Hi folks. I've switched the site over to a new blog format - you'll see it automatically if you go to fatshionista.com, or you can click the "home" link in the main menu to get there.
There is also a new RSS feed for the site as well - the old one will no longer update, so you may want to adjust your subscriptions accordingly.
The old blog entries are archived here for all posterity.
If you run into any bugs or problems, please do me a favor and drop me a note letting me know.
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?
I've noticed a fair amount of both annoyance and miscommunication
amongst a lot of white people in response to the recent posts about
race on this blog. Which is, honestly, totally understandable - I,
like many white folks who try to maintain a certain level of awareness
of privilege and racism, did not spring from the womb fully informed on
these issues and passing out xeroxed copies of Unpacking The Invisible
Knapsack to the nurses in the maternity ward. It was something I
learned, slowly, painfully, and with much resistance. So I feel like I can
pretty keenly relate to what some folks are feeling. Which, I think,
enables me to offer a little bit of tough love here. (Better yet, let's pretend this post is administered with promises of cupcakes and fluffy pillows and snuggly kittens at the end.)
Yes, being
sensitive is hard. Having to think about intersectionality and
respecting the multiple identities of the people you struggle with in a
political movement is hard, especially when it's so easy to just not.
Privilege works because it creates an environment in which it is
simpler and takes less effort for those in a position of privilege to
ignore racism (or insert your favorite -ism here) than it does to
notice it, because they foolishly believe that it doesn't affect them.
This is a lie. I may be putting it harshly, but it is a lie.
But ultimately, it isn't about me, or how it does or doesn't affect
me, or how it affects other folks with unexamined privilege, struggling
with the idea that they have benefited from racism. By this, I don't mean that it's not my responsibility to be constantly vigilant and always increasing my awareness of my own privilege and my own positions in the world and in this movement; it is. I mean the statement literally: these conversations are not about me. It isn't about how
much work it is to remember that many if not most POC don't have the
luxury of being "color blind" or ignoring race, how trying it is to
remember the different experiences and identities of others when
choosing my words, how damned difficult it is to come to terms with the
fact that my POC friends don't speak for all POC everywhere, and how
troubling it is have to strain so hard to see something that is usually, insistently
invisible to privileged white folks like myself. It isn't about how
much I hate having to just shut my fucking mouth and listen to someone
tell me I've offended them, and how, and why, and to respect and trust
their experience, and to not tell them they're wrong, or what they
ought or ought not to be offended by, and to deal with the fact that being told these things makes me
uncomfortable, and/or makes me feel stupid.
It isn't about me. It's about making room for marginalized and
silenced voices to be heard. No matter how hard it is to hear what
they have to say. By making it about me and my feelings and my
reactions, I'm taking that spotlight back and shining it on my own
privileged fat white ass. Which gets plenty enough attention when
we're not talking about racism. It doesn't need special consideration
when we are.
The thoughts and criticisms of people of color, however, do need this extra attention, because they don't get heard that often. Which is
why the best response in a situation where I don't know how to respond
is simply to shut my mouth, listen, and think. This approach has never failed me yet, and I strongly recommend it the next time you find yourself in a situation in which your privilege is being highlighted for you. Works like a charm. And, I promise, an inevitable result is that you'll learn something.
Through all of this discussion and debate about fat and race and why
thinking about both of them together matters, I thought I'd add my $.02
to the long and rich discussion about intersectionality and why it
matters to me and to you.
I literally could not tell my own
story as a person without intersectionality. Having found myself on the
cusp of and entrenched in a number of different identity categories, (for
disclosure, those would be: biracial (half-Taiwanese/Chinese,
half-white/Jewish), queer, raised by mixed-class parents (but mostly
middle class), high femme, cisgendered, able-bodied, and fat) I have
never truly found a "home" in any single-politic movement.
If I
tried to talk about my queerness in a vacuum, my words would be stilted
and my story incomplete, because my gender identity as a high femme, my
class background, my race, and my fat have all modified my experience
of what it means to be queer. If I try to talk about my experience of
race in a vacuum, I would again come up short, because that experience
is informed by my gender identity, my class, and my queerness. I
literally could not talk about any one of those identities listed above without
relating them to my experiences of those other identities. They are too
intertwined, too connected, and too important to leave off the table.
A
number of folks responded to my post about POC in the FA movement with
a question about why it was necessary to bring race or any other
non-fat-related identity or experience into the picture. For that, I
have several responses:
1. Because it's not just me whose
experience of fat is shaped by my other identities. You may not know
it, but every single one of your identities (whether that be white,
poor, disabled, upper-class, transgender, etc.) changes the way the world
experiences you, and thus affects the way you experience the world. If
any one of those identities were to change overnight, I would bet my last dollar that your experience of fat would be different.
2.
Because even if you can't possibly imagine how something like race
could change a person's experience of fat, it behooves you to listen
other people in the movement who can bring to the table a different
perspective on how fatphobia affects them. And when you think about it,
how could it be a *bad* thing to widen your own personal analysis of
fatphobia?
3. Because if we really want to advance fat
acceptance, we should know that historically, single-issue causes
haven't ever managed to capture the full breadth of how and why and
when and where and on whom oppression works, and therefore could never be completely
successful in the long term. If we are truly interested in working
towards a just and equitable society, eliminating just one oppression
at a time isn't going to work.
4. Because we want our movement
to be as strong as it can be, and we should realize that in order to
attract more people to support our cause, we're going to have to make
the case for why fat acceptance should matter to them, and having an
analysis on how their identity fits into that picture is a really
effective way of making that case.
After my post was referenced over at Racialicious,
there were a few comments from folks who really didn't get it. And in
reading them, I had an a-ha! moment. Though I was initially
discouraged, I re-realized that one of the reasons that the fat
acceptance movement matters to me so much is because many of the people in the
other social justice movements near and dear to my hearts have really bought
into all of the nasty lies hammered into our heads by Western medicine,
the healthcare industry, the diet industry, the fashion industry, and
the media (to name a few). I mean, if I felt that other social justice
movements really got fatphobia already, I'd have no need to be a part of a
community fighting against fat oppression. This realization reinforced
my commitment to intersectionality and why I couldn't tell my whole
story as a human being without it.
It is absolutely essential
that the fat acceptance movement incorporate intersectionality at the
front and center of its analysis and strategy, because otherwise, the
FA movement will be bereft of being able to see the big picture of
oppression, how it works, and all the ways that we need to be fighting
it. In turn, other social justice movements will probably never "get"
us, and be bereft of a key puzzle piece in the analyses of oppression.
And on an individual level, people like me who hold multiple identities
close to their hearts will probably never find a "home" in any one
social justice movement.
I am in the process of changing the blog component this site currently uses over to a much user-friendlier (and more immediately familiar) WordPress-based system instead. While I am working on this, the homepage may look odd now and again. Should you come upon this strangeness, fret not! The Groupblog link in the upper left menu will always return you to the old blog. If things should go totally haywire on you, drop me a line and let me know.
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 swear, if I read or hear one more comment about
POC not participating in the fat acceptance movement due to "access," I
am going to scream. If we're talking about internet communities, one
only needs to do a quick Google search to find that there are vibrant
pockets of the blogosphere where people of color are contributing their
thoughts and stories and building online communities that work for them
in droves. If we're talking about in-person fat activism, people of
color from all sorts of backgrounds have always found time and space to contribute to the anti-oppression movements that matter most to them. People of color know resistance.
So I don't wanna hear it. We're here all right; we're just not with you.
I
see the fat acceptance movement making many of the same mistakes that
second wave feminism did, and it's both sad and maddening. "We built this movement;
why don't they come?" That is the prevailing attitude I read over and
over again. But rarely, if ever, do I see white fat acceptance bloggers
talking critically about why the movement may not be relevant or
structured in a way that attracts fat people of color and their allies.
Let's break it down for a minute.
Fat
acceptance bloggers are guilty of the same sins of white feminism in
that there is often a wholesale grouping of all fat people under the
same oppression umbrella, with little or cursory examination of how things
like race, class, sexuality, gender and gender presentation, ability,
and age play into the fat equation. At minimum, folks in the fat
acceptance movement need to take serious stock of their own position in
the world, and how their privilege may be blockading their
understanding of how other peoples' experiences, identities, and
embodiments change the way they experience their fat and how their fat
is experienced by the world at large.
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.
A couple of years ago on
fatshionista , I made an attempt to talk about the concept of
appropriation as it related to fat fashion. As people who are forced to
be creative with our clothing choices, I noticed that some women were
talking about wearing a salwar kameez as summerwear and asking about
where they could find plus sized qipao/cheongsam. But when I suggested
that we look at how these things might be appropriation and how we
could be creative in our fashion choices without resorting to cultural
theft, the overwhelming response of the 400+ comments that followed was
furious. While some members found merit in my questions,
many of the responses were along the lines of "It's just clothes! No
big deal! Stop being so PC!" So, I am saying now that if you want us in
your community, it IS a big fucking deal, and it needs to be addressed.
Let's also talk for a minute about beauty standards. There is a significant portion of the fat acceptance movement that is fighting for the right to be seen as "pretty, too." They want to fight for the standard definition of beauty to include them too, as if they have been denied some god-given right to be seen as beautiful. But when this demand is articulated, there is no consideration or thought about the fact that women of color have always been excluded from this category, and are masculinized, exoticized, or otherwise been seen as exceptions to the pretty rule (i.e. "She's pretty for a [insert non-white race here] girl!"). So, arguing for the "right" of plus sized white women to be let into the pretty club does not address us or our struggles with the problematics of beauty standards.
One
final subject I want to speak on is how disappointing it is that I've
rarely seen people in the fat acceptance movement address access as it
relates to food. It's simple: the poorer your neighborhood, the less
access you have to nutritionally-rich, affordable food. Often, in
neighborhoods populated by low-income and/or people of color, there are
few, if any, grocery stores and a high concentration of fast food
restaurants. And even when there are grocery stores, they often carry
second- and third-hand produce, meats, and dairy products that are
cast-offs from the grocery stores in wealthier neighborhoods. A diet
high in foods with low or no nutritional value affects the health and
well-bring of the people consuming them, and if this kind of diet
results in a fatter body, we need to figure out a way to talk about it
in a manner that is both fat positive, and also working to fight for
better, fresher, cheaper foods for everyone. I also want to be clear
here that I am not trying to perpetuate some bullshit healthism that
says you're bad or a bad fat person if you eat junk food (I have a deep
and abiding love for junk food, as a matter of fact!), but when that is
your only option, the concept of choice is irrelevant. I mean,
intuitive eating is only an option when you can access and afford the
foods your body is craving.
And that's really the tip of the
freaking iceberg, but I hope the message is clear. For the most part,
your fat acceptance movement does not speak to us, and we're not coming
until y'all work out some shit.
This evening I shifted over to a new RSS feed module for the site, as the old one was a pain in the ass, insofar as stripping all html and formatting from the posts in the feed.
I am still trying to get the new module to function correctly, as currently it's showing the first few posts on the site ever, from the beginning, which are certainly great posts, but which are not supposed to be there.
Thus, I apologize for any feed catastrophes that may take place while I am working this out. Thanks for your patience.
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About
Fatshionista is a full-fat and diet-free blog dealing with body politics and cultural criticism. It is mostly written by Lesley Kinzel, who can be reached via email at lesley@fatshionista.com. More info on Lesley and the occasional contributors can be found here. Until we have a formal FAQ page, some questions and answers can be found here.
