Why Fat Shaming & Skinny Bashing Get Us Nowhere - Great Article
The first paragraph of this article says it all for me:
Let's just get this out of the way right up front, everyone: Don't tell thin women to eat a cheeseburger. Don't tell fat women to put down the fork. Don't tell underweight men to bulk up. Don't tell women with facial hair to wax, don't tell uncircumcised men they're gross, don't tell muscular women to go easy on the dead-lift, don't tell dark-skinned women to bleach their vaginas, don't tell black women to relax their hair, don't tell flat-chested women to get breast implants, don't tell "apple-shaped" women what's "flattering," don't tell mothers to hide their stretch marks, and don't tell people whose toes you don't approve of not to wear flip-flops. And so on, etc, etc, in every iteration until the mountains crumble to the sea. Basically, just go ahead and CEASE telling other human beings what they "should" and "shouldn't" do with their bodies unless a) you are their doctor, or b) SOMEBODY ******* ASKED YOU.
While it gets a little *****y in the answer backs (both authors clearly have axes they wish to grind), The message I took away was one I've been spouting myself since I started this journey : Transferring the abuse we take and the self hatred we feel on to another body type doesn't lesson our own pain. We need to unite ourselves and drop our notions about others.
I am totally against skinny bashing myself, if for the only reason that snarking on a skinny girl's body doesn't help me like my fat one any better. However, I must say that skinny bashing is not a moral judgement on a person as fat shaming can be. Fat bashing often implies that one's overweight status implies failure of conviction, discipline, education, intelligence and class. Skinny bashing implies...that a person eats too little and it's caused non conformance with a beauty standard. Both are wrong, but they are not exactly flip sides of the same coin.
My issue with both is it's such a blatant indicator of self loathing. You either are building yourself up by saying "at least I'm not fat like her" or building yourself up by saying "No man's going to want her she's just skin and bones" or something of the like. Either way, you're knocking someone else down because YOU'RE unhappy.
Personally, I think some of the stereotypes attached to the "skinny *****", things like "slutty", "vapid", "vain" "self absorbed" and "dumb", are even more dangerous than some of the invectives hurled at the overweight.
I personally don't like the idea of living in a culture where I'm a lazy, undisciplined slob at 400 pounds, and then be told I must be a ditzy flirt when I finally hit the "ideal".
This was a GREAT share Radiojane! I was laughing like crazy! Loved her writing style. Perfectly explains how I feel about "Real women have curves" thinking as well as how it is a bit different (though not justifiably so) from thin shaming.
Lindy West is a great writer and this was one of her better impassioned rants. She got caught in a huge misogynistic sh@tstorm a few months ago when she engaged in a high-profile debate over the place of rape jokes in comedy. What was a reasoned debate between two comedians got turned into a horrific Twitter mess of thousands of men tweeting really, really ugly stuff at her - threatening sexual violence but also, of course, almost always attacking how she looks. It was truly awful. And she was open about how awful it was, but it only fueled her continuing to write some incredibly powerful stuff on the subject.
I think she's hilarious at times (you should see her video series of 'Lindy eats horrible foodstuffs on camera' - like vile candy corn Oreos) but also incredibly powerful. /fangirling off
As someone in maintenance, I understand the annoyances when people comment on how thin/skinny I am. So, I can sympathize.
But it bugs when people respond to the thin comments by saying things like "We would never criticize someone who's overweight!" or "They must be jealous!" or "The people who criticize how skinny I am are always FAT!"
Interesting article. It really does make me sad to read this kind of stuff, and know it will never end, and heck to be honest. I have caught myself in a moment of rage after my buttons have been pushed by someone who has tried to make me feel worthless using certain shaming to get even. I then feel awful about that, on top of feeling awful about being 'me'.
No one is perfect, but I always hate it when people try to make me feel like I am some walking lump of mass that has no discipline, an idiot, and just plain lazy. I am none of those.
Why Fat Shaming & Skinny Bashing Get Us Nowhere - Great Article
It seems like this one crosses a whole 'nother line, doesn't it?
