The Antithesis of Fat Shaming is NOT Skinny Shaming
EDIT 4/22/17: LORDT, isn't it a good thing we learn? This is some reductive bull$%^& and I'm editing to add that this is NOT at all an issue of oppression or at all comparative to fat shaming and fatphobia at all
Hey! Hey... hey, do any of these images look familiar?
Hey! Hey... hey, do any of these images look familiar?
Okay, and don't you feel so good, allowing women to be a bigger size than that standard? Oh my gosh, you're so generous. How nice of you to let women have a wide range of choice of what they can do with their bodies.
Speaking of, let's talk about how we just gush over this girl and how we're just so good at moving forward in popular culture about body image:
Right? Well first of all, let's remember she also complained about making out with Christian Bale as "'fatman' not batman."
And then the part where she spends time on the press junket shaming other women's bodies:
Okay, hey, are you still with me?
I am sick to death of hearing and seeing this crap. The opposite of fat shaming is NOT skinny shaming. The opposite of fat shaming is recognizing that what women (and men) do with their bodies and how they treat them is NOT up for your discussion, and that shaming people works against behavioral change anyway.
It's cool that we have some people who say it's wrong to shame people for being fat. That's totally true, it absolutely wrong to shame someone for being fat. Comparison is a dangerous game, and if you want to have a truly healthy body image stop worrying about what everyone else thinks about your body. Exercise boundaries, set standards of how you expect to be treated (in all things, not just about your body image) and if someone won't respect those standards walk the hell away as quickly as your skinny or fat legs can carry you.
Now here's my two cents about the other end of this spectrum. Switching our cultural body distaste to another group of people - ahem skinny people - is only perpetuating the problem. The enemy, in this case, is NOT skinny people, but people who shame. So if you've been bullied or have seen bullying or oppose bullying of fat people, don't bully skinny people. Then you become the enemy you despise.
As of today, I am under 120 pounds. Like the argument against fat shaming, I have little control over this situation - there are genetic and health factors that make some standards impossible to meet for me.
I do not want to see or hear more suggestion that I cannot be beautiful because I am boyish, flat, bony or anorexic. I have been bullied, too. I am sick of it. Stop thinking it's progressive to make skinny women feel unfeminine. It sucks. I don't want anyone else to confront me about my weight. I don't want anyone casting aspersions on my mental health because of what they can see about my body. I don't want any more interventions about how my body is in some way painful for you to deal with. I don't want to be told "I'm hurting myself and everyone around me" by being skinny.
Shut up.
Shut up, world, with your skinny shaming. You're not progressive, you're a bully, too.
To those who would listen:
Love and Admiration,
Shareeta
YEA!!!! Oh my goodness. I am going to admit something that I would be shot for in a group of women, ok? EAK! ....Here goes! ....(I am legitimately nervous because women are mean)....
ReplyDeleteI am skinny. Because I am sick. And I am sick and tired of women being MEAN to me about it! I would change it if I could, so stop saying all these snarky comments about it! People are always saying, "Oh, well, YOU wouldn't know about that." or "Please. I'd give anything to be a skinny minny like you." Oh, would you? Would you? Would you like to be in bed all day in pain and not be able to go shopping or run errands or go on a vacation or go out to dinner with your family? Ok. Let's trade.
THANK YOU, Shareeta!!!!!!!
Exactly, and it's like you're not allowed your own feelings nor do they think they're obligated to kindness! Guh. Anyway, those weirdos.
DeleteGood thing we have each other :)