big fat rules
An interesting discussion is being had on the Fat Studies Yahoo group regarding the unspoken ‘rules’ of Fat Acceptance. What seemed to set things off was one member explaining to another member why sie found the use of the phrase ‘the last acceptable form of oppression’ (or something along those lines) problematic. Hir explanation of why sie found it problematic seemed more than reasonable to me (in content and tone) but the member the explanation was directed at didn’t seem to take it so well and pretty much took hir bat and ball and went home. At this point, another member pointed out that sie had come to realise that there, what sie sees as, many ‘unspoken rules’ of Fat Acceptance and that sie felt these ‘unspoken rules’ should become spoken. As such, sie is compiling a kidn of FA 101 which will incorporate what sie perceives as these previously unspoken rules.
My question to you is this, have you encountered what you consider to be ‘unspoken rules’ during your time in the Fat Acceptance movement, or while reading FA blogs? If you have, would you mind sharing what the ‘rule’ was and what occurred? Were you pulled up on something by someone else? Did you come to your own realisation? How did you feel if you were pulled up by someone? How did they bring up the topic with you? How do you think ‘correcting’ someone should be handled? You get the idea… Any comments on the topic are welcome (within the usual ‘rules’ of this blog – the very spoken rules! lol).
For God’s sake, don’t mention privilege! You get your arse whupped no matter what perspective you have on it.
to be honest, as someone who is new to the FA thing (less than a year) the whole concept of privledge was confusing and very polarizing for me. Suddenly, this new community i had discovered that seemed to stand for and talk about what i cared about was attacking each other over what can be a thorny and fuzzy concept. Alot of us didnt go to school for liberation studies, feminism, or anything that even has ever MENTIONED that……and then when questions were asked, and newcomers to the concept began exploring it they got attacked……
not trying to point fingers, but what is the “accaptable” stance on that? if HAES is “right” and dieting is “wrong” whre are the rights and wrongs about priveledge (and who decides them)? whats okay to get talked about without being called stupid or uneducated? To be honest the whole incident left a bad tasete in my mouth and i felt completely unwelcome at some sites now becuase i am “studi” enuogh not to have talked about privledge my whole life. (my degree is in anthoplogy, and privlege is more about cultural status within a culture…..never looked at in in MY culture, that is what the sociologists are for)
And when people DID ask for guidance i didnt ever really see a good “here is an article about privledge” pointer…all i saw were misunderstandings, finger pointing and hurt feelings. I hope nobody takes this the wrong way, (though i am almost sure it will be) but someone plz, with out calling me stupid and to read up before talking about it TELL ME WHAT THE RULES ARE and WHY.
I think most of the rules are pretty well “spoken!”
Here are some (some obvious, some not as much):
- No talking about weight loss. If you need to mention it (say, to discuss the difficulty of finding clothes to fit your new body), you must explicitly state that you didn’t mean to lose weight, that it was a side effect of medication, etc.
- You can’t ever say that someone isn’t fat.
- Don’t assume that people who look like women (or men) identify as women (or men). Don’t assume that everyone reading is a woman.
- Don’t compare fat oppression to other oppressions.
I honestly don’t think there are unspoken FA-wide rules as such, except for obvious ones like ‘don’t fat-bash’ and ‘no pro-diet/weight-loss talk’. But I tend to disagree with – or at least problematise – a lot of the basic premises of the broader realm of fat acceptance anyway (being an academic makes that kind of inevitable).
I think there are some shared understandings in certain parts of FA that are particularly interested in social justice on a much broader scale, and ‘last acceptable prejudice’ is one of those (for a very good reason). I don’t think that the discomfort of being a n00b is really avoidable though.
There is a tendency that I see in some FA communities to ‘close ranks’ against anyone who raises any criticism (especially when it’s criticism of a beloved leader). While I think that this is really useful for obvious trolling, it can also result in dog-piling on newcomers rather than educating.
More disturbing (to me, anyway), is that it means we as a movement don’t listen to dissent, we prevent people from raising critiques, and we don’t challenge or open up our thinking, which is ultimately limiting and self-defeating strategy.
By which I mean, no single set of rules can apply to all of FA, because FA has such a diverse range of people, opinions and perspectives.
I think there’s lots of places where people can get good 101 groundings (fatshionista.com for Lesley’s intro to privilege, for example; I think fats is generally a great intro to a whole bunch of ideas for people who are interested in – or just want to know about – the broader social justice aspects of the movement).
My personal gripe is that there seems to be so little that moves beyond the 101 (or maybe 102) level, but that’s a whole other thing…
I think that for fat acceptance to be anything more than a self-serving interest group it has to consider other cases of social injustice. It’s one thing to further your own interests in a society that has institutionalised forms of inequality, and another to protest the existence of any form of inequality. To do that, you have to recognise that while fat people are discriminated against, there are many other, sometimes worse, examples of discrimination out there.
I think that’s why it is important to talk about privilege and be aware of it. It’s not ever going to be terribly easy, but does everything have to be easy? Sometimes it’s good to work through difficult things, no matter how painful it may be. For may people, their personal identity is closely linked to what they perceived as their social status. To be told that their social status is simply the result of an accident of birth is hard for some to accept.
If you did a quick survey, I think you’d find that the complaints about being criticised for not understanding what privilege is far outnumber the criticisms quite significantly. There is something self-serving in identifying oneself as a victim of intolerance in this circumstance. I don’t think it’s constructive. Ultimately, if you have difficulty with the concept of privilege, it’s not because you’re being treated unfairly. Or it is that you’ve been treated unfairly, if you get my drift.
I think the rules that are explicitly stated on Shapely Prose can be taken as almost like “rule-of-thumb” guideleines for “etiquette” across the fatosphere. I have no scientific proof of course, but their rules, coincidentially or not, have maybe set the accepted tone? or just happen to mirror the accepted tone of much of the fatosphere? But you know, that’s just IMHO.
No fat-bashing is a pretty obvious one. But a corollary that it sometimes takes people a little longer to figure out is that thin-bashing is just as problematic.
There’s a reflex to criticize skinny women as looking like boys, or universally anorexic, or vain. And the reflex is completely understandable; given the awful amount of abuse that fat women are forced to suffer through, it feels like some counter-abuse is the path to reclaiming self-esteem.
But it’s, of course, not. The real path to enlightenment is accepting that there’s great variance in people’s shapes, and many types of beauty. Fat women and skinny women shouldn’t be at war with one another; they should be supporting one another against anyone who stigmatizes either.
Being autistic, and having spent most of my life not knowing that, I have a long and ugly history of running afoul of people’s unspoken desires. If people don’t tell me exactly what they want, or in some cases, tell me the exact opposite of what they want hoping they’ll convey through their eyes or some between-the-lines gesture that they don’t really mean what they say, it’s highly likely I will not know what they want. Therefore, if one person’s idea of a safe space is that people should anticipate their needs without having to be told, and my idea of a safe space is that people don’t make me guess their needs, we can’t both have the same safe space, can we?
I am on the listserv you mention, and I think there was a basic assumption there that the Shapely Prose comment policy applied in all “fat friendly” online spaces and that everyone knew what it was and had agreed to adhere to it. It’s one thing to say on your own blog, “I don’t want anyone saying X, and prepare to get a royal smackdown if you do,” and quite another for people to be expected to just know that in advance of entering any FA space.
And yeah, I think there’s somewhat of a generational split going on here. The person you’re referring to is older and probably has not taken Intersectional Feminism 304 in the last year and gotten an A plus, and thus may not be up on the very latest politically correct lingo. But that doesn’t make that person’s contributions invalid. The use of one politically questionable phrase (which I myself have used in the past before I knew better, and thank goddess people didn’t ream me out in public for it) was seized upon and the rest of that person’s otherwise very useful post completely ignored. And this is someone who has done pioneering work in HAES and FA, and who could have been a very valuable member of the list had the conversation taken a different turn, if we had been able to explore the “last acceptable form of oppression” assumption without it turning into a shame-fingering exercise.
Just my two chocolate shekels.
I think what Meowser and Onan said are very important.
Until recently, I felt that bashing skinny chicks was just their comeuppance for having ruled the roost for so long. Now I realize how counterproductive that is.
And Meowser’s explanation of how two people have very disparate needs in a “safe space” is incredibly important. For those reasons, whatever the “rules” are, they should be simple, straight-forward, easy to find, and not an excuse to verbally assault people who cross them.
I’m confused by the reference to SP’s rules. Are you referring to the comment policy? If so, then I’m not on board. It’s way too convoluted and dependent on the moderators’ attitudes for anyone to follow with any consistency.
No promotion of diets (dieting talk should be okay, if you’re talking about a physician-approved diet for some health problems… weight loss diets are not okay) and no fat or thin shaming. Those are givens.
Privilege is a subject that is going to come up and nonacademic people are going to be confused by. Instead of saying, “No talking about privilege” can we say, “If someone misses the mark on privilege, let’s educate them instead of attacking them.”
In fact, there should be a rule that just says, “Don’t attack people for being an unintentional asshole.” With very few exceptions, most people are not trying to be ignorant asses when they post. If someone posts something that pisses you off, tell them, but don’t automatically treat them as if they are heretics to be burned at the stake.
A mild example (silentbeep, I hope you don’t mind) is when a blogger posted that she was afraid she was going to get fatter. Silentbeep found the post hurtful because it was something she was used to hearing from her thin friends. To silentbeep it meant, “Oh man, I’d hate to look like you.” But the original blogger (and her thin friends) did not mean it like that. They were merely expressing a common fear of most women submerged in this thincentric culture of ours. Personally, I don’t think we should discourage this kind of talk. This is part of the journey to Fat Acceptance: learning not to fear, learning to love yourself no matter what this stupid shell of ours does.
And because FA bloggers will be posting from many different perspectives, we shouldn’t discourage those who are new to the movement to express their fears in an open and honest way. We should encourage them, in fact, to work through these issues and to learn from those who have felt the same way and found a way past the fear.
This community should not be set in stone. We should not say, “You must be this fat accepting to ride.” We should cast wide the net to bring as many people in as possible and help them with their struggle to accept their bodies, no matter their state. The Fatosphere should be a tool for self-acceptance, not a rulebook for engagement. So, I think apart from some very basic guidelines, we should allow the community to flourish unhindered.
Maybe there should be a central repository of basic rules and, when somebody breaks one of those rules, you send them a link to it, say “Get familiar with them” and, if they break the rules again, THEN you get out the whacking stick.
But let’s not bark down everyone’s snorkel just for being a n00b. Otherwise we’re going to lose a lot of potentially great members for the sake of a solid rulebook.
Peace,
Shannon
As I’ve wiggled my way into the group, I’ve noticed that there are certain things about FA that are “unspoken” or, I suppose, just assumed.
1.) Fat Acceptance seems to go hand-in-hand with feminism, yet one may not forget that men also have struggles when it comes to body image.
2.) Do not say someone’s not fat.
I have a problem with this, in fact. If I meet someone who is not in the FA community and I say something like “I’m just the cute, fat girl.” and he or she says “You’re not fat, Lex!” I tend to get a little upset. I am not ONLY fat, but fat is part of my identity, just like “brunette,” “intelligent,” and “female” is. I can see why this would upset people.
However, I think when someone says “You’re not fat” even in the FA community, they’re, more often than not, going back to the old, and widely used connotation for the word, meaning sloppy, lazy, stupid, gluttonous, et cetera. When someone says he or she is fat and I say they’re not, I usually mean they’re not that widely believed stereotype.
What is and is not fat is far too subjective for anyone to label. The thing is not for someone to identify themselves as fat or not, it’s to be accepting of your body no matter what you think of it. If your brain says you’re fat because you’re caught in the lies of the media, then you believe you’re fat and you are fat, because what matters is what you think of yourself. The important thing then, is to be accepting of your self image and love it.
3.) Privilege. O man, I’m still grappling with this one. I’m not too sure what it means fully… I’m learning, though. It causes some friction, I’ve seen.
Anyway, that’s what I’ve seen.
Peace and love! <3
Oh this is a good post. I’m a FA newbie, and to be honest, I’m still extremely confused. I tend to lurk for a long time before commenting on blogs or forums, but some of the FA communities – while I totally agree with a lot of what they are about – have scared me off from posting. I don’t want to lurk forever, but I’m just so intimidated by the unspoken rules and the way I’ve seen other newbies being lambasted for unintentional ignorance.
So for me, I find that there are no clear rules, except what some posters get blasted for. Now, I’m sure that FA has many community leaders, and the rules will differ from one blog/website to another, but it would be good if the rules whre clearly stated in each community, rather than hoping readers assume that the rules from one community apply to all the others.
Bri – I’m exceedingly grateful you posted about this. I’m the person that brought up the question of unspoken rules and I’ve completed a Fat Acceptance FAQ which is up on all of my websites.
http://www.elizebethturnquist.com/content/fat-acceptance-faq
I’ve incorporated comments from this post into the FAQ. If anyone has alternative perspectives that are not represented in my FAQ, I welcome you to contact me.
Shannon,
I hate to do this but yeah I do mind that you brought this up again. I don’t believe I attacked her. And the way you addressed me on that blog was not acceptable in my eyes. Being told “GET A BLOG!” in case you didn’t know in caps, is basically screaming at me on the nets. Talk about being shut down! In your attempt to prevent the “stifling” of discussion or some such thing, you very pointedly stifled me. I found it incredibly rude and ill-mannered.
This “we should be welcoming” stuff is incredibly irritating to me. I speak for myself, no one else. I am not respresentative of what all of FA “should” be doing and I don’t pretend to think I have the power of “discouraging” anyone from posting anything on FA. If that blogger told me to “toss off” or some such thing you know what? I would’ve understood! I gave my two cents and luckily enough for me, she was totally cool about it. And if she hadn’t been, I would’ve had to have taken my lumps and that totally would’ve been fine too.
As you noticed me and that blogger had a nice civil exchange about it and it was done. I am not cool with this at all.
Thanks for dredging it up!
silentbeep
p.s. Bri I’m sorry if this is totally inapropriate. My deep apologies in advance truly if it is, I wil NOT bring it up again here.