Comments | littlegirltoast: Object lesson in casual fat hate disguised as not giving a shit

littlegirltoast

Object lesson in casual fat hate disguised as not giving a shit

Nov 05, 2011 10:37

In the last day, two different people asked what I thought of this certain blog post. Well, one directly and one asked her whole LJ friends list. I wrote some tweets, and then this morning dug in for a longer analysis. That analysis turns out to be longer than LJ comments allow, so I'm posting it here instead! For all of you ( Read more... )

Comments 33

scribbles_hb November 5 2011, 14:45:49 UTC

I'm not sure what I think of this - and by this I mean the whole post (yours and hers).

I lost 100lbs about 10 years ago (I think!) and lemme tell ya - it was one giant head trip.

I'm gonna ponder it out and then post a response. Right now I think I'm a bit too emotionally connected to it!

littlegirltoast November 5 2011, 15:03:32 UTC

I think I can condense my rambling post to the point that a person's body is their own business, but things they express have an impact upon others and are therefore the business of others as well.

scribbles_hb November 5 2011, 15:25:31 UTC

yeah, I think it takes a lot to step away from pressures when you're losing weight. Esp a significant amount ( ... )

littlegirltoast November 5 2011, 16:39:17 UTC

I get what you're saying - I have definitely been in the position of receiving glowingly-intended remarks on changes to my size, and felt different ways about it from moment to moment. I did a lot of biking two summers ago instead of busing and people kept congratulating me and I kept being like it's nice that you're being nice but I'm not DOING that. Don't track my score, I am not playing ( ... )

Thread 10

stoof November 5 2011, 15:20:10 UTC

I dunno, man. She's not the most eloquent or self-aware person, but I know where she's coming from. I'm pretty horrible to myself about my fat, but it is entirely self-directed. I think fat people can be pretty hot, just not me.

Also (some) fellow fat people can be really mean and/or seem threatened when a fat friend is losing weight. I've seen it happen and it is very disconcerting. My own mother is currently attempting to make me feel terrible for dropping 40+ pounds over the summer. She brought me 100 Halloween candy bars on Monday and made a crack about how my hips will always be "huge." So.

littlegirltoast November 5 2011, 15:25:05 UTC

Stoof I know that what you're saying is accurate, but I don't think it relates to this blog post at all!

stoof November 5 2011, 15:35:02 UTC

Ha ha, I guess I am just being more charitable than usual. I'm reading extreme self-hate and defensiveness in this post, not general fat person hate.

littlegirltoast November 5 2011, 15:52:57 UTC

I do totally agree that those things are present, and even fundamental, but I don't see it as ameliorating the impact of the highlighted statements.

I guess I should clarify that I don't think this person is a terrible person, or that anything bad should happen to her. I only mean to judge the output - the quality of her character (which is what we give credit to when we consider her reasons and feelings) is her own business as much as the composition of her body, and not really even a matter of interest to me, as a totally removed party from her life.

It probably comes across as condemnation of the person when I say someone can fuck off? I only intended it as vehemence with regard to the text I was criticizing, but maybe I should watch that.

Thread 21

batyatoon November 13 2011, 04:18:28 UTC

oh also hey jesse I meant to ask only I kept forgetting: what do you have against diet pop?

littlegirltoast January 1 2012, 17:20:18 UTC

I never saw this, or forgot!

My problem with diet pop is the word "diet," or more broadly, the marketing of it. I don't have a problem with there being different drinks that are sweetened using different agents, I just think the branding of the word "diet" as a virtuous or conscientious choice contributes to the harmful way our self-worth is addressed by the uhhhhh feeling-bad-industrial-complex.

Does that make any sense?

batyatoon January 1 2012, 17:28:36 UTC

Oh that makes a lot of sense! Huh. The words "diet" or "light" in a product name never affect me that way, for some reason -- but I want to throw things and punch people when I see product names that include the words "skinny" or "guilt-free".

also HEY HAPPY NEW YEAR

littlegirltoast January 1 2012, 17:42:22 UTC

ha yeah "guilt free" is some NewSpeak shit right there... it of course means "NOW WITH EXTRA GUILT!"

I think probably Diet and Light or Lite are too familiar by now to really stand out as impactful, especially since there wasn't a lot of consciousness around the issue of making people feel bad about their bodies as a negative phenomenon when they were introduced, but my belief is that that makes them even more effective and insidious... we're unlikely to feel it when we look at them directly, but they swim all around our peripheral vision. For example... even though I know better than to internalize it (which is not to say I can completely help doing so), it says something to me about a person if they make a habit of drinking diet-branded pop. It may not be the exact same thing it says to everyone, but I'm aware that the branding has some effect ( ... )

Thread 5