncomfortable, if you follow me ladies.

Now I really really really needed these jeans otherwise I'd be down to just three pairs of run around jeans/pants. And since I don't do laundry as often as I should I tend to need all my jeans in working order. So I bought a pair...and the make me a little irate every single time I wear them. I know if you don't absolutely love something don't buy it but, walmart is the only place I can find a pair of jeans that fit that don't cost me $40 a pop. So I have slim panel jeans. But...why the hell can't walmart carry normal jeans without the whole slim thing! I really really just wanted a normal pair of jeans! Curse you walmart! And curse you other stores for not having reasonable prices!!

I'm Allowed to Ride the Elevator too!

So last week I had the experience of getting on an elevator and going up one floor and having a guy remark upon me taking it up just one floor. Now as some of you have read I have issues with my knee acting up on occasion. As a result I kinda avoid steps as much as possible as they make it worse. Mind you I can't do that at work or home and there's enough of them that frequently I come home with my knee twinging and my hip hurting because my knee is out of wack. So this guy says something about me taking the elevator. And I said the first thing that came to mind "I busted my leg right below my knee two years ago and it makes my knee acts up so I take the elevator." What I really should have said was, "Yeah because I'm, you know, fat." and smiled at him.

I always do that come up with the greatest comebacks after the fact. But since then it irks me when people give me dirty looks for getting on the elevator. Just because I'm fat doesn't mean I'm not allowed to use the elevator. Elevators are not a thin-centric privilege. You do not know what other people's abilities are nor do you know if they have an injury/past injury/disability that makes taking the stairs hard or painful.

Bullying: It Doesn't Just Happen in School

The other day my dear friend over at Fat Heffalump posted about bullying, and how it's glossed over on the internet. Particularly she was referring to what are commonly referred to as 'Trolls'. People who browse through blogs/articles/website etc. and leave comments that are just plane mean.

For those of us involved in FA this includes those people who post that they're, 'concerned for your health.' But then there's the other who spew vitriol and hate calling us all sorts of names and suggesting we die. But people brush it off when we complain about them, saying it's our fault for putting ourselves out there. But if someone said this to someone in public, like on the street, everyone would think they're just horrible.

Now while I was at work today I was listening to my ipod, and what comes up but a song I just downloaded this morning called Words by Train. This song immediately put me in mind of my friend's post. So I want to share. Not exactly about bullying but it still hits the nail pretty hard on the head. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.