Let us have the Fat Discussion
An article about how 'females are required to hate their bodies and demonstrate that hate openly to be accepted by society.'
The gist of the article is the following:
-when women get together, we all always will start talking about how we're all sooooo fat and we just hate our thighs and etc.
-this is something that we all expect women to do, and we will instinctively dislike a women who does not do it.
-that woman will be seen as arrogant and we as a society especially despise arrogant women.
Hm.
Well, yeah. Been there. I do this, and have done it here, because I am not very happy with my body and I have no problem saying so. Loudly.
I think that if I truly thought my body was great, then I'd say so and I'd take the label of 'that arrogant bitch- who does she think she is?' Just out of sheer pique.
But I suppose what annoys me about this more is the idea that women in our society all hate our bodies and this is how it should be. All of us are fat and we all are not good enough and we'll never be good enough- and this is happy and perfect and just. Right?
The article made the blog rounds yesterday. I noticed another interesting wrinkle being mentioned in the comments. It was the idea of a women who doesn't hate herself having 'threateningly high self esteem.' There was a lot of reports from women who were very thin that they were often told (exclusively by men) that they were big fat cows. I can corroborate that one. When I was 110 pounds on a 5'7" medium frame, 15 pounds underweight and too sick to keep solid food down at all, I had (again, exclusively) men telling me 'well, you're still pretty chubby' and 'your thighs are really fat and ugly' and 'I don't know, I think you could still lose 20 pounds.'
I used to sit back in treatment and watch the IVs drip into my arm and imagine being the 90 pound 5'7" creature these morons 'wanted', a skeleton that could barely breathe and couldn't even get out of bed, since I'd have no muscle mass to speak of... I imagined that, and I imagined the knuckledragger leaning over my bed and saying 'ya, well.. you're a fat cow, lose 30 pounds, you're so FAT!' And I'd say 'I have no more fat tissue at all. If you want me to lose 30 pounds, you're going to have to start hacking off limbs.' It just put in high relief what it was really about, trying to make me small, weak, pulled-apart. Trying to slowly destroy me, really. I think that we as a society, as lead by our knuckledragger boys, subconsciously want to just winnow women down to nothing, until we're just things that can't move or think or do anything. I think that the ideal woman is a skeleton. She's dead. Perfect, right?
So, why were they doing this? It was clear as day to me. They were boys who were on my back for a date or dinner or sex- usually just sex, these were knuckledraggers- and who felt that I was a big arrogant bitch for saying no. They were worried that I might think that I deserved better then a man who would treat me like shit, so it was very important for them to destroy my self respect somehow. 'You're Fat' is our social shorthand for saying 'You're Worthless.'
And that said, it comes back to my own attitude. I need to lose the inner knuckledragger in my own head. I don't hate myself, but I definitely have a subconscious aversion to fleshy gravid femininity. That's not exactly a secret. Allison Bechdel talks about drawing beanpole male figures as a way of protesting her 'increasing burden of flesh', as she grew from a skinny kid to a normal adult woman with boobs and hips and a butt. But I understand. I completely understand. My personal ideal is a sleek, sinewy body. I want a body that's fast and aerodynamic...
So I work out, and I lift weights.. and I like it. And my body has become, I guess, thin. I still note the loose fat on my thighs, which will probably shrink somewhat , but will never go away entirely. I don't like the softness of my stomach. But both of these things are very normal for women. Even very fit women have a soft lower stomach and jiggly thighs. It's natural and normal.
I dunno. When I write about this, I want to talk about my personal rejection of the winnowy model image, which I think is kind of fun in a frankenstein way, but it sure ain't my golden ideal of beauty. When I draw women, they're usually either quite stacked, or athletic and strong. They aren't whippet-thin. I just don't worship the look. I look at that, and I see a fantasy of being a upper class rich woman, one who has a lot of really impractical clothes and no need to do any work (or anything creative, or anything as an activist) and- of course- no need to do any thinking. It's ok, but it's not my fantasy. I want to be an outdoors creature, a person who runs around in mountain foothills. That's what I was as a child. That's what I should be now, as an adult. I'm not a high-born manor lady socialite. I don't want to be one. So I aspire more to be- and look like- someone who runs around a lot, who's muscular and very fit, and who's healthy and glowing from fresh air and clean healthy food rather then $1000 worth of cosmetics.
So my personal ideal deviates. It accepts muscle, anyway. I notice that the current beauty ideal does not.
I dunno. I want to say that for me, it's not 'wah I'm so fat', it's 'well fuck, I don't see the point of this loose flesh but eh, at least I can run five miles and I can leg press 140 pounds' and so forth. I don't really have an answer for this, or even for my own personal knuckledragger attitude and personal fat talk. I think we'd all be a lot happier as a society if we gave up the fat crap. But we'd also be a whole lot happier if we tossed the processed food and normalized a whole lot of daily exercise. Would the fat talk disappear then? I think it would. But we'd find something else for women to hate about themselves. I think humanity will always find something to ostracize parts of itself over.
Meh. I have a headache now.
The gist of the article is the following:
-when women get together, we all always will start talking about how we're all sooooo fat and we just hate our thighs and etc.
-this is something that we all expect women to do, and we will instinctively dislike a women who does not do it.
-that woman will be seen as arrogant and we as a society especially despise arrogant women.
Hm.
Well, yeah. Been there. I do this, and have done it here, because I am not very happy with my body and I have no problem saying so. Loudly.
I think that if I truly thought my body was great, then I'd say so and I'd take the label of 'that arrogant bitch- who does she think she is?' Just out of sheer pique.
But I suppose what annoys me about this more is the idea that women in our society all hate our bodies and this is how it should be. All of us are fat and we all are not good enough and we'll never be good enough- and this is happy and perfect and just. Right?
The article made the blog rounds yesterday. I noticed another interesting wrinkle being mentioned in the comments. It was the idea of a women who doesn't hate herself having 'threateningly high self esteem.' There was a lot of reports from women who were very thin that they were often told (exclusively by men) that they were big fat cows. I can corroborate that one. When I was 110 pounds on a 5'7" medium frame, 15 pounds underweight and too sick to keep solid food down at all, I had (again, exclusively) men telling me 'well, you're still pretty chubby' and 'your thighs are really fat and ugly' and 'I don't know, I think you could still lose 20 pounds.'
I used to sit back in treatment and watch the IVs drip into my arm and imagine being the 90 pound 5'7" creature these morons 'wanted', a skeleton that could barely breathe and couldn't even get out of bed, since I'd have no muscle mass to speak of... I imagined that, and I imagined the knuckledragger leaning over my bed and saying 'ya, well.. you're a fat cow, lose 30 pounds, you're so FAT!' And I'd say 'I have no more fat tissue at all. If you want me to lose 30 pounds, you're going to have to start hacking off limbs.' It just put in high relief what it was really about, trying to make me small, weak, pulled-apart. Trying to slowly destroy me, really. I think that we as a society, as lead by our knuckledragger boys, subconsciously want to just winnow women down to nothing, until we're just things that can't move or think or do anything. I think that the ideal woman is a skeleton. She's dead. Perfect, right?
So, why were they doing this? It was clear as day to me. They were boys who were on my back for a date or dinner or sex- usually just sex, these were knuckledraggers- and who felt that I was a big arrogant bitch for saying no. They were worried that I might think that I deserved better then a man who would treat me like shit, so it was very important for them to destroy my self respect somehow. 'You're Fat' is our social shorthand for saying 'You're Worthless.'
And that said, it comes back to my own attitude. I need to lose the inner knuckledragger in my own head. I don't hate myself, but I definitely have a subconscious aversion to fleshy gravid femininity. That's not exactly a secret. Allison Bechdel talks about drawing beanpole male figures as a way of protesting her 'increasing burden of flesh', as she grew from a skinny kid to a normal adult woman with boobs and hips and a butt. But I understand. I completely understand. My personal ideal is a sleek, sinewy body. I want a body that's fast and aerodynamic...
So I work out, and I lift weights.. and I like it. And my body has become, I guess, thin. I still note the loose fat on my thighs, which will probably shrink somewhat , but will never go away entirely. I don't like the softness of my stomach. But both of these things are very normal for women. Even very fit women have a soft lower stomach and jiggly thighs. It's natural and normal.
I dunno. When I write about this, I want to talk about my personal rejection of the winnowy model image, which I think is kind of fun in a frankenstein way, but it sure ain't my golden ideal of beauty. When I draw women, they're usually either quite stacked, or athletic and strong. They aren't whippet-thin. I just don't worship the look. I look at that, and I see a fantasy of being a upper class rich woman, one who has a lot of really impractical clothes and no need to do any work (or anything creative, or anything as an activist) and- of course- no need to do any thinking. It's ok, but it's not my fantasy. I want to be an outdoors creature, a person who runs around in mountain foothills. That's what I was as a child. That's what I should be now, as an adult. I'm not a high-born manor lady socialite. I don't want to be one. So I aspire more to be- and look like- someone who runs around a lot, who's muscular and very fit, and who's healthy and glowing from fresh air and clean healthy food rather then $1000 worth of cosmetics.
So my personal ideal deviates. It accepts muscle, anyway. I notice that the current beauty ideal does not.
I dunno. I want to say that for me, it's not 'wah I'm so fat', it's 'well fuck, I don't see the point of this loose flesh but eh, at least I can run five miles and I can leg press 140 pounds' and so forth. I don't really have an answer for this, or even for my own personal knuckledragger attitude and personal fat talk. I think we'd all be a lot happier as a society if we gave up the fat crap. But we'd also be a whole lot happier if we tossed the processed food and normalized a whole lot of daily exercise. Would the fat talk disappear then? I think it would. But we'd find something else for women to hate about themselves. I think humanity will always find something to ostracize parts of itself over.
Meh. I have a headache now.