Fat Lot of Good

A post appeared today at Feministing regarding The Adiposivity Project.

One comment in and I am already fuming…

Posted by Bri under blame the fatties bullshit & bullshit discrimination & feminism & just bullshit | 14 Comments »

This post at Sociological Images brought back some memories although perhaps not the ones you might think. Personally, I find this image quite offensive. What do you think?

Seeing this sentiment emblazoned upon a tshirt made me remember a time about 12 years ago when I was out at a local club (ok, the only local club) with my then flat mate. Over the course of the night my roomie and I sat back and watched a male friend and a friend of his (we’ll call him Mate) hook up with two young women. These two females were several years younger than we were at the time (we were all in our early 20s), one was what society would generally consider as attractive and the other young woman was what society would generally consider unattractive. One woman was thin and pretty in the traditional sense while the other was chubby and had plainer features. One had her hair and makeup done and was wearing trendy clothing and the other appeared to be wearing no makeup, had her hair hanging loose and was wearing plain jeans a tshirt. You can guess which girl was getting the most male attention that night.

The Mate of our male friend had managed to get Miss Slim’s attention but the deal breaker was that Miss Slim wasn’t about to leave her Fat Friend out in the cold and so put it to the Mate that if our male friend showed an interest in her Fat Friend, then she (Miss Slim) would be happy to hang out with the Mate. Because our male friend had a misguided sense of loyalty to Mate, and obviously entertained the ideology of the “wingman” (as illustrated in the tshirt image shown above), he did his duty and cosied up to the Fat Friend so that his Mate would have a better chance with Miss Slim.

It goes without saying that I was appalled. At the time I was a size 16, which while not hugely fat was still bigger than my friends and the majorit of other young women my age. The Fat Friend was probably around the same size as me, perhaps a little bigger. I was appalled when our male friend explained the lay of the land to me. I knew (and he confirmed it) that he was not interested in this girl at all. He was only feigning interest in the hope that it would get his Mate into bed with Miss Slim. As far as male friend was concerned, it was all about loyalty and mateship. As far as I was concerned it was all about betrayal and humiliation. I wondered how the Fat Friend would feel when (if) she found out what was going on: that the attractive guy she thought liked her was only pretending to give a shit because her friend had asked his friend for him to do so. In my mind, the whole situation was totally demeaning for them all but particularly for the Fat Friend.  It certainly changed the way I thought about my male friend and I warned my flat mate that if she ever, ever considered asking a guy to get his mate to pretend to like me, I would end our friendship then and there. Our friendship came to an end a few years later anyway, ironically for reasons not totally unrelated to that night involving the Fat Friend but that is another story.

So you can see why the tshirt in question brought this memory back as vividly as if it had taken place yesterday. If I can say one thing to slim women with their own Fat Friend, it would be if you put so little value on your friendship that you could ask someone to pretend they like your Fat Friend just so you don’t feel bad because someone likes you - you aren’t worth being friends with in the first place.

Posted by Bri under just bullshit | 3 Comments »

Target Australia are running an online survey/competition regarding their Options Plus range. Here is our chance to let them know what we really think about those horrible clothes they think we want to buy! And you can win a gift card while you are at it. Can’t complain about that!

Go do your thing HERE (The link is in the bottom left corner of the page).

Posted by Bri under fashion | 5 Comments »

Between uni essays, a family epidemic of gastro and The Husband being away for work, things have been (and still are) a tad hectic around here. Needless to say blogging hasn’t been up there with the list of things that have to be done. Want to be done, yes. Have to be done, no. That said, even though I have missed the boat a little I still have some comments I want to make about Love Your Body Day. Or the design that won the poster competition for Love Your Body Day to be more specific.

This is the design that won the competition -

Initially I looked at this poster and thought, yes. I like that. But then I had second thoughts. What is the measure of a woman? Apparently the measure of a woman is made up by personal character traits such as intelligence, strength, love, gentleness, generosity, faithfulness, humour, joy, compassion , grace and goodness. There are a few other contributing factors of womanhood which are age, soul, mind, heart, character etc but it is those previously mentioned qualities that bug me. Those characteristics that are particularly reminiscent of the “fruits of the spirit”.

Why does this bother me?

It bothers me because the premise being offered up here is that these qualities are what makes a woman thus, they are what makes a woman a woman. That a “real woman” is good and patient and faithful and all the rest. If she isn’t, then she isn’t a “real woman”. Just like “real women” have curves. I have issues with that adage as well. There is no such thing as a “real woman”. Women are all different. A thin, generous, unfunny, joyless woman is no less a woman than a fat, faithful, graceless, funny woman.  A woman without curves is as much of a woman as one with curves. A woman without a womb/children/husband etc is just as much a woman as one without any of those things. It is not a competition to determine who is more “real” and reality is a debateable concept at the best of times.

Love Your Body Campaign is a great concept but does the pay off have to be running the risk of a woman hating herself (as opposed to her body) because she doesn’t possess these qualities?

Posted by Bri under Uncategorized | 7 Comments »

Samantha-Jane Stacey is 14 years old. She is fat. And she just won a silver medal at the World Sumo Championships. She won her way through five matches with a sprained ankle in order to earn the medal in the junior division.  Samantha-Jane’s medal is the first time Australia has had a placing at the championships since 1992.

The article that brought SJ to my attention did make mention of the teenager’s weight (130kg or approx 275lb) but not in a disparaging manner. Although the last line of the article does take pains to point out that “Samantha-Jane does not eat excessively and her weight is a result of her slow metabolism”. Which of course makes it all ok. The cynic in me wonders if it is “ok” to be fat in Australia as long as you are still winning medals in sport. Sport being the be all to end all in this country…

Posted by Bri under positive media | 5 Comments »