sanity points needed
Posted on November 12th, 2008 in blame the fatties bullshit, bullshit discrimination, feminism, just bullshit
A post appeared today at Feministing regarding The Adiposivity Project.
One comment in and I am already fuming…
17 Responses to “sanity points needed”
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Feministing gets more and more terrible every day. Some of the posters are absolutely wonderful, and some of the commenters as well, but there are a lot of others who are just mean, dumb and cruel. It’s hard to read. I was just feeling crazy and frustrated about it myself.
The main point that made me want to pull my hair out?
“I was expecting people like America Ferrara or Queen Latifah, but then I see a lot of people who look UNHEALTHY”
Yeah, okay, because you can tell that just by looking? How about saying what you really feel.
“I saw a lot of people I don’t want to have sex with.”
That sounds more accurate to me.
Ugh. The comments are bad, but I am also not a fan of what the poster said in the first place. Fat Acceptance is NOT about wanting people to think you’re sexy, and I feel like Samita obviously hasn’t read a lot of FA blogs that state, time and time again, that being seen as sexy is NOt the point.
And, of course, right after I finished typing that, I’d scrolled down far enough to see your comment of the same nature. Shutting up now. xD
Also. I kind of want to shake Samhita and tell her “you’re wrong”, and “you’re making FA look bad”. And I realize this makes me a terrible person. But I feel so much like she’s misconstruing what FA is, and turning even more people off, because they don’t know what it is actually about. ARGH.
I tried to rebutt… but it’s something I’m not surprised from that comm.
i just read what ronthedon wrote, and i’m shaking.
http://www.feministing.com/archives/012154.html#comment-194507
i can’t read this anymore tonight, i’m too distraught. you build up a wall against this kind of bullshit, and then someone just knocks it down…
Feministing has never been great about FA, but months ago I stopped reading completely after an all caps comment about how “morbidly obese means you’re dying”. If they only want thin women in the feminist movement, they should say so up-front.
That kind of fuckery is why I cannot read feministing anymore.
Seriously someone needs to tell the people running that show that kind of thing is not ok.
I made it through about ten comments before hollering “YOU’RE A DOUCEBAG!” and closing the window. Some fucking people.
Integgy,
I feel you might be being unfair to sahmita,
Fat acceptance is not about you telling me I don’t look fat
Surely this refers to when people tell you ‘you aren’t fat’ as a kind of complement.
She’s saying that if you think I’m attractive and that means I cannot be fat, you need to re-think your definition of fat=ugly.
Fat acceptance is you, seeing me, as sexy, bold and beautiful AS a fat person.
Furthermore, she believes the adipositivity project:
photographs sexy fat women to challenge our perceptions of beauty.
You may have doubts about that aim, but I’ve seen those same words used numerous times in feminism. Sometimes people disagree with it; you can hear the silence, others chip in trying hard to be positive(sometimes you can hear the strain), what rarely if ever happens, in a feminist space is for people to say, you’re ugly as hell accept it, because that is a totally sexist reaction which they wouldn’t take from men under any circumstances.
As an aside, have you noticed how fatness has given a opportunity for women to become male chauvinist pigs, irony intended.
I personally don’t care a whole lot for challenging myths of beauty, although I have to admit, this has shown itself to be worthwhile because beauty does have a context outside pure objectivity; if that is even theoretically possible.
Most if not all of us buy into beauty standards of various types and to various degrees, this is both our choice and probably natural inclination, whether we like it or not. It seems to be an innate form of self-expression and is therefore part of us and worthy of examination and debate, even if that makes us uncomfortable because in the fat context we are often accused of trying to get everyone to find fatness attractive.
We’ve allowed haters to set our agenda for far to long, it’s our time to do what the hell we feel like in a positive sense, so although it’s not my bag, good luck to the project.
Sorry that should be ‘Samhita’.
I like this thread in the comments: http://www.feministing.com/archives/012154.html#comment-194483
Because when a thin person eats a lot and stays thin, it’s GENETICS.
And when a fat person eats not so much and stays fat, it’s GENETICS.
But if a fat person eats a lot (as in, as much as the thin person above), it’s SELF-DESTRUCTIVE and NOT GENETIC AT ALL.
Eyeroll!
(Because if you ate as much as the fat people who don’t eat much and yet stay fat, you obviously would not stay fat. Or else, eating is perfectly safe and healthy if you are thin but dangerous and to be done only in moderation if you are fat. Either way, if you are fat you must also eat very little to get this commenter’s approval.)
It’s funny to me how many people get up in arms about how FA DEMANDS that they find fat people attractive, because if you step back and take a look at the onslaught of images from popular media, you are being programmed about what you find attractive every single day.
It’s just so overwhelmingly sad to me. That in a movement that is supposed to be about equality of women, equality of EVERYONE, that there can be this much blatant fat hatred. Not that it would be better under the surface, but this is out in the open, loud and hurtful, cruel and uninformed. From people who claim that they believe ALL people are equal and should be treated as such.
Wriggles: ” what rarely if ever happens, in a feminist space is for people to say, you’re ugly as hell accept it, because that is a totally sexist reaction which they wouldn’t take from men under any circumstances.”
Would you say that, that exact same way, over there in the comments? You stated it so well and in a nutshell.
Who the hell has the right to tell ANYBODY they are ugly and they just have to deal with it? And to be coming from women, supposed feminists, who are using LOOKS to put another woman down? How low can they get?
I stopped going to that website a long time ago because of nonsense like that.
Unfortunately, feminism and FA don’t always mix. Many of the feminists have bought into the obesity epidemic cooked up by the media.
You’d think a feminist site would be one place where you would feel safe.
I am not asking anybody to find me attractive. All I want is for people to treat me with respect.
I agree with wriggler’s analysis, and yet everyone on the thread (will a shower wash away the hate? I feel icky dirty now. I’m in the red on sanity points…) were misinterpreting the point: “you must think I’m teh sexorz!!!” No, but if you DO think I’m sexy, recognize that I am sexy FAT.
Anyway, must let old threads die…
Rachel, you’d think so, right? But I won’t (ok, shouldn’t) read about parenting on a non-parenting feminist site, nor feminism on a non-feminist parenting site, I need to just accept that I oughtn’t read fat articles on non-FA feminist sites… Which is why we need intersectionality so damn bad, cause splintering in to womanists and feminists with kids and FAfeminists is just losing our potential power to petty ass bullshit “I can hate on you if I want to” bickering.