Fat Body Politics

red3blog:

fresafresca:

I see over and over again thin and skinny people denying the experiences that fat people face. Fat people who aren’t even into fat acceptance can at least admit how much external judgment there is regarding bodies like ours - it’s overwhelming.  It is as if these thin people live in a parallel universe where fat people are completely accepted just as we are, with no negativity ever about our size.  It doesn’t matter what we say: personal experiences, statistics and studies galore that show evidence of fat stigma, nothing matters.

Their continual denial of our reality actually proves our point - we are often dismissed, ignored and accused of being liars. It just doesn’t end. This is especially galling coming from thin people who never once fit into a plus size garment: you actually have no idea what it’s like to live in fat body so how would you know what a fat experience is like? You have no idea what it’s like to be constantly, consistently, overwhelmingly told you have the wrong body size, always either directly from “friends” and family telling you to your face, or constantly, consistently, overwhelmingly from almost every media outlet you can possibly be exposed to. 

Its worth noting that a lot of fat shaming propaganda IS based on on the proposition that we’ve ben transported to an alternate reality where fat people need to be AT LONG LAST be taken down a peg. A reality where the problem with fat people is that no one has ever thought to tell us to stop being fat. A reality where people thinking that just because fat people are a majority (which isn’t exactly true, anyway), that must means we are the oppressors of thin people. Indeed, a lot of it does cast thin people in the role of victims as people self-congratulate their fat hatred. An overwhelming amount of fat hate is presented on this basis, the idea that our society is so easy on fat people is why there are so many fat people.

Its such a pervasive part of the culture of fat stigma that I wonder if its bleeding into these folks who clearly imagine themselves all even-handed as they insist things are just as hard on thin people as fat people. So many people assert as fact that we live in a world that is too easy on fat people. Maybe someone disagrees that it should be harder on fat people, but still consents to erasing the true scope of fat oppression.