Something happened to me early this week which really got me down.
Since I've started fatshion blogging and writing about fat politics, I've just been waiting for the trollers and haters to roll in. I never imagined it would be someone I knew.
It hurt.
A lot.
In response to this, I've been reflecting on what Marilyn Wann says in her book FAT!SO? (which will be my next Body Loving Book Review by the way). Wann shares an epiphany she has about her haters. She writes,
Perhaps these angry people don't really believe that you can't be fat and healthy. They just believe - deeply, self-righteously - that you cannot be fat and get away with it. The very idea of me, a fat chick, enjoying life, getting away with it, sends them into attack mode......because what these [people] were really saying was..."I deny myself the pleasure of food every day, because I can't stand the thought of being fat. How dare you not suffer as much as I do! How dare you eat a bite of something 'sinful' and not beat yourself up about it the way I do! How dare you be happier than I am! If a fat person can be healthy without starving herself and working out obsessively, if she can be happy without being thin, then I've suffered for nothing, and I can't stand that thought. I can't stand the thought of you."They are trying desperately to put the uppity fat chick back in her place...The "health" argument is a big old smokescreen for our old friend: fat hatred. When people realise they can't get away with expressing their prejudice against fat outright, they use the health argument instead, but the emotion behind their words is still hatred.Our culture currently believes that thin is good and fat is bad. This belief encourages the hatred of fat and the deification of thin. This belief is the basis for fat oppression and thin privilege. Now, not one person is responsible for this system of prejudice. But once you become aware of the system, it's your choice, your responsibility, to choose how you will relate to it. You can reinforce it and try to benefit from it, or you can refuse to participate in it or live by its standards in any respect.
Don't let others try to "take you down a peg" - chin up and keep doing what you're doing.
Haters will be haters Sophie, I have experienced it recently with someone I know very well and that was just because i dress the way i do, they may have been the first comment made out loud, but i have seen the looks before. It definitely stems from her own insecurities, she isn't thin herself and she has been trying to the loose the weight and struggling too, so I guess prancing around in all of these gorgeous outfits gets up her nose. She has the problem so she can get over it.
ReplyDeleteThanks Margaret-Rose. It's so hard when it comes from a friend, isn't it?
DeleteTheir problem. Keep doing what you do lovely.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the support, Siggy x
DeleteIf your friend has always been slim, she probably truly doesn't understand that some people are just naturally bigger, and she probably has never done any actual research into the viability (or lack thereof!) of permanent weight loss for the vast majority of people.
ReplyDeleteIf she's exercising and dieting from a place of fear, and she's suffering, to be slapped in the face by someone who's choosing not to torture themselves and instead be accepting of their body can be really confronting and threatening.
Doesn't excuse what she's doing, of course, but her hateful words are most likely coming from a place of fear and ignorance..
plus, nothing ticks off a hater like a dose of compassionate sympathy. :)
Hey Omega. You're right - people aren't very well educated on the statistics of weightloss or new health publications like Health At Every Size. And you've always been thin, there's not much incentive to bother looking into it anyway.
DeleteITs funny how people can take out comments about ourselves as being about them. But then who really has the problem? We use I statements. They read you statements. You are not saying anything about her. But she is so full of fear herself that she cant stand to see you accepting yourself at a place where she would be deep in that cave you so well described. So sorry for you that this came from someone you thought was a friend. Dont let anyone force you back into self loathing.
ReplyDeleteThanks artymarty. That friend has since apologised to me, so our friendship is on the repair. I edited this post so that it was a little more ambiguous, as I don't know if she reads my blog and I didn't want to risk reopening wounds! It's been an interesting experience for me and made me ask myself a lot of questions about the topics I've been writing about - in a good way, though.
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