A Fat Rant (academic version)
Mar. 5th, 2009 02:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
riot_nrrrdLately, I've had a series of frustrating experiences on the academic front, surrounding my work in fat studies. Last week, I saw a colleague of mine-- someone I thought I was down with the whole fat acceptance business-- perform an autoethnographic monologue at a conference. In it, she implied that the biggest problem plaguing fat people is the health insurance industry's refusal to pay for gastric bypass surgery because-- oh noes-- it is seen as elective surgery rather than the health emergency it apparently is. She also caricatured fat activists as people whose only goal in life is to make people feel bad for going on diets, and to sabotage other people's attempts at improving their lives-- something that, according to her, is apparently only achievable through weight loss. I'm trying to feel compassionate toward her-- I know her search for self-acceptance has been a lot more difficult than mine-- but frankly, I'm feeling pretty stunned and betrayed by her allegations.
Weighing more heavily on my mind (no pun intended) is a conversation I had with my officemate a couple days ago. She and I are in the same professional development class, and in the previous class, we had to give conference-style presentations. I gave my presentation on Big Burlesque, which I (apparently erroneously) assumed was a pretty straightforward, relatively uncontroversial intro to fat studies. I mean, it's basically: fat people are discriminated against and oppressed, and performance groups like Big Burlesque challenge that oppression by challenging mainstream assumptions about sexual currency and the right to take up space. Not particularly radical, right?
Except when I met my officemate in the office following class, she had this grim look on her face. Whereupon she proceeded to tell me that she found my presentation offensive because I'm clearly judging her for choosing to diet. (I'm not really sure what a bunch of fat 'n' proud burlesque dancers challenging spatial discrimination have to do with my officemate's dietary choices, but, you know, whatever.) Apparently, it's okay for ME to be fat (particularly since I exercise and eat a lot of vegetables and am therefore one of the "good" fatties who "can't help" her weight, as opposed to her fat, lazy aunt who has clearly "let herself go"), but SHE would feel better if she was smaller, and I just need to understand that SOME people need to diet in order to feel better about themselves, and evidently the mere mention of people who have chosen to embrace their fat and challenge fatphobia are, simply by existing, threats to those people who just need to diet.
I feel the need, at this juncture, to make my stance clear when it comes to individual choice and social movements. Though I am mostly thinking about fatness here, what I am about to say also extends to my queer activism, to my feminist activism, and basically to any other social commitments I have.
In my opinion, the discourse of fat activism-- or of any social movement-- is not intended as a means to micromanage other people's personal choices. Certainly, I try to live my own life, to the best of my ability, in ways that are informed by my activist commitments, and to make my own choices accordingly. But I don't really see any point in wasting vital activist energy that could be better spent in trying to dictate, or even judge, other people's personal choices. Fatphobia, like sexism, racism, classism, and heterosexism, are forms of systematic oppression; as such, it requires systematic solutions, and not obsessive micromanagement of the lives of fat people (or, indeed, the lives of any people, fat or not, who have been touched somehow by fatphobia). Frankly, one diet is not going to make or break an entire social movement, and as such I can't really be arsed to care about any single person's relationship to food or their body.
I do, however, highly resent when other people project their own troubled relationship to their body onto my activism and scholarship, and try to cajole me into reassuring them that it's "okay" if they choose to diet, and/or that I'm not oppressing them simply by suggesting that there are alternatives. It strikes me as a really convenient way to derail what I'm actually trying to accomplish with my work-- which is to expose fatphobia as a form of systematic oppression, and to highlight the work of activists who challenge conceptions of fat people as failed citizens, as grotesque, as lazy, immoral and less than human. Reducing the work of fat activists to a simplistic and navel-gazey battle over who should and shouldn't diet strikes me as a refusal to consider the systemic nature of fat oppression-- as if the fact that one tree is ostensibly different than the rest somehow means that there can't possibly be a forest. You may, personally, have perfectly good reasons for dieting-- I don't know, and I really don't care one way or the other-- but that doesn't change the fact that we live in a culture that valorizes thinness, that promotes a huge weight loss industry that, for the most part, fails to produce lasting results and even endangers the health of its participants; that positions corpulence as a contagious epidemic, a moral failing, a descent into the grotesque, and basically as a symbol of all that's wrong with the world today; and in which most people believe that it is perfectly acceptable to harass and discriminate against fat people "for their own good," as an incentive to get "better" (read: thin).
I resent the idea that I have to "absolve" people for their bodily practices just because I point out that some people challenge fatphobia (and-- oh noes-- that they are right to do so). Placing me in such a position not only grants me more power than I actually have; it advances a distorted-- indeed, inverted-- view of social relations. It imbues fat activists with a cultural capital we don't actually have, positioning us as tyrants whose only goal is to oppress people who want to lose weight. The point of fat activism is that fat people don't HAVE the power to oppress, to impose certain standards or bodily practices on the general populace. WE are the ones fighting bodily standards imposed upon US. And again I reiterate that this imposition is culturewide and systemic, and is not reducible to individual people's individual decisions to diet or not to diet.
Arguing that one should not HAVE to diet, or undergo weight loss surgery, or generally attempt to lose weight in order to "improve oneself" is NOT the same as arguing that it's okay to shun people who attempt weight loss. Pointing out that diets are largely unsuccessful, and that gastric bypass surgery contains health risks that are likely to far outweigh the "benefits" of weight loss, is not the same as declaring that anyone who has ever dieted or sought out weight loss surgery is a mindless cultural dupe. Declaring that fat people are not failed citizens, and that weight loss does not make one a better person, is a CHALLENGE to mainstream discourses that assign differing moral values to certain bodies, NOT a reversal of those discourses. My shit stinks as much as that of any skinny person-- the point I'm trying to make is that, contrary to popular belief, it doesn't stink more.
So I wish people would stop making my desire to combat fatphobia about them. I can't even point out your individual tree, let alone make any value judgments about it; I'm too busy examining the forest. Try joining me up here. There's clarity in this view.
Weighing more heavily on my mind (no pun intended) is a conversation I had with my officemate a couple days ago. She and I are in the same professional development class, and in the previous class, we had to give conference-style presentations. I gave my presentation on Big Burlesque, which I (apparently erroneously) assumed was a pretty straightforward, relatively uncontroversial intro to fat studies. I mean, it's basically: fat people are discriminated against and oppressed, and performance groups like Big Burlesque challenge that oppression by challenging mainstream assumptions about sexual currency and the right to take up space. Not particularly radical, right?
Except when I met my officemate in the office following class, she had this grim look on her face. Whereupon she proceeded to tell me that she found my presentation offensive because I'm clearly judging her for choosing to diet. (I'm not really sure what a bunch of fat 'n' proud burlesque dancers challenging spatial discrimination have to do with my officemate's dietary choices, but, you know, whatever.) Apparently, it's okay for ME to be fat (particularly since I exercise and eat a lot of vegetables and am therefore one of the "good" fatties who "can't help" her weight, as opposed to her fat, lazy aunt who has clearly "let herself go"), but SHE would feel better if she was smaller, and I just need to understand that SOME people need to diet in order to feel better about themselves, and evidently the mere mention of people who have chosen to embrace their fat and challenge fatphobia are, simply by existing, threats to those people who just need to diet.
I feel the need, at this juncture, to make my stance clear when it comes to individual choice and social movements. Though I am mostly thinking about fatness here, what I am about to say also extends to my queer activism, to my feminist activism, and basically to any other social commitments I have.
In my opinion, the discourse of fat activism-- or of any social movement-- is not intended as a means to micromanage other people's personal choices. Certainly, I try to live my own life, to the best of my ability, in ways that are informed by my activist commitments, and to make my own choices accordingly. But I don't really see any point in wasting vital activist energy that could be better spent in trying to dictate, or even judge, other people's personal choices. Fatphobia, like sexism, racism, classism, and heterosexism, are forms of systematic oppression; as such, it requires systematic solutions, and not obsessive micromanagement of the lives of fat people (or, indeed, the lives of any people, fat or not, who have been touched somehow by fatphobia). Frankly, one diet is not going to make or break an entire social movement, and as such I can't really be arsed to care about any single person's relationship to food or their body.
I do, however, highly resent when other people project their own troubled relationship to their body onto my activism and scholarship, and try to cajole me into reassuring them that it's "okay" if they choose to diet, and/or that I'm not oppressing them simply by suggesting that there are alternatives. It strikes me as a really convenient way to derail what I'm actually trying to accomplish with my work-- which is to expose fatphobia as a form of systematic oppression, and to highlight the work of activists who challenge conceptions of fat people as failed citizens, as grotesque, as lazy, immoral and less than human. Reducing the work of fat activists to a simplistic and navel-gazey battle over who should and shouldn't diet strikes me as a refusal to consider the systemic nature of fat oppression-- as if the fact that one tree is ostensibly different than the rest somehow means that there can't possibly be a forest. You may, personally, have perfectly good reasons for dieting-- I don't know, and I really don't care one way or the other-- but that doesn't change the fact that we live in a culture that valorizes thinness, that promotes a huge weight loss industry that, for the most part, fails to produce lasting results and even endangers the health of its participants; that positions corpulence as a contagious epidemic, a moral failing, a descent into the grotesque, and basically as a symbol of all that's wrong with the world today; and in which most people believe that it is perfectly acceptable to harass and discriminate against fat people "for their own good," as an incentive to get "better" (read: thin).
I resent the idea that I have to "absolve" people for their bodily practices just because I point out that some people challenge fatphobia (and-- oh noes-- that they are right to do so). Placing me in such a position not only grants me more power than I actually have; it advances a distorted-- indeed, inverted-- view of social relations. It imbues fat activists with a cultural capital we don't actually have, positioning us as tyrants whose only goal is to oppress people who want to lose weight. The point of fat activism is that fat people don't HAVE the power to oppress, to impose certain standards or bodily practices on the general populace. WE are the ones fighting bodily standards imposed upon US. And again I reiterate that this imposition is culturewide and systemic, and is not reducible to individual people's individual decisions to diet or not to diet.
Arguing that one should not HAVE to diet, or undergo weight loss surgery, or generally attempt to lose weight in order to "improve oneself" is NOT the same as arguing that it's okay to shun people who attempt weight loss. Pointing out that diets are largely unsuccessful, and that gastric bypass surgery contains health risks that are likely to far outweigh the "benefits" of weight loss, is not the same as declaring that anyone who has ever dieted or sought out weight loss surgery is a mindless cultural dupe. Declaring that fat people are not failed citizens, and that weight loss does not make one a better person, is a CHALLENGE to mainstream discourses that assign differing moral values to certain bodies, NOT a reversal of those discourses. My shit stinks as much as that of any skinny person-- the point I'm trying to make is that, contrary to popular belief, it doesn't stink more.
So I wish people would stop making my desire to combat fatphobia about them. I can't even point out your individual tree, let alone make any value judgments about it; I'm too busy examining the forest. Try joining me up here. There's clarity in this view.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-03-06 12:56 am (UTC)For me, it's boiling down to "I'm okay, you're okay" these days, and I try to live it. Though I oft wish I could live it so eloquently as you! :)
no subject
Date: 2009-03-06 01:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-06 07:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-06 02:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-06 02:16 am (UTC)But then again I'm pissed at the world in general right now, so take this with a grain of salt. The size of Australia.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-06 05:13 am (UTC)Also, kudos to you for standing up for what you believe.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-06 05:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-06 06:20 am (UTC)The problem is, most women don't think, "I shall diet, and when I am done dieting and switch to maintenance, I will be thin."
They think, "I shall diet, and when I switch to maintenance, I will be thin, beautiful, clever, vivacious, and confident." And when you challenge the need to be thin, you challenge the assumption that they could, or deserve to, be attractive and popular and competent. Because they're working on the assumption that those are tied to thin-ness, that they'll gain a swarm of other desirable personality traits to fill the space that the pounds used to take up.
They look at the before-and-after pictures in the ads. Before: Fat woman wearing sweatpants and a loose, oversized t-shirt, with stringy hair and a bland expression. After: a slender woman in a bikini, with beautiful hair and a glorious smile.
And they not only think that the hair & smile go with being thin--they think they'll become the kind of woman who wants to spend time on the beach in a bikini.
Your colleague believes that weight loss will make her not only less fat, but less lonely, less insecure, less shy, less oppressed as women, less overworked, less scared, less tired. Because of course all your other flaws, and all of society's burden, will melt away with the fat.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-06 07:32 pm (UTC)Which means that, in all likelihood, my officemate does experience my scholarship as some sort of moral judgment, because implicit in my work is the idea that weight loss does not make you a better person. Although the fact that she's asking for my absolution sort of bolsters that idea, doesn't it? If I'm fat, and have (in her mind) the power to make effective moral judgments about other people, then she's already flirting with the idea that weight loss does not constitute a moral high ground.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-08 11:51 pm (UTC)However, I agree with you in that controlling other people isn't the best way to go about doing your work in the world. I also agree with what love_street said regarding anger as being a part of acceptance (and gaining consciousness, in my opinion).
I also think people should "examine the forest" as you said, and think of all the different discussions that are happening about fatness. They should value your work, and hopefully will someday see where you're coming from.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-30 01:18 am (UTC)Thanks and hope you're well!
no subject
Date: 2009-03-30 01:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-30 01:49 am (UTC)Thanks for being willing--I know how crazy grad school can be!
no subject
Date: 2009-04-03 03:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-03 05:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-19 09:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-26 12:09 pm (UTC)Thanks for the reminder!