I have this big meaningful post worked up about eating disorders and being fat – that’s why I didn’t post yesterday, actually. But you know what? And I also want to talk about the value of compliments when you’re trying to pull yourself up out of the pit of self-loathing. But it’s Friday now and why don’t we save the big topics for Monday?
Right now, there’s a really interesting conversation going on in the Liz Jones post.
I’m not really familiar with Liz Jones. I don’t know much about her history of writing so I think that definitely colors my response to her piece. But having an eating disorder and being aware of how screwed up it can be does not mean someone isn’t also fat phobic.
I mean, we can hold all sorts of contradictory things in our heads at the same time.
And, for me, this goes back to the way that women – especially fat women – police each other. The way we snipe and put down and create arbitrary rules that we’re all expected to conform to less we be deemed unacceptable.
What do you think is going on with that? (I have my own ideas.) And what can we do to nip that shit in the bud, people? I want to formulate some strategies here, things we can do as individuals (and, again, I have my own ideas) to stop this habit in ourselves and in our communities in the larger sense.
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I think the biggest arbitrary rule I feel pressure to conform to right now is the expectation that I feel shame about my body. Like it’s okay to be fat and even (perhaps) eat if only I have the ‘decency’ to feel guilty about it. Bleh.
I don’t want to feel shame anymore. I want to feel celebratory, both about good food and about inhabiting a body that, frankly, rocks.
I like being around you and other FA folks because I feel like then it’s contagious and we achieve some kind of critical mass. 
I think what I personally want to do is follow a method that is actually from teaching kids to resolve conflict. “I don’t like it when you do x. Please stop.” I think, even though I have a really hard time being assertive/confrontational, I can manage to say, “I don’t like it when you say x about your body. Please stop.”
I try to make sure my female friends (not just the heavier ones) know basic things like “yes, my hips are over 45 inches around” and “yes, I weigh 170lbs”. While it may not come up in everyday conversation, it’s hard to knit a sweater to measure without the real measurements coming up. I don’t *look* particularly fat, because I’m not. It’s more fraught for my mom, but she still does her best to tell her real weight (270lbs is light for her), because she sees lying about it as dehumanizing.
I think that this is a part of larger issue — the patriarchal setup we’re all living under. From the beginning of time people in power relied on the oppressed groups to participate in their own oppression, and set them against each other . Women are raised under the patriarchy, we internalize its demands and its view on women, much in a way racial minorities internalize the majority’s beauty and societal ideals. So I think it’s a larger feminist issue — being cognizant of this dynamics, and being vigilant when an impulse to put down another woman strikes.
I agree the behaviour isn’t just restricted to fat women. It affects all women and I think it stems comes directly from being told – either directly or indirectly – that we’re falling short of this ever-narrowing physical ideal. (Especially in a youth and beauty-obsessed culture, which has traditionally affected women more than men, though I think that’s slowly beginning to change). In a nutshell it makes us feel bad and also deeply resentful of anyone who we perceive to resemble that physical ideal more than we do, even if objectively they don’t. Even if, like Liz Jones, they have image-related problems of their own.
What it should do is make us question and rebel against the source of our confidence-eroding dissatisfaction – arbiters of fashion; Hollywood casting directors; designers who’d rather design something that looks good on a hanger than a body…but instead we turn that resentment on each other in the mistaken belief bitching about other women will make us feel better. What’s more, as this situation escalates, a market has grown to accommodate our misdirected spleen with the proliferation of gossip magazines specifically designed to encourage women to alternately fawn over and vilify the exact same celebrities on alternate weeks. I can’t tell you how much I despise this bottom-of-the-bucket culture yet sometimes, despite my best efforts, it can still suck me in too, though I do my damndest to pull myself up short when it does.
I know this is really heavy for a Friday but the whole stinking ritual really reminds me of that part in The Handmaid’s Tale where the women, totally robbed of any power, political, financial or otherwise, are allowed to vent their spleen on some poor, hapless bloke by physically tearing him to pieces for some alleged crime (against women, as defined by the same men who have stripped the women of power), that he didn’t even commit. Instead of turning on their oppressor, they’re permitted to do it in microcosm and that, ultimately, maintains the status quo.
What women need to be doing is recognising this ghastly, fat-phobic, self-harming, highly oppressive culture for what it really is. Stop tearing each other to pieces, and start shredding the magazines instead. Start working towards creating a more egalitarian sartorial culture, (since, like it or not, some folks will always love clothes and make-up and handbags and shit), where everyone who loves fashion is accommodated and no type of body is deemed unfit to celebrate their own beauty. (Meanwhile back in the real world… )
When fat women police each other’s bodies in the “Do you have to draw so much attention to the part of your body I can’t stand on mine” way, I think we’re just acting out a variation on the above. It’s resentment of someone we perceive to be more confident than we are. However, sometimes when we criticise each other’s self-presentation, I think it’s more because we don’t feel we should “let down the side”. We owe it to ourselves and each other to look fatshionable and well-turned out, (whatever someone’s individual definition of that it is), in order to prove to the naysayers that we’re not the slovenly, hideous, sexless messes we’re portrayed as in popular culture. (Certainly that’s one of my chosen forms of activism but I appreciate it’s not for everyone and it shouldn’t have to be).
Okay, I’ll stop running my mouth now.
OMG, way to eff up my formatting. Sorry!
Different people are going to be good at different things, too. Like, when it comes to feminism? I am NOT the person you want arguing our side. I AM the person you want educating people already ON our side. I’m good at helping people find their voices. Civilized discourse? Not so much.
Which is all just a way of saying that I think everyone has something unique to contribute here, and I think this is a great question. I will think about it more.
I like what Torrilin said above about making sure people know her numbers. I think that is a really powerful thing. I do that, too, as much as it is possible for me (I don’t actually KNOW how much I weigh, I can only guess, and I can’t change that without starting an ugly cycle of self-loathing). I also try to be visibly not self-loathing, and I try to talk about my fatness in a matter-of-fact, neutral way. I try to describe my fat in a positive way, even when I am discussing a way in which it hinders me.
It’s harder for me to discuss the catty sniping stuff, because frankly, that stuff does not come up around me because those are not the social circles I movein. I DO try to gently counter self-loathing when it comes from other people. But there IS a big difference between people who are unhappy about and complaining about themselves and people who are trying to tear other women down.
I don’t have any grand theories here, but I appreciate your comment on how we all carry contradictory thoughts in our heads all the time. It’s good I think to be aware of these things…
I don’t have any answers on a community level.
When I notice that I’m being judgemental about other people’s looks or fashion choices I ask myself “Would I think this about my sister? Would i want someone else to think this about my sister?”
It sounds really sappy, but it has helped me re-train my thoughts.
I think it’s important to spend a lot of time de-othering people. Instead of participating in conversations that serve to highlight our differences and set up the world as us/them, we should draw people’s attention to the fact that we are all very similar and only cosmetically different.
One of the things I do is post photos of myself. All the time. And yeah, I have that running commentary in my head (Oh gosh, do I post this photo? It makes me look so bad!) I do it anyway. I’m always laughing and smiling and having a great time in my photos. And I keep those damned running thoughts out of my photo commentary. This is what I look like. This is who I am.
There are a lot of younger-than-me women who read my blog. I want to demonstrate to them that one can be happy and involved in life without worrying about what one looks like while doing it.