feminist blogs

Via Sweetmachine:

The inaugural Fat Women of Color Carnival will be held over at saskaia.livejournal.com on July 23. The theme is general and open to anything pertaining to being a fat woman of color and our experiences in our communities, experiences on how our fat and bodies are racialized, myths about fat women of color, and so on. Please link all entries here by July 20. Please promote as applicable and appropriate.

Mandolin pointed this out to me: Rachel Moss, who attended Wiscon this weekend, posted a mean-spirited con report on the Something Awful forums. Moss’ con report consisted of photos of fat, female attendees, their faces covered by crude frowny-faces that Moss had drawn in, and text mocking the attendees.¹

Moss has since posted an apology on her livejournal, and convinced the Something Awful administrators to remove her post. Rumor has it that Wiscon is considering banning Moss from attending future Wiscons. (Wiscon is an exceptionally fat-friendly convention.)

Although Moss’ post is no longer on Something Awful, the first half of her post was posted without her permission on “The Something Awful Sycophant Squad” forums - don’t click that link if you’re easily triggered by fat mocking. It’s not just Moss’ original post that’s bad; the people at the SASS forum searched flckr for more photos of female Wiscon attendees to make fun of. It goes on for four pages (and growing?).

Three things I take away from this:

1) It’s all about keeping deviant bodies in line.

Although the primary focus of Moss’ post is anti-fat bigotry, she seamlessly transitions into anti-trans bigotry, writing about a trans speaker on a panel:

“He” is a non-op transgendered person…a person who looks like a woman, talks like a woman, likes men, but says that I AM A MALE AND YOU WILL REFER TO ME AS SUCH. It’d be easier if he/she just drew on a beard or something. Geez. Try harder. […] The transgendered she-he says that she-he brightens her day by walking through the park, sticking her-his fingers into flowers to use to pollinate other flowers that she-he likes.

Then, later in the SASS thread, the SASS posters mock photos of a disabled Wiscon attendee.

Why do these things go so smoothly together, like peanut butter and chocolate in a Reese’s commercial? I think that anti-fat bigotry, anti-trans bigotry, and ablism overlap in that all three bigotries are a sort of body fascism. Those who have what society considers the “default body” — by being thin, by being ablebodied, or by being born with genitals that match one’s gender identity — are considered superior to those without the default body, and have the right to mock inferior people with non-default bodies.

And, of course, men also have the “default body,” and women do not. So it’s not surprising that the anti-fat, anti-trans, anti-disabled bigotry in the SASS thread is also shot through and through with misogyny.

2) The anti-fat, anti-trans fairy strikes!

Rachel Moss’ apology, while apparently heartfelt, reminds me a little bit of Michael Richards and the racism fairy. Moss writes:

I was upset about completely different things which were completely unrelated, and my expression of that was DISGUSTING.

I find Moss’ formulation odd, because she views her post as an expression of “completely different things which were completely unrelated.” I don’t doubt that she was upset about unrelated events, but what she posted was, in fact, an expression of sneering, ugly bigotry. No matter how heartfelt Moss’ apology, it isn’t worth much to me as a fat person, or as someone with trans friends, unless Moss acknowledges that what she did was anti-fat, anti-trans bigotry.

3) This kind of shit does real harm.

Speaking from my own experience,² Moss’ kind of anti-fat bigotry does real harm.

A while back, Sadly, No! posted a photo of a right-wing science fiction writer tabling at a con, making fun of how fat he is. Like that right-winger, I table at conventions, and that Sadly, No! thread - and thousands of similar lame clichéd jokes³ - have invaded my consciousness. Although I’d prefer not to, I know some people will sneer at me just for appearing in public. I feel I can’t wear casual t-shirts to cons (even though that’s what most of my friends wear), because fat people are so easily seen as “slobs.”⁴

This is an additional barrier that fat people have to overcome. Some fat people sail blithely through it, and damn I envy those fatties. For some fat people, it’s a problem that keeps them from appearing in public, leading them to give up social contacts and important career networking. Most, like me, are somewhere between. Every time someone mocks fat people - and mocking the fat people at science fiction and comic book conventions is commonplace - it’s another data point telling fat people yeah, maybe they should stay home; yeah, they don’t dare dress like their friends because horrid, unruly fat bodies must be covered; yeah, it’s true, they are deviants. And it’s wrong.

UPDATE: Since I wrote this post, Kate Moss has removed her apology and issued a statement of non-apology. She also released a “I’m not sorry” statement, but she’s now removed that, as well.

UPDATE 2: Tempest writes:

I was scrolling through the thread and looking at the pictures and, instead of being ashamed that I associate myself with such people (horrors!), I couldn’t help but think of how beautiful all those images are. They are pictures of beautiful women of all sizes smiling, having fun, loving where they are and what they’re doing. These are the poeple I go to WisCon to be around. And nothing those half-brained monkeys on that forum say can make me feel any different. You wanna call me out as a fat loser? You go right ahead. But it’s plainly evident that I not only have more class than you, I also have a better life and better friends. All the evidence I need to support that statement is my lack of time spent on the internet trolling for pictures of people I don’t know in order to make fun of them for arbitrary reasons.

MORE UPDATES!

Lesley at Fatshionista responds beautifully. Here’s a sample:

Take my picture, and post it online, in as many high-traffic spaces as you can muster. Identify me if you want. By name, by location, by employer. Surround that picture with vitriolic commentary about my body, my femininity or lack thereof, my perceived sexual habits, my self esteem. Laugh, and laugh, and laugh, that gut-rattling laughter of unmitigated cruelty, that laughter that comes from laughing at people who don’t know you’re laughing at them, who were going about their lives and made a target simply for not falling, unseen, unremarkably, into culturally acceptable slots - people who are targets simply for failing to be invisible. […]

I am still fat, and I am still not sorry. And nothing you can say, nothing you can post, nothing you can do will change that. No matter how many times you try to humiliate me. No matter how much you want me to hate myself. Because it’s my fucking body. And I don’t owe you a damn thing.

And a wonderful response from “Purplefrog26,” who is one of the people whose picture Moss posted. It’s got a great photo of her, too.

And BadgerBag, whose photos appeared in the SASS thread, tries to find a way towards solidarity with Moss. Which I think is damned impressive of her to try — although Moss certainly isn’t making it easy.

1. Although Moss obscured faces, she didn’t white out the people’s name badges.
2. Although I’m fairly certain that many disabled and trans folks have similar stories to tell.
3. See: “The Simpsons,” Comic Book Guy.
4. Actually, I am a slob. But that’s not because I’m fat. Woody Allen once said something like “It’s true I’m a Jew. And it’s true I hate myself. But the two aren’t related.”

This is an image from the Icarus Project, a radical mental health support network. I saw it when it was reprinted in a local zine (more on that later): You can find a larger version here.

[Image description: It’s a poster headed taking care of the basics. It is divided into 5 parts: eating, sleep and rest, exercise, schedule and herbs, meds etc. Each has a cartoon drawing, half with people who are doing things in a way that is portrayed as unhelpful, the other half with people who are doing things in a way that is portrayed as helpful.]

I wish I was disappointed; I wish I expected more of so-called radical organizations. But no, when trying to illustrate unhelpful eating patterns for depression they show a fat person eating a burger and fries, and they contrast this with thin people eating a home cooked meal served by a woman (the headline is my alternative title for the Eating Well illustration).

The illustration is not radical. Fat-hatred is not radical. Food-hatred is not radical. People can pretend that their disgust at a burger and fries* comes from their dislike of multi-national corporations. But their disgust at a fat body is in plain view.

* Which as far as meals when you’re depressed go seems pretty good to me. It has protein, carbohydrates and fat. It will fuel your body.

Jeff Dinelli at The Left Coaster just sent this email to his daughter’s vice principal.

Ms. (Vice Principal),

My name is Jeff Dinelli, and I am the father of two (local school) students, one of whom is (my daughter), a 6th grader. I am writing to express my extreme concern over a Physical Education project that started this week in Mrs. (Physical Education teacher’s) class.

The kids were to enter their height and age into a computerized program, which informed them of their “ideal” weight and percentage of body fat. They have been instructed to count their daily caloric intake. Wednesday night I picked up a pizza on the way home from (my 2nd grade son’s) little league game and (my daughter) was frantic because the box didn’t indicate how many calories were in each slice.

She and her friends now discuss each other’s weight, body fat, and how many calories they ingested the night before.

Frankly, I am furious. Let’s leave aside the very real problem of the overweight children in the class who assuredly are suffering from utter embarassment right now because they are heavier than their classmates and are surely being harassed for it. We live in a culture where the ideal of what a female should look like is extremely unrealistic. From the models on the covers of magazines, to actresses on television and in movies, girls are taught to starve themselves to match up with their role models. I’m sure I don’t have to remind you of the horrific prevalence of serious eating disorders such as Anorexia nervosa, Binge eating and Bulimia (if you need help please Google the Center for Mental Health Services or the National Institute of Mental Health).

If an “ideal” weight or percentage of body fat is taught to 12-year-old children in school, it should concentrate on the absurdities of what our culture expects girls to look like and the often deadly diseases that can easily begin to affect young women who become obsessed with squeezing into the latest fashions and looking “good” exposing their midriffs or wearing that two-piece bathing suit at the pool.

There are many ways to teach the importance of proper nutrition and exercise without being told what they “should” weigh or how their bodies “should” look.

I would like this program justified, though I cannot think of a way that could possibly be done.

Yay for Jeff! And lucky for his daughter to have such a great father. (And I say that even though he’s a Hillary supporter. :-p )

There’s more at Jeff’s blog. I hope he gets a good response… although I’m not optimistic. There’s a lot of pressure on educators to make children more focused on, and more fearful of, their own waistlines.

Joss Whedon’s new show, “Dollhouse,” released (or perhaps had leaked) this pre-casting description of one of the recurring characters:

November
20’s, any ethnicity, beautiful and heavy. Another Doll, a hopeful child in the house and everyone else you need her to be outside. A comforting, radiant presence, who tends to get fewer of the criminal gigs and more of the personal ones. Recurring.

(Empahsis added). I remember reading that and thinking “cool.”

Now the casting choice for November, Miracle Laurie, has been announced. That’s a picture of Ms. Laurie to the right. Not exactly “heavy,” is she?

I’m annoyed, but not surprised.

To be sure, there’s nothing wrong with casting a thin actress in a part originally written as fat. I’ve done a little theater, and I know that often minds change once actors read for parts. No doubt Miracle Laurie hit just the right notes for November, better than anyone else who auditioned, and that’s why she got the part.

But. Four points.

1) This sort of casting choice is a one-way street. By which I mean, producers will decide that a thin actor is right for a character who was originally concieved of as fat, and so rethink the character. But it will virtually never be the case that a fat actor is seen as right for a character originally concieved of as thin.

2) If a thin actor has the right “look,” then producers will make allowences for them being less than perfect in other ways. So, for instance, David Boreanaz — who wasn’t much of an actor on the first season of Buffy – was cast for his looks and his potential. And he grew in the role, and became a lot better as an actor. Fat actors are rarely given that chance to develop.

3) Because of who gets a chance to develop, I suspect that frequently thin actors are, objectively, better actors. This is because they get bigger parts early on and become seasoned actors, and seasoned actors are better actors, all else held equal.

4) I wonder how frequently “any ethnicity” on a casting call turns out to be “white” once they’ve actually cast the actor?

(I suspect that points 1-3, above, apply as much to actors of color as they do to fat actors. When the musical Miss Saigon originally opened on Broadway, they cast a white actor in an important Asian role, because the role required a star and there weren’t any Asian actors with that stature. Casting decisions like that become self-fulfilling prophesies.)

The New York Times reports that social scientists have once more demonstrated the obvious:¹

Fat Bias Worse For Women

Based on body mass index, which is a measure of body fat based on height and weight, a normal weight is in the range of 18.5 to 24.9. The study found that women begin to experience noticeable weight bias — such as problems at work or difficulty in personal relationships — when they reach a body mass index, or B.M.I., of 27. For a 5-foot-5-inch woman, that means discrimination starts once she reaches a weight of 162 pounds — or about 13 pounds more than her highest healthy weight, based on B.M.I. charts.

But the researchers found that men can bulk up far more without experiencing discrimination. Weight bias against men becomes noticeable when a man reaches a B.M.I. of 35 or higher. A 5-foot-9-inch man has a B.M.I. of 35 if he weighs 237 pounds — or 68 pounds above his highest healthy weight.

The study also revealed that women are twice as likely as men to report weight discrimination and that weight-related workplace bias and interpersonal mistreatment due to obesity are common. The researchers found that weight discrimination is more prevalent than discrimination based on sexual orientation, nationality or ethnicity, physical disability and religious beliefs.

“However, despite its high prevalence, it continues to remain socially acceptable,” said co-author Tatiana Andreyava.

“Despite its high prevalence, it continues to remain socially acceptable”? Uh-huh. Doesn’t it seem more likely that because of its social acceptability, it remains highly prevalent?

Especially since what they’re really measuring is perceived discrimination and bias. All those other forms of discrimination are less socially acceptable to state openly than weight bias; they are therefore more likely to be kept secret, and less likely to be noticed as discrimination. So this study doesn’t necessarily show that discrimination based on “sexual orientation, nationality or ethnicity, physical disability and religious beliefs” necessarily happens any less often than weight-related discrimination; it may be that these other discriminations happen just as frequently, but are more frequently kept secret, and so less likely to be perceived as discrimination.

1. Which is a very useful think for social scientists to do, in my opinion.

(This is a edited comment I left on one of my favorite blogs.)

Wonderful post. But the comments section here - mainly B.C.’s comments — make me want to scream in frustration.

Fat Acceptance… Just what MLK, Jr was fighting for–so chubby white women could avoid lynchings,
michelin men being burned in effegies on front lawns, etc.

Fat is beautiful. Just what my family who ran like hell to get away from the lynch mobs in Mississippi was praying for–the rights of fat white people to feel good about themselves.

It’s true no one has been lynched for being fat (although fat people have died due to lousy good medical care for fat people). It’s also true that anyone who says “fat rights is just like the black civil rights movement!” is being an idiot.

But so what? Being Black is not like being fat is not like being female is not like being queer is not like being disabled is not like being Asian is not like being trans is not like being poor is not like being…

No marginalized group’s experience is exactly like any other’s. No one’s experiences are interchangeable. But the legitimacy of fat activists’ complaints doesn’t depend on us showing our experiences are exactly like the black experience, or the lesbian experience, etc..

It’s about justice.

The reason fat activists have formed a movement is that it’s unjust to be denied good medical care because we’re fat; we think it’s unjust that we can get fired for being fat; we think it’s unjust that we face job and wage discrimination because we’re fat; we think it’s unjust that we can be charged more for basic services (like insurance) because we’re fat; it’s unjust that people glance at us and assume that we’re lazy and care nothing for ourselves; and yes, although you’ll sneer at this as “the right to feel good,” it’s unjust that fat people are taught from childhood to think of themselves as deficient, wrong, and disgusting.

Anit-fat bigotry isn’t wrong because it’s the same as facing lynch mobs. It’s wrong because it’s unjust. It’s unjust because we’re human and don’t deserve to be treated as second-class people because of the shape of our bodies.

That — not the claim that being fat is at all like being black — is why fat activists fight.

See also: Kate Harding and Red No Three. (I didn’t read Red’s post until after I wrote this one, but there’s a lot of overlap).

Tara at Fatshionista writes about people of color and the fact acceptance movement:

There are reasons why people of color aren’t flocking to the fat acceptance movement, and they’re probably not the reasons you’re thinking of. […]

I also need to say that if I hear the “fat is the last acceptable oppression” meme one more time, I am going to scream (louder). Fat hatred is often blatant, shameless, vitriolic, and completely public. But guess what? So is racism! (And classism, heterosexism, ableism, and sexism.) Racism is institutionalized into our laws, our classrooms, our work places, and our daily interactions. Just because some white folks think it’s unacceptable to say the n-word, doesn’t mean that racism is gone or that it’s not “acceptable.” When people in the fat acceptance movement say that fat is the last acceptable oppression, it alienates and invalidates the struggles of people of color, who know first-hand that racism not only exists, but that it is also very much “acceptable” in polite society.

Another offensive myth that I hear parroted around fairly often is that people of color are more accepting of fat bodies, and that men of color love a “thick” woman. Let’s just say that that is NOT my experience. In many different Asian communities, that is the opposite of the truth. By Taiwanese (where my mom is from) beauty standards, my 5′4, size 20, size 10 shoe body is enormous in almost every sense of the word. The last time my mom went to Taipei and tried to buy me a pair of shoes, the vendor asked her if they were for a man. The last time I saw my uncle 8 years ago (when I was a size 16), his friends laughed at me and he said that he wanted to put me on a diet program. Of course, Asians and Asian culture is not a monolith, and this standard is not true for everyone, everywhere. In fact, among other communities of color, it is not necessarily true that bigger women are more accepted. Our communities are also capable of internalizing fat-hating messages, so to say that people of color are more accepting of fatness is not only false, but it also marginalizes us further and contributes to perpetuating the invisibility of our struggles with our bodies.

I don’t agree with everything Tara writes; for instance, I don’t agree that the fatosphere rarely brings up the connection between class and access to healthy food. (I rarely see it brought up anywhere but the fatosphere). But it’s a great post.

Hat tip: Racialicious, which also quotes this great post by Fillyjonk:

…As people who are interested in social justice, we have a responsibility to give a shit about causes other than our own major concerns. Any oppression diminishes us. I am lucky enough to have a skin color that people can ignore, a relationship that I can get officially recognized, and enough financial stability that I don’t have to worry about where the rent is coming from. That means that racism, homophobia, and classism don’t affect me as much as fatphobia and misogyny; it means I could ignore them if I wanted to. But I invite them into my consciousness, not because I’m a glutton for emotional stress, but because I want to live in a just society. And I believe a just society is one in which the concerns and the marginalization of others matter to us.

Nobody is asking us to give up being fat activists and be anti-racism activists instead. But these things are not mutually exclusive; even if we don’t have the resources to do active work for both (or some other additional activist issue), we can give a shit about both simultaneously. If you do have the resources, by god, keep it up, but I know I just don’t have the energy to try to address all inequities and injustices. It’s hard enough to keep talking about large-scale attempts to disenfranchise and vilify fatties. But even if this isn’t a place where every oppression is equally addressed (which I don’t think anyone expects or even really needs), it’s really crucial that it be a place where every oppression is considered and important. That means that we do not minimize or dismiss people’s concerns. Right now, it means we listen to Tara when she talks about the things that hurt or alienate her; that we believe that these things are alienating; that we take this into account in the future; and that we understand that this awareness is not an unfair onus, but part of the greater work of social activism.

On the same subject, I’d also highly recommend this post at The Rotund.

So I was dinnering with some cartoonists (and a couple of normal people) the other night, and we got on to the subject of an argument I had on another occasion. Asked what the argument was about, I had to admit it was about fat advocacy.

But I really hesitated to admit it.

To steal a phrase, “I hold what most people consider unorthodox views about fat (i.e. that it’s not some kind of full-body malignant tumor).” And — as I admitted at dinner — I sometimes hate to talk about my views on fat, because doing so tends to get other people to classify me with the folks who wear tin foil hats to fend off the aliens. It’s not a comfortable feeling.

I went into it a bit anyway, and tried to make it funny. But it’s a problem. I have to get over my fear of being seen as a nutcase crank, I guess.

Via Junkfood Science and Feministe, a few Mississippi legislators have proposed the following law:

Any food establishment to which this section applies shall not be allowed to serve food to any person who is obese, based on criteria prescribed by the State Department of Health after consultation with the Mississippi Council on Obesity Prevention and Management established under Section 41-101-1 or its successor. The State Department of Health shall prepare written materials that describe and explain the criteria for determining whether a person is obese, and shall provide those materials to all food establishments to which this section applies.

The bill’s lead author, Representative W.T. Mayhall, Jr., told Sandy at Junkfood Science that he is sincere about this bill, although he realizes that it has little chance of passage.¹

This is madness.

UPDATE: I want to add a couple of quotes from the discussion taking place at Big Fat Blog.

First, GinLiz writes:

Extremely obvious hate legislation like this makes it easier to pass less extreme legislation. When next year folks propose some anti-fat school cafeteria legislation or something, the fat people and others in the state won’t react strongly to it, because they will think to themselves “well this is far more reasonable than that crazy bill last year. This one makes sense and could work!” Providing an extreme example distracts people from the “milder” hatred. In fact, I’ll bet that this bill will be rejected, and people will say “well good, now we can focus on smarter ways to eliminate obesity. Let’s form a new task force to work on some passable legislation.”

She (he?) is right. Extremist proposals like this move the entire discourse of acceptable anti-fat discrimination further towards the discriminatory end. How much more reasonable will this make a proposal to have schools put fat kids on a separate eating plan? Or the next case of the state taking a fat child away from her parents?

Wallflower writes:

I’m not going to make comparisons between racial discrimination and fat discrimination, I’m going to point out that this is de-facto racial discrimination. Several non-white ethnic groups have genetic tendencies towards more adipose tissue, higher BMIs, and the appearance of carrying more body fat. African Americans, some Pacific Islanders, and Hispanics are the major groups that generally run to large. African Americans are statistically taller than the average population, which even in non-fat individuals can give the appearance of carrying more adipose tissue. This is carte blanch permission for restaurants to racially discriminate based on subjective measures. Trust me, the whiter a restaurant wants it’s particular clientèle, the fatter the non-white clientèle is going to look to them.

UPDATE THE SECOND:

More discussion of this can be found at Kate Harding’s place, and at the following links I swiped from Kate: JoGeek, The Rotund, the already-linked Big Fat Blog, Lindsay, Rachel, and Thoughtracer.

1. In case you’re wondering, Mayhall is a Republican. One of the bill’s co-authors is a Democrat, however.