I posted this on my LJ today, after reactivating it yesterday. My thoughts on friendship, fatness, and how far I’m willing to go before self-hatred is too much for me. I don’t know how the size ratio applies to readers of this journal, versus on LJ, because this is obviously part of the Fats feed. I think the gist is the same…
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I reactivated my LJ yesterday – I took a week to think about my social media participation and what parts of me I feel I can share, or not share, online and still feel safe.
Something I will be entirely and completely honest and straightforward about are my feelings about size.

That’s me, there, in the front with the laptop (yes, I am a woman, in case you weren’t aware – that’s my husband in the back). My four-year-old took that picture. On my entire Flickr photostream, I have about a dozen pictures of myself, most of which came from this photoshoot, taken by my friend Maricar.

Yes, I’m fat. I’m fatter, I think, than 99% of my friends list (and possibly 100%, although without knowing my weight, and yours, I couldn’t tell you that for sure). The reason that I’m only in a tiny fraction of my Flickr photos is not just that I’m usually the photographer, but mostly because I avoid photos like the plague. It has only been in the last year that I have admitted that it might be nice, if I were to drop dead tomorrow, for my son to have some pictures of me. It might be nice, when he’s seventy and I’m decrepit or dead, for him to have his mother in some childhood photographs and not have me be an absent figure.
Body hatred is nothing new to me. I look at myself in those photos and I have to stifle automatic loathing. I have to remind myself, constantly, that those involuntary feelings about my size are an entirely artificial construct. For the vast majority of recorded and unrecorded human history, my body would be an ideal, not a figure of public disgust and shame.*
I am an unashamed feminist. I may find re-spellings like “womyn” very unappealing but I passionately believe in the right of women to make our own choices, live life on our own footing, and be independent from external judgment on our decisions, our bodies, our looks, and our lifestyles. We feminists seem to be very, very good at attacking The Patriarchy [tm] for trying to fit us into a one-size-fits-all view of what women should be. We seem to be abysmally bad at challenging anything that relates to expectations of how women should look and a discourse on fatness is, in many cases, still entirely absent from feminism (so far as I can tell, based on sites like Jezebel, where fat hatred is still rampant). I am not an expert on feminist theory, so I will admit that I could be wrong, but so far I’m not seeing it in many places.
I can probably count on the fingers of one hand the friends I have who are not obsessed with exercise and/or dieting. Even if they aren’t actively doing either of the latter, chances are they are still hating on their bodies. These are intelligent, creative, funny, WONDERFUL women who distill their essence down to one single question that defines their entire value: fat or thin?
And the thing is…by reinforcing that societal image of themselves and actively embracing it (and rebelling against any challenges to it), they are also imposing it on me, even if they want to claim that “it’s not about you, it’s just my image of myself!”. As I said, I am fatter than 99% of you reading this entry. When I walk into a restaurant, I have to eye up the seating – I can fit in just about any seat but one with arms is likely to hurt, and outside cafe seating could well be so flimsy that I’m afraid that I’ll break it. My doctor’s one-size-fits-all bathrobe that she uses instead of a hospital robe still lets parts of me hang out. I get scared that I will get kicked off an airplane. People avoid sitting next to me on the bus unless there are no other seats available and sometimes, even then, they’ll stand instead of allowing my fat to potentially touch them.
I am an object of loathing and disgust in American (which should really read: Western) society. It is acceptable to torture, mock, and torment people of my size and be hailed as heroes (Jillian Michaels and Gillian McKeith, I’m looking at you).
I don’t mean this as a fatter-than-thou competition, because it isn’t. No woman, even a thin woman, is safe from judgement about her size in our society, but so few women seem to be willing to acknowledge how huge an issue that truly is! Rare is the conversation amongst multiple women where references to “dangerous” foods or food “weaknesses” or outright calorie/diet/weight-loss discussions are entirely absent.
This is something I face every single day because of my size but all women face societal pressure to look a certain way. My “morbidly obese” body just makes me more of a target. Dealing with constant reminders from people who are my friends that their bodies, and therefore my body, which is much fatter than most of theirs could ever be, are ugly and unacceptable hurts. It feels like a physical punch to the stomach.
Yes, yes, people claim that what they think of their bodies doesn’t translate into how they think of my body…but if someone is angry because she is between “regular” stores and Lane Bryant and hates her body for it, it’s hard to believe that she would find my body, which which doesn’t even fit in most Lane Bryant 26/28s any more, acceptable in any way, shape, or form. When that friend looks at the pictures above, what kind of judgement is she imposing on me, if her own body is an object of shame and disgust? Surely if she is a size 10, and feels she should be a size 4, or a size 20 and feels she should be a 12, she is inherently fearing that someday, if she keeps “letting herself go,” she will look like me.
And if looking like me is the worst possible thing that could happen (and some people would rather be dead than fat), fundamentally, what are those friends thinking about me, themselves, and other women? That is a problem and anyone who says otherwise is deluding themselves.
When a friend calls herself a “fat cow” or a “whale” or bemoans her lack of control, what is she thinking about how I look and how I behave? If I am a size 30 and she is a size 12, how much more disgusting must she think my habits are than hers?
When we accept and internalize a societal norm and apply it to our own bodies, we are also applying it to others. I can guarantee this, because I still look at very fat people (even people thinner than I am now) and have a gut reaction of “Lazy! Unfit!” that I have to actively suppress, reminding myself about the reality of fat politics and biology. As I learn to see my own body as something neutral, something independent of my value and self-worth, I am gentler and kinder to other people who are fat, because I acknowledge that their size is not a failing any more than mine is.
If it is unacceptable to remind a friend that size is irrelevant to value and her defense is that “it’s okay for you but not okay for me,” I passionately believe that says something about the person she thinks I, and other fat people are. It is a message not only to herself but to those around her and it’s one that I am absolutely not comfortable with.
It is absolutely ludicrous to claim that it is okay for ME to be fat but not you. It is utterly ridiculous to say that you think my body is okay at 300 pounds but that if yours goes over 150, you will hate yourself. WHAT is making you think that? Could it possibly be the same ridiculous societal impulse that tries to make BOTH of us conform? And, if you can see that it’s wrong for society to discriminate against me, why is it so outrageous that maybe, just maybe, the same attitudes that create that discrimination against me have formed your opinion of yourself?
And maybe, just maybe, you need to reconsider that and be kinder to yourself (and, by proxy, to all women?)
It’s funny how, when my taller friends go to the store and can’t find jeans that are long enough, it is the fault of jeans manufacturers for not accommodating them. When I buy a house and the stupid counters are all slightly too high, because I’m short, I hate the fact that there are standard counter heights that don’t work well for me. But, if I go to Sears and I can’t fit any of their clothes, it is automatically MY fault for being too large/too busty/not busty enough/having hips that are too large/having hips that are too small/having broad shoulders/having sloping shoulders.
If I can’t find a swimsuit that fits, it’s because manufacturers base their clothes on an arbitrary “standard” size, on a mannequin and not necessarily on any true female shape, especially not an individual shopper’s shape. Why should I, or any woman, base my worth on the fit of a manufacturer’s clothing, rather than being angry that they can’t make clothes that suit very many women at all (just ASK me about the horror that is plus-size fitting).
Changing how we view ourselves is probably the hardest task of all and I should know. I am constantly fighting that battle. Not even seeing that there is a battle to be fought? That scares me.
If you are a friend of mine who feels that your size defines who you are and you can’t see that there’s even a tiny problem with that**, you may find that you want to remove me from your friends list, because I cannot stop myself from fighting back (even if I try to do it gently) against a worldview that inherently diminishes my value (and yours!) as a human being based on a trait over which we have little to no control.
In my depressed phases I frequently share private thoughts that have little or no connection with logic…and it’s good for me to have reminders that no, really, I AM a valuable person and that impulse to go kill myself/hide away in my room is probably not healthy for me, that I need to examine it, and that people love me.
Claiming that a true friend will just say “I feel shitty about my body too” instead of “I feel shitty about my body too but let’s try to remember that we are valuable people regardless of our size” is something I just don’t understand and it seems to be rampant on posts complaining about weight.
That’s about it. That’s where I am. I can make a lot of compromises…but I’m not going to let a friend actively hate her body and not see anything WRONG with that, without speaking up, any more than I would want no one to speak up if I were saying that I hated myself because I’m stupid and an utter failure, because it just isn’t true.
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*I don’t mean to say that my body SHOULD be the ideal. I don’t think there should be an ideal – sizes should be seen as equal and morally without any positive or negative value.
** I do draw a distinction between people who are exercising because they feel unfit. I understand what a powerful role exercise plays in energy levels and I like to hear about what is working to keep you feeling healthy and strong! That is entirely different from telling me what your diet plan is, or how much you hate your body the way it is. Feeling uncomfortable in your body because it’s not at the level of fitness you would like is very different from detesting it solely because of weight.