Today in my magazine writing class we discussed hate groups. The reason this was brought up was the professor brought in a magazine that had a huge section devoted to hate groups and anti-government/patriot groups. One thing I noticed is that all of the groups mentioned are Anti-Semitic, White Supremacist, Anti-gay, Holocaust Deniers, and other things of that racial/religious ilk. So what do I do? I open my mouth and say, "Well I think it's interesting that fat hate groups aren't in there because their just as virulent and damaging, if not mores so, than all of the groups mentioned." My professor gave me a funny look and started saying something about how can we judge other people and say their ideas are crazy or bogus or whatever. It kinda made me mad because it's a completely valid argument. White Supremacists whole idea is that their skin color makes them better than black, it's the same exact thing for people who form those website or groups on facebook who fat bash. Now I also mentioned this to my mother, and she did the "Uh-huh, that's nice dear, I'll humor you," voice.
So I'm thinking some research is in order for some of these groups and websites. I know they're out there. Then I want to write an article for this class. Any of you fat acceptance ladies want to be interviewed to give your POV? Mind you it may never be published or see the light of day but I've been thinking about writing an article about fat acceptance and the kind of crap fat people have to put up with on a day to day basis the entire semester. So now that my pet-peeve meter has gone DING! it's time to get to it.
Showing posts with label fat bashing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fat bashing. Show all posts
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Friday, February 18, 2011
Dear Douchecanoe
Dear Douchecanoe,
Leaving nasty little notes in elevators telling people to take the stairs is not appropriate. It is not funny to tell people that they are worthless, ugly, lazy pigs because they take the elevator instead of using the stairs. Do you realize how many people are disabled but not visibly so in our school? Do you know how many people take the elevator because a previous injury makes taking the stairs painful? Obviously not, or you would not be leaving such notes in the elevators.
Please consider respecting other human beings by not choosing to comment on their bodies or self worth, even in writing.
Sincerely,
Uses the Elevator
So the story behind this is that someone on my campus has taken to writing nasty little things on one of those little cough notices in the elevator. Telling people to stop taking the elevator up one floor. This week, on top of being hormonal, sleep deprived, and just all around cranky, I found one of these notes had turned viral. Words like "lazy" and "ugly" have begun to appear in the same handwriting as the first note. So I'm a little more than peeved at this person. Mind you I know there's nothing that will change this persons opinion, and writing anything back just encourages them, but I am so tired of whoever this is being judgmental in this way. This is my way of getting it off my chest without writing something on their little note...Maybe I should go to the dean of the college and ask him to take down the notes anytime this person writes on them.
Leaving nasty little notes in elevators telling people to take the stairs is not appropriate. It is not funny to tell people that they are worthless, ugly, lazy pigs because they take the elevator instead of using the stairs. Do you realize how many people are disabled but not visibly so in our school? Do you know how many people take the elevator because a previous injury makes taking the stairs painful? Obviously not, or you would not be leaving such notes in the elevators.
Please consider respecting other human beings by not choosing to comment on their bodies or self worth, even in writing.
Sincerely,
Uses the Elevator
So the story behind this is that someone on my campus has taken to writing nasty little things on one of those little cough notices in the elevator. Telling people to stop taking the elevator up one floor. This week, on top of being hormonal, sleep deprived, and just all around cranky, I found one of these notes had turned viral. Words like "lazy" and "ugly" have begun to appear in the same handwriting as the first note. So I'm a little more than peeved at this person. Mind you I know there's nothing that will change this persons opinion, and writing anything back just encourages them, but I am so tired of whoever this is being judgmental in this way. This is my way of getting it off my chest without writing something on their little note...Maybe I should go to the dean of the college and ask him to take down the notes anytime this person writes on them.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Lets Talk Trolls
Recently in the Fat-o-Sphere I have noticed a number of other bloggers being set upon by trolls, either on the internet or in real life. Some of them are pissed off about it, and some of them are feeling rather vulnerable because of it and then getting pissed off about it. Now while reading others posts about their troll problems I remembered a little saying my mother had taped to the fridge for the longest time.
"May the fleas of a thousand camels infest the crotch of the person who screws up your day, and may their arms be too short to scratch."
While this thought is not particularly nice of me, I think it's appropriate considering how many days trolls have ruined for all us fatties out there. Honestly I think we'd run out of fleas before we ran out of trolls to infest.
But even should such an infestation occur, trolls will be trolls, and some days we can turn the other cheek to them and not be affected by their miasma of hate. And other days we crumble under the weight (ha!) of that hate. But we still try to keep our chins up. Because trolls hate themselves, and we are just the convenient target for their hate. But hey the idea of fleas and short arms helps me sometimes so I thought I'd share.
"May the fleas of a thousand camels infest the crotch of the person who screws up your day, and may their arms be too short to scratch."
While this thought is not particularly nice of me, I think it's appropriate considering how many days trolls have ruined for all us fatties out there. Honestly I think we'd run out of fleas before we ran out of trolls to infest.
But even should such an infestation occur, trolls will be trolls, and some days we can turn the other cheek to them and not be affected by their miasma of hate. And other days we crumble under the weight (ha!) of that hate. But we still try to keep our chins up. Because trolls hate themselves, and we are just the convenient target for their hate. But hey the idea of fleas and short arms helps me sometimes so I thought I'd share.
Friday, October 29, 2010
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.
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.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Fat Bashing
Yes it's been a very long time and right when I get back here I get up on my soap box.
*gets out soap box and stands on it*
So recently a friend of mine at ( http://fatheffalump.wordpress.com/ ) stepped forward against a post by one Mia Freedman who is the Chair on the National Body Image Taskforce in Australia. Now the reason she stepped forward is that Ms. Freedman in a post on her own blog ( http://www.mamamia.com.au/weblog/2010/05/meet-the-people-who-want-to-be-as-fat-as-possible.html ) seemed to instead be attacking all fat people by putting forward the Gainers, people who want to get as big as possible, as being freaks, and not as if they have a disorder much like Bulimia or Anorexia. (Also note that the blog entry has been edited several times since the debate started to make the post seem more acceptable)
As a result of this several media outlets in Australia have begun articles on the debate. ( http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/body-blogger-mia-freedman-gets-heavied/story-e6frf7jo-1225865736734 ) Unfortunately after reading this article I realized how many people are willing to fat bash.
Many of the comments on the article above, are all about how fat people are lazy, how they're ugly, how they make society spend more money on them, how they just need to get out and do some exercise, or how they like to point fingers because their ego's are so fragile. These people want to make me scream and cry at the same time. But the time and energy that would take is time and energy I can use more appropriately by writing a blog or by going out with a girlfriend, or getting ready for my weekend in Utah.
I also would like to give a round of applause for the women interviewed and the other side of the comment stream who stood up for us "fatties" and said that the things said in the blog were inflammatory and Ms. Freedman should consider how she words things as she is in a position to influence many people's opinions.
Let me say something about the bashers though before I get off my soapbox. They are insecure in their own way. They need to bash someone who they think is worse off than they are to feel good about themselves.
*gets off the soap box*
So that's fat bashing and I'm gonna go do something with this energy.
*gets out soap box and stands on it*
So recently a friend of mine at ( http://fatheffalump.wordpress.com/ ) stepped forward against a post by one Mia Freedman who is the Chair on the National Body Image Taskforce in Australia. Now the reason she stepped forward is that Ms. Freedman in a post on her own blog ( http://www.mamamia.com.au/weblog/2010/05/meet-the-people-who-want-to-be-as-fat-as-possible.html ) seemed to instead be attacking all fat people by putting forward the Gainers, people who want to get as big as possible, as being freaks, and not as if they have a disorder much like Bulimia or Anorexia. (Also note that the blog entry has been edited several times since the debate started to make the post seem more acceptable)
As a result of this several media outlets in Australia have begun articles on the debate. ( http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/body-blogger-mia-freedman-gets-heavied/story-e6frf7jo-1225865736734 ) Unfortunately after reading this article I realized how many people are willing to fat bash.
Many of the comments on the article above, are all about how fat people are lazy, how they're ugly, how they make society spend more money on them, how they just need to get out and do some exercise, or how they like to point fingers because their ego's are so fragile. These people want to make me scream and cry at the same time. But the time and energy that would take is time and energy I can use more appropriately by writing a blog or by going out with a girlfriend, or getting ready for my weekend in Utah.
I also would like to give a round of applause for the women interviewed and the other side of the comment stream who stood up for us "fatties" and said that the things said in the blog were inflammatory and Ms. Freedman should consider how she words things as she is in a position to influence many people's opinions.
Let me say something about the bashers though before I get off my soapbox. They are insecure in their own way. They need to bash someone who they think is worse off than they are to feel good about themselves.
*gets off the soap box*
So that's fat bashing and I'm gonna go do something with this energy.
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