101: On the Importance of Allies
This morning, the Today show had a piece on fat acceptance (complete with original “fat acceptance” graphic, using a fat font!) that didn’t actually involve any fat people speaking.
Okay, I’m oversimplifying. In the prerecorded clip that prefaced the live segment, Emme speaks, and what she says is almost enough to make me forgive her for More to Love, but not quite. (Note to Emme: You might hasten my forgiveness by sending me a box of red velvet cupcakes and a handwritten apology. I’m just saying. And I am sorry I hated your orange dress. I was lashing out.) Actually, during Emme’s part I thought to myself: “Suddenly I remember why I liked Emme, back before More to Love slaughtered my faith in humanity and turned me into the depressed, withered, embittered fat hag I am today.” Also, technically my nemesis Kirstie Alley speaks, though it’s just because they show one of her old Jenny Craig commercials. Oh, just watch it yourself:
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Kate Dailey, who’s already brought us some fantastically critical writing on Newsweek.com about America’s recent fixation with fatness, is an unlikely spokesperson for fat acceptance, to say the least. When I saw this Today show segment above earlier this morning, I thought, oh heavens, some folks are NOT going to like that there were no actual fat people represented during the live segment. And I hear them. When discussing fatness, it’s ideal to have some fat people involved. But there is also something to be said for the value of having allies in the battle against the battle against “obesity”, and the value of those allies sometimes not being fat themselves.
For example: if I were to go on the Today show and argue passionately for basic human respect for fat people and their bodies, sure, it’d be particularly meaningful that I’d be speaking to my points from a position of one who is subject to the effects of anti-fat sentiment. But it also puts me in a situation in which people can dismiss me as being biased. Now, damn fucking right I’m biased. This is my life I’m talking about. That shouldn’t, in an ideal scenario, be used as ammunition to shoot down my opinions. But the reality is otherwise. My being fat, and being self-accepting, immediately makes my investment in size acceptance one of self-interest. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s not always the most effective route to winning an argument, or a war.
If only fat people are taking a position that says fatness is not a death sentence, then not only does it make that idea easier to dismiss, it also allows not-fat folks to believe that obesity-epidemic hysteria doesn’t affect them. But it does. Whether you are fat or not, or self-accepting or not, everyone is affected by anti-fat culture. If you’re fat already, you have to deal with fatphobic crap, probably on a daily basis, whilst trying to maintain your sanity and health in spite of listening to a million voices telling you how disgusting and unhealthy and even immoral you are. If you’re not fat, you have to live with the fear of getting fat, and potentially having to deal with the above bullshit on a first-name basis. The often-unspoken fear of fat is at least as powerful an imperative as anti-fat sentiment itself. This arrangement serves no one except diet companies and bariatric surgeons. When we are encouraged to hate our bodies–our bodies as they are now, or for what our bodies might become without constant vigilance and discipline–it hurts us all.
Some people will never be fat, no matter what they do. Some people will always be fat, likewise. And most people will spend their lives wobbling and wavering and trying to keep their balance at the very top of the bell curve, in the limbo between fat and thin. It is in the best interest of all of us to stop policing one another’s bodies, to stop associating fatness with character, and to stop assuming things about each other’s health and choices based on the forms our corporeal selves take. And this means encouraging people who we don’t necessarily identify as fat to also speak up on the subject and call the bullshit out when they see it. It makes the point, loud and clear, that this is a cultural trend that affects everyone, and has the potential to hurt everyone. In light of the current debate around health care reform, and the assertions I’ve seen in many a comment thread where folks are adamant that they don’t want to pay for fat people’s health care, this takes on an immediacy we haven’t seen in recent memory.
When we create an environment in which passing judgment on people because of our perceptions and assumptions of their health is permissible, we’re opening a door to a world in which basic human respect is only available to people who fit some arbitrary ideal of wellness. Aside from excluding fat people, this is a world in which the chronically ill, the disabled, the poor, or anyone without the built-in privileges of good health and easy access to medical care may get the shaft as well, when it comes to being recognized as whole persons worthy of dignity and respect as human beings. Whatever they are besides being perceived as “unhealthy” ceases to matter, and what a tremendous and criminal loss that would be, for everyone.
Health is not a moral imperative. And frankly, the health of a stranger–and I don’t care HOW fat he is–is none of your business. It’s vitally important that fat people stand up and be heard, and that our experiences as individuals be recognized, but we can’t be the only ones carrying the torch. We have to share the burden if we’re going to get anywhere at all.
When we create an environment in which passing judgment on people because of our perceptions and assumptions of their health is permissible, we’re opening a door to a world in which basic human respect is only available to people who fit some arbitrary ideal of wellness.
I’d argue that we already live in this world. As a fat disabled female I have faced criticism, dismissal and outright harassment since my disability started affecting my day to day life in childhood. Perhaps we are beginning to open the door back the other way, to where we all respect each other just as we are, and help each other to be the best humans we can be, regardless of size or state of health.
Nevertheless, I couldn’t agree with you more. This is a very well thought-out and excellently worded essay, one that I will be sharing with my (fat) husband who doesn’t really understand why I care about this topic. Thanks for this!
I take your point, Lesley, and I think it’s well made – but it still repeatedly grates my cheese when TV/radio hosts talk about The Obese as if we can’t possibly be listening or have anything of worth to contribute to the debate. Admittedly it makes a change that this piece wasn’t the usual fat-bashing free-for-all, but it’s supposedly about a social movement and there’s no spokesperson for that movement, no mention of any of the movers and shakers in the fatosphere, no mention of the fatosphere period. They might as well have been gassing about unicorns for all the enlightenment it’s likely to offer to potential allies. After all it took reading Lessons From The Fat-o-sphere to kickstart Kate Dailey. Call me cynical but I think it’s lip service designed to diffuse FA rather than big it up.
And how annoying was the fat typeface?
Hi Lesley,
I agree with you - in every civil rights movement that I know of allies have played a critical role. I always think it’s amazing when someone who doesn’t have a “dog in the hunt” (as we say in the South) thinks it’s important enough to pitch stand up and help a movement. I wasn’t aware that Today was doing this series - thanks for blogging about it!
I tend to think of it more as incumbent upon the not-fat who have half a soul and care about doing the right thing than some big favor. Or like they deserve a cookie or something.
I mean, strategically speaking, yes. Cultivating allies is extremely important and always has been in any “civil rights movement,” as dances with fat noted. However, it’s also important to hold those not-fat allies just as accountable as we would anyone else, if not more so, for the things that they do. I think the “right” thing to do would be to steer people towards this growing pool of educational resources by mentioning at LEAST one or two of the blogs out there. I think it’s important to be positive without that meaning that critical thinking is dampened by cockeyed optimism, or as I like to call it, “pat-on-the-head-syndrome” or “well -let’s- just -give- xyz- a -gold -star- for- doing- the -decent- thing -while -we -ignore -the a-ctivists -who’ve -been doing -that -all- along -syndrome”, wherein the members of whatever given oppressed group adopt a “hero” from the dominant group and giving that person more esteem or kudos than they would a partner-in-class. What happens sometimes is we get so impressed that someone who isn’t like us would actually speak up for us that we forget they are simply doing what should be done. It should be as much of a given for a thin person to speak about fat acceptance as it is for a fat person to do so. But they don’t so it seems so awesome when they do.
Now for all I know she might have given props to the folks in fatblogland and it got edited out. I haven’t watched the thing yet. :: shrugs ::
I really appreciate everything you’ve said here, especially concerning the flip side of the coin. Those people who have genuine psychological fear of being overweight are told, more often than not, that they’re worrying over nothing; they hear “shut up, you’re so thin, I hate you because you’re thinner than me” and their need to be comforted is completely subsumed by the idea that this frenetic hysteria is *normal*. That’s not cool, for it to be normal to be paranoid about anything, including your weight.
I also appreciate the health side of the conversation that you always touch on. I feel like having a copy of my medical stats on me at all times so I can point out my perfect blood pressure and normal glucose levels and completely healthy cholesterol and say “Pls to shut up now, doctor says fine.”
“When we create an environment in which passing judgment on people because of our perceptions and assumptions of their health is permissible, we’re opening a door to a world in which basic human respect is only available to people who fit some a
arbitrary ideal of wellness.”
This. THIS.
This is why I think the health argument is in some ways pointless. Fat people can be healthy, thin people can be unhealthy. The point is that dignity, respect, and human rights should not be meted out based on a person’s health. Full stop.
I share the discomfort of having an ally or allies exclusively but am also aware that people who aren’t marginalised by a particular oppression are more heard (thanks to the invisibility of oppressed persons) or are at the very least seen as not benefiting from what they are demanding.
Fat is one of those oppressions that is unique in that it is not uncommon for thin people to have once been fat and vice versa. My weight ranges a lot and when I am fat, I am typically healthier (I tend to be working out, stronger, eating a wide range of foods, smoking less, etc.)
Presently, I am “benefiting” from stress-induced thin privilege. So it is a weird place for me. I notice that I have been more involved in fat activism (a friend and I just put together a zine on fat and I have been blogging about fat oppression/thin privilege a lot more). Is it because I now come from a place of privilege, socially speaking? Or is it because fat/weight/food/eating is more prominently on my mind, as I am currently operating from a really disordered state? I think it is probably a mixture of both.
Because of my own experiences, I am less likely to assume that someone who is thin has never experienced fat oppression or doesn’t have their own battles of internalised fat phobia, directed towards self. Which is really what fat liberation is about and how the movement doesn’t only benefit fat people but society as a whole.
Just imagine what kind of society we would have if people weren’t afraid of getting fat or feeling bad about being fat- if they spent their energy doing things more self-loving and loving of others!