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In 2000, Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book (that has since garnered much acclaim) entitled, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. Gladwell's definition of "tipping point," gets across the basic premise of his book, "a sociological term, the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point" (Gladwell, 12).
In his book he looks at many case studies in which a brand or item or activity went from being almost entirely unknown to something everyone had to have/see/do. He makes connections and speculations about why certain things spread, like a virus (that is, getting more efficient at replication the more the thing is replicated) and other things don't. He also sets forth a whole slew of "tipping point" scientific terminology, creating a "tipping point" language.
Why am I telling you all of this?
I've been thinking a lot about the fat acceptance "tipping point," and when we will know if we've "made it." What will that look like?
This has been particularly on my mind in light of this past Tuesday's hearings at the State House on House Bill 1844, An Act to Eliminate Discrimination on the Basis of Weight and
Height, in Massachusetts sponsored by Rep. Byron Rushing. If this bill passes it would be illegal for workplaces (and in most cases landlords and realtors) to discriminate against you based on your height or weight. If this bill passes, Massachusetts becomes the second state (first was Michigan, 30 years ago) to have such a law. Cities San Francisco, Santa Cruz and Washington DC have similar protections.
Rushing himself reports that activists and supporters were snubbed by lawmakers ten years ago when he proposed a similar bill. He says he feels more confident of passage now because of an increased awareness of
the issues.
Why? Why is he more confident now?
Is it a preponderance of fat blogs? Is it Joy Nash's rant? Is it that there are simply more fat people in America? Is it that the local news stations actually covered the hearing? Or that it made it to the front page of the local free paper? Or that I found the conspicuous coverage of the hearing suprising? Or more fat people who are unwilling to engage in useless and often harmful diets? From where I sit, there are actually more ex-fat people in the media, so I can't point to "more fat role models" as the answer.
So again, I ask myself: what does the "tipping point" look like for fat acceptance and how will I know when I'm looking at it? How do you think you'll know?
One person has commented on this post. No.1 Untitled
For me, the actual tipping point will take place in the head, when enough people flip that big fat toggle switch and don't respond to media/cultural pressures around size. Sometimes I wonder (hope!) if the increased hysteria we are seeing around The Obesity Epidemic is some kind of manifestation of collective institutional panic, that the industries that thrive off our self-loathing are seeing the blogs and the Fat Rants and hearing a thousand fat voices, and they're getting anxious about their future in a world where self-love is the rule. I would like it if that were the case.
HOWEVER, I doubt it.
I was getting ready to write a bunch of stuff here, but then I realized that you weren't talking about what the world would look like with fat acceptance. You want to know what it looks like when it's tipping.
One thing that I thought the book was about is that it is very difficult to tell, in the middle of change, that things ARE tipping. One day the people of New York looked up and crime was down, a lot. Or suddenly certain shoes were popular and people couldn't track exactly how they came to be that. If fat acceptance does come about on a societal scale (which I am far from optimistic about), I would expect it to be something that we maybe don't notice until the shift has already happened, and suddenly we can all breathe again.
From the book, I take away more thoughts of, how do we get the message into the hands and mouths of the people who are influential, who can make it trendy, who can effect change? I don't know the answer to that question. I get sad sometimes thinking about it. I also get angry, I want a stonewall for fatties, and I know it won't happen for a long time, if ever. I'm really, really impatient.
Sigh. |
