fat and feminism, again.

[keryx]

It's ironic how I never tire of getting into this discussion with people. Fat people who aren't feminists. Feminists who don't recognize fat acceptance as an issue. Both of them not getting the difference between THIN and HEALTHY. I can't shut up about it.

Case in point #1: on the Don't Tell Me What Size I Must Be list yesterday, someone goes all off on how Slim Fast is making her life great and she needs to lose 100 pounds. And I fired back a really nice note that really diplomatically said - if you're going to talk diet on a fat acceptance list, the very least you can do is WARN ME before I read that shit. Because I don't care what you do, but I don't want to read it.

Case in point #2: the fat activist vs. weight watchers post on feminist_rage (any of you who don't already read f-r ought to at least read that post). Man, people start talking about this and I cannot shut up. I don't think any American woman has a true grasp on how healthy or unhealthy she is, because we've been sold this message that thin is now not only in, but a guarantee against early death. And we've bought it so well. So, hell yeah, fat is a feminist issue. It's one hairy ugly component of the beauty myth. Maybe not The Central Feminist Issue, but certainly one we ought to care about.

Comments

[keryx.livejournal.com]

This is the complete opposite of a rah rah pick me up speech.

I do not condone castigating anyone for changing their body, or wanting to change it. Those are individual choices. But those individual choices form a whole that tends to come down to women vs. fat. So, when people make their personal choices, I want them to think very hard about some political things.

1. It is very, very hard to differentiate between what's actually healthy for you and what you need from a body size standpoint and what's been sold to you. So any time you make a choice like hey, let's go on Weight Watchers, you ought to seriously think about where it's coming from. Hatred of our bodies for fatness (real or perceived) which has been hammered into our heads as unhealthy is just as problematic as hating other people for the same fatness.

2. Reality is this: many people can't get thinner, no matter how purely and chastely they live. This is particularly true as people get older. So, you also have to accept that there's a good chance of failure, and that failure isn't a commentary on your value as a person. Moreover, any temporary diet measure (as most weight loss diets are) has about a 30-60% chance (depending on who you believe) of making you fatter within 1 year - partly because of your own controllable behavior, but partly because of the inherently problematic nature of weight loss dieting. If your diet is balanced, permanent, and accompanied by exercise, it still might not result in you getting thinner. But it WILL make you healthier, and that's a good thing. You can go into a healthy life hoping for thinness and still get the health benefits.

3. If anorexia is a feminist problem, why isn't weightloss dieting? We're concerned that women starve themselves if they ALREADY meet the definition of thinandhealthy in our view, but we encourage them to diet until they reach that definition. That seems inherently wrong. And it seems to me that, if you as an adult woman add your voice in support of dieting to the millions of other adult women doing this, that you're furthering the diet culture that turns 12 year olds into dieters and gets them hanging out on pro-ana websites.

It's a personal choice, but like many personal choices, it has political repercussions. And they're not just repercussions for you; they touch all the women around you. [Er, and by "you" in all of the above, I actually mean ANY of us.]

[snidegrrl.livejournal.com]

1. Yes, I completely get it. I feel the same way about the body hair thing, as I stated before. The pressure to remove armpit and leg hair is so strong from the time of puberty that it is almost impossible to thread out one's own desires from the idea that not having body hair is the correct way to be. I tend to never come down on people who shave, but I find myself always suspect of their motives, and certainly critical of what effect their actions may have on other women.

2. I've tried to reword my thoughts on this a thousand times but then I realized that you already understand so never mind. :)

3. So... how do I promote my own feeling of having a goal of healthfulness, without making other women insecure. I agree with you about furthering the diet culture. I don't want to do that, but I do want to watch what I eat and how much I exercise, and alot of the lingo is already tied up in that culture. Do I need to use different language to distance myself from that insane version of dieting culture? Would that help? "Diet" does bring to mind horrors and denial and misery, even though really the word just means habitual nourishment, or to eat food according to rules.

I'm sussing this all out on your journal in half-born format, I hope you don't mind.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

You know if I had an answer to #3 I'd be pushing it at everyone, right? Because this obviously applies to me, too.

I think it comes down to this - there is a difference between dieting and changing your life in a way that is healthy and permanent. A healthy lifestyle improves your quality of life as long as you maintain it. A weight loss diet reduces your quality of life with the goal of improving it in the future, namely by creating a thinner/"healthier" future. Dieting is about pain and self-denial in this weird self-absorbed way. I've changed my lifestyle, as you know, but it is absolutely not a diet.

I still worry that my lifestyle shifts are too influenced by the health/diet industry, even though I'm sort of radical and off-grid (i.e. exercising outside of a gym, eating to a plan I devise on my own, having fun with the whole thing, still being fat, blah blah blah). But I think, even if the desire for healthiness is part of the healthy stick phenomenon, that being healthy without buying someone else's idea of what that means could actually be striking a blow for my personal politics.