I love semantics. Words mean things, you see. So a discussion of meaning is always a good time for me. I am shamelessly stealing this graphic from Brian – though I have hosted it here. You should definitely go read his semantics discussion.
What meaning does the word FAT have for you? When I say I am fat, I am often using the word as more than a simple adjective – the word is so loaded in our society that it can’t be a simple anything. When I say I am fat, I am stating, publicly and emphatically through my usage, that it OUGHT to be just an adjective and that I reject the negative connotations of it.
What does fat mean to you?
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6 Comments
I agree with you..I’m “taking it back” to quote Clerks 2. I used to say I’m a “bigger” girl or describe myself online as a BBW..but I am fat and it’s not a curse word. When I’m in company that will take offense to fat I go back to bigger, but generally I am hoping the shock of someone saying “Yep, I’m fat” will lessen soon. I appreciate that other terms have been made through the years to associate positivity to a fat person, but I think it is just allowing the word to stay “bad” if we wont use it to describe ourselves.
I don’t care for the euphemisms used in place of ‘fat’. I also describe myself as fat now, having gone through the BBW thing (I loved that magazine when it first came out, just because it showed fat women in some pretty fabulous clothes). To me, fat just describes one aspect of who I am, like bookworm, smart ass, bitch, wife, mother, grandmother. To a lot of people, some of those words have negative connotations, but I don’t take any of them that way. I am fat, I’m a smart ass, I’m a bitch, I’m also all the other things I listed and a lot more. I wish more people could see the word ‘fat’ for what it is, a descriptive word that doesn’t mean stupid, smelly, lazy, gluttonous, unfit, or unhealthy.
I say that I am fat, or I say that I am a big girl. (I am both fat and big. I wear a size 11 shoe. puh leez…) I find the terms obese and overweight to be offensive. I also reject the negative connotions of the word fat, and I don’t want anyone to fear that word. I most strongly dislike the word “overweight”. Over what weight? Whose weight chart? I could rant for hours about that.
I’m definitely fat and I don’t mind being called fat (except by my mom, who says thing like, are you going to eat that and get FATTER???). I was on the BBW bandwagon for a time, but now I’m beyond it, fat is just more descriptive. I’m not always “beautiful”, but I am always fat, lol!!
Oops, I put the wrong url up, bad me!! Sorry for the double posting!!
Generally I use the word ‘fat’, though, very occasionally I might use ‘big’ – it really depends on who I’m talking to and what’s under discussion. I reclaimed ‘fat’ so long time ago it’s second nature to me now but, even so, I remain conscious of the loaded nature of the word – especially if I use it to describe someone other than myself. In fact I’d go as far as to suggest it’s become more loaded in recent years, since media fat-bashing has increased exponentially.
Obviously, the vast majority view it as an insult – or else they see it as descriptive of a certain kind of fat person. Having come across the latter quite a bit, (usually in a “but you’re not fat!!!”capacity), I’d suggest, for those people, it describes a fat person they personally think is “too” fat, either to be attractive in their eyes or to be healthy according to what they’ve been conditioned to believe. A friend of mine did this quite recently, except she used the word, ‘obese’. I told her, according to my BMI I am classified as obese, but she’d have none of it. So ‘obese’ does carry other meanings than the (pseudo) medical. Since she’s highly scathing about the medical profession at the best of times, for her, ‘obese’ simply means unattractively fat.
It must put those who view it as an insult in an uncomfortable and confusing position when a loved one describes themselves as fat. Even if they know they take a size 8 and the loved one a size 24, they can’t bring themselves to collude with the idea someone they actually care for is one of those fat/ugly/lazy/dumb/smelly/morally suspect people they read about in the papers every day. Meanwhile those who actively use the word as an insult probably feel ashamed or embarassed when forced to take the word at face value, again resulting in a flustered, “But you’re not fat!!!” As for those of us who’ve been conditioned to take the word as an insult – well that explains why it’s so hard to stroll up to a well-dressed fat stranger and say, “Hey, do I know you from fatshionista?”
Thanks for posting this. It’s got me thinking about the wider implications of our reclaiming the word as fat individuals. I’m aware that most of my longer standing (non-fat) friends will use the word quite happily in my company and that can only be because of the precedent I’ve set.