• • Body Politics

  Myth Ten: Fat is Ugly

  July 11, 2011 • Shaunta Grimes

  Dr. Pattie Thomas and her husband Carl Wilkerson wrote a book called Taking Up Space: How Eating Well and Exercising Regularly Changed My Life that is just really awesome. If you haven’t read it, it’s well worth investing in.

  The first chapter of the book has 10 fat myths. As I read them, I had so many ideas and thoughts and things I wanted to say about each one. I contacted Dr. Thomas and she said that it would be okay for me to use her list to talk about each of the myths here. So–welcome to a 10-week series.

  Myth number ten on the list: Fat is ugly.

  This is the last of the myths in Taking Up Space. And, in my opinion, perhaps the biggest. In fact, I’d like to make a case for the idea that all of the rest of the myths stem from this one.

  When it comes to the current war on obesity and culture of fat hatred in the Western world, beauty and health have combined for a one-two punch that is particularly devastating to women. Perhaps if we were being told that we needed to be thin only to be beautiful, breaking away from that myth would be easier. But we are also bombarded by the message that our fat is going to kill us and makes us bad mothers.

  The current culture of fat hatred hits us where it hurts the most, in our softest, most vulnerable places.

  (more inside…)

• • Body Politics

  Myth Nine: Fat is Lazy

  June 27, 2011 • Shaunta Grimes

  Dr. Pattie Thomas and her husband Carl Wilkerson wrote a book called Taking Up Space: How Eating Well and Exercising Regularly Changed My Life that is just really awesome. If you haven’t read it, it’s well worth investing in.

  The first chapter of the book has 10 fat myths. As I read them, I had so many ideas and thoughts and things I wanted to say about each one. I contacted Dr. Thomas and she said that it would be okay for me to use her list to talk about each of the myths here. So–welcome to a 10-week series.

  Myth number nine on the list: Fat is lazy.

  I had an interesting experience this week in the forums for a site I write for.

  Ah. Forums.

  I clicked through to read what an exercise expert had to say about yo-yo dieting. I’d love to share exactly how the conversation went, but she has since taken the whole shebang down.

  Let’s just say that she stated that yo-yo dieting wasn’t bad for you, and I said one of the biggest problems with it was that it indicated a weight obsession and offered some dieting-doesn’t-work statistics. She said she’d lost 30 pounds of “disgusting fat” and kept it off, plus helped lots of others lose their disgusting fat successfully, and that obesity is a choice not a disease.

  I said it was neither. It’s a body type. I also pointed out that she may have some readers at her popular exercise site that would like to hear that they can be healthier even if they don’t lose a pound. It ended with her telling me that most fat people aren’t physically active like I am, if I was being honest about my activities, and that we were going to have to agree to disagree and eventually deleted the whole post.

  The point of this rather long story is to showcase the myth that fat people are lazy.

  Ragen at Dances with Fat has talked about the head-meet-wall experience of trying to prove your anti-laziness if you’re fat. That prompted me to write about a similar subject last week. But the truth is that it is literally impossible for me, or Ragen or any other fat person to prove that we aren’t lazy to everyone. Some will call us liars, no matter what proof we offer. Others will call us anecdotes—the rare fat and fit person.

  (more inside…)

• • Body Politics

  Myth Eight: Fat is Bitchy

  June 20, 2011 • Shaunta Grimes

  Dr. Pattie Thomas wrote a book called Taking Up Space: How Eating Well and Exercising Regularly Changed My Life that is just really awesome. If you haven’t read it, it’s well worth investing in.

  The first chapter of the book has 10 fat myths. As I read them, I had so many ideas and thoughts and things I wanted to say about each one. I contacted Dr. Thomas and she said that it would be okay for me to use her list to talk about each of the myths here. So–welcome to a 10-week series.

  Myth number eight on Dr. Thomas’ list: Fat is bitchy.

  Some women take the word bitch and make it a term of power. I’ve never been able to do that. The word ‘bitch’ sets my teeth on edge. I go to a lot of effort in my personal life to be opinionated and empowered, but not bitchy. I’d rather be called a cunt or a whore or just about anything other than bitch. [Blog note: check out our summer issue for more discussion on the word “bitch”!]

  I’ve never spent much time thinking about why I have such a strong negative reaction to the word bitch. It’s just how I am. I don’t use the word. I object when it’s used in my presence referring to me or anyone else.

  A bitch, in Western society, is a woman who expresses her anger in an outward, verbal or physical way. A bitch gets in your face when you’re wrong. She doesn’t back down when she’s confronted. A woman who expresses herself assertively is considered a bitch. Women in positions of power are sometimes called bitch, usually in an effort to knock her down. Assertive, empowered women of any size in our culture are not always as valued as their male counterparts.

  (more inside…)

• • Body Politics

  Myth Seven: Fat is Jolly

  June 13, 2011 • Shaunta Grimes

  Dr. Pattie Thomas wrote a book called Taking Up Space: How Eating Well and Exercising Regularly Changed My Life that is just really awesome. If you haven’t read it, it’s well worth investing in.

  The first chapter of the book has 10 fat myths. As I read them, I had so many ideas and thoughts and things I wanted to say about each one. I contacted Dr. Thomas and she said that it would be okay for me to use her list to talk about each of the myths here. So–welcome to a 10-week series.

  Myth number seven on Dr. Thomas’ list: Fat is jolly.

  How’s this for a Catch-22?

  There are tons of jokes out there about fat bodies. Fat jokes. Jokes that make people laugh, and that a lot of people think are harmless and feel no guilt laughing at.

  Who hasn’t seen a movie gag where a man in fat-suit drag has to lift up his fake belly to show he’s wearing a bikini bottom? Or a viral video of a fat person falling after breaking a chair? Or how about a whole website of pictures people have snapped at a Wal-Mart of a fat people, without their consent, who dare to be out in public with their rolls showing? There are fat jokes in rated-G movies. Fat jokes are shared between friends, posted on Facebook pages and told without even the slightest twinge of guilt.

  And if you don’t laugh when you hear them, then the joker blames you for ruining their good time. Not laughing at fat jokes means you take yourself too seriously. I mean, everyone should be able to laugh at themselves, right? And it is funny to have a big belly, isn’t it?

  Besides, it’s just a joke. And fat people are supposed to be jolly, anyway.

  The truth is, some fat people are really good at laughing at themselves. Some of the funniest comedians are fat people who make a living making people laugh at them. Sometimes fat kids survive the bullying, fat-hating culture of the Western educational system by becoming the class clown. They make jokes about their fat before anyone else can.

  (more inside…)

• • Body Politics

  Myth Six: Fat is Incompetent

  June 8, 2011 • Shaunta Grimes

  Dr. Pattie Thomas wrote a book called Taking Up Space: How Eating Well and Exercising Regularly Changed My Life that is just really awesome. If you haven’t read it, it’s well worth investing in.

  The first chapter of the book has 10 fat myths. As I read them, I had so many ideas and thoughts and things I wanted to say about each one. I contacted Dr. Thomas and she said that it would be okay for me to use her list to talk about each of the myths here. So–welcome to a 10-week series.

  Myth number six on Dr. Thomas’ list: Fat is incompetent.

  Everyone judges another person’s competence every now and then. Think about it. You have to judge your hair dresser competent to cut your hair, your teachers competent to educate you, your doctor competent to treat you, even your friends competent to trust. Judging competence happens. A lot. And often so quickly that there is nothing but appearance and perhaps a quick perusal of qualifications to go by.

  So, what is competence?

  Paul Ernsberger wrote an excellent chapter in The Fat Studies Reader about how weight and social class are intertwined. He gives evidence that if you live in a lower social class than your parents, then you are “twice as likely to be heavy as someone upwardly mobile.” He concludes that rather than poverty causing fatness due to a lack of access to food sources and resources like gyms or safe places to walk, fat causes poverty.

  Fat causes poverty. That’s a pretty intense statement. Now, we have to analyze whether fat causes poverty due to fat people being incompetent, or due to the incompetence of our society with regard to discrimination.

  (more inside…)

• • (dis)Ability
  • Body Politics

  I Want to Ride a Bicycle . . .

  May 30, 2011 • Shaunta Grimes

  When I was a kid, my bike was more than a toy. It was a beautiful white beach cruiser that represented freedom and independence. Then I got a driver’s license, and a couple of years later a husband and a baby. I didn’t need my bike anymore. At least, I didn’t think so.

  

  Cruising with Ruby. (Shaunta Grimes)

  It took twenty years for me to get another bike. I honestly didn’t expect that once I did, I’d have the same sense of freedom. But I do. Riding my bike is not an exercise in fitness. It’s fun, and the fitness is a bonus.

  (more inside…)

• • Body Politics

  Myth Five: Fat is Asexual

  May 24, 2011 • Shaunta Grimes

  Dr. Pattie Thomas wrote a book called Taking Up Space: How Eating Well and Exercising Regularly Changed My Life that is just really awesome. If you haven’t read it, it’s well worth investing in.

  The first chapter of the book has 10 fat myths. As I read them, I had so many ideas and thoughts and things I wanted to say about each one. I contacted Dr. Thomas and she said that it would be okay for me to use her list to talk about each of the myths here. So–welcome to a 10-week series.

  Myth number five on Dr. Thomas’ list: Fat is asexual.

  Asexuality refers to a person’s lack of interest in sex. Someone who is labeled as or who identifies as asexual feels no sexual attraction to any person of any gender. Asexuality is a sexual orientation. It is different from celibacy, which is a chosen behavior. (A celibate person, unless they are also asexual, feels sexual attraction and chooses not to indulge it.)

  I think that this myth refers to a less clinical description of asexuality, perhaps. In fact, I think it may actually be entirely backward. Not: fat people are not sexually attracted to anyone, but: fat people are not sexually attractive to anyone.

  In other words, the real myth here is that fat people aren’t sexy.

  Maybe this comes from a strange kind of herd mentality. Human beings are as a group fairly self-centric. We tend to believe that we are right and everyone should agree with us. Or, everyone else does agree with us, if the belief in question is wide ranging enough.

  So, if enough people believe that fat people aren’t sexy, than it just becomes sort of a given. So a fat person can fall into the trap of believing that no one could ever want them. Conversely, someone who is attracted to a fat person may struggle with feeling like there is something wrong with them, especially if they aren’t also fat.

  (more inside…)

• • Body Politics

  Myth Four: Fat is Androgynous

  May 16, 2011 • Shaunta Grimes

  Dr. Pattie Thomas wrote a book called Taking Up Space: How Eating Well and Exercising Regularly Changed My Life that is just really awesome. If you haven’t read it, it’s well worth investing in.

  The first chapter of the book has 10 fat myths. As I read them, I had so many ideas and thoughts and things I wanted to say about each one. I contacted Dr. Thomas and she said that it would be okay for me to use her list to talk about each of the myths here. So – welcome to a 10-week series.

  Myth number four on Dr. Thomas’ list: Fat is androgynous.

  (Please note that this post is written only from my own perspective as a fat cis woman. I would love to hear any comments on this issue from people with different gender identities.)

  A couple of weeks ago I decided to take a very feminine picture for the Rad Fatties Project I host on my blog. I put on a little black dress and some fishnets and heels—and nearly died from discomfort. I take pictures outside almost every week and don’t feel particularly embarrassed when a neighbor sees me posing for myself—but that morning it was everything I could do not to run inside.

  (more inside…)

• • Body Politics
  • Media Savvy

  Glee: Does the Fat Girl Have to Want it?

  May 9, 2011 • Shaunta Grimes

  I recently read an article on Xhibit P by Laura Frater, someone whose opinion I value, that stated that she believes that one of the characters in Glee is getting the short end of the stick.

  That would be Mercedes Jones. She’s a fat black girl with a huge voice, who loves her friends (she’s always the one they can count on) and sometimes feels jealous because she doesn’t get to sing lead often enough.

  The problem that some critics have is that while the rest of the cast are all embroiled with at least one romantic partner, Mercedes hasn’t had a significant story arc written about her love life.

  I get it. The fat girl isn’t getting any. And maybe its because she’s fat. Maybe. But, there is a much fatter girl on the cast who has attracted the attention of a boy for whom she is the fourth conquest since the show started. He fathered a child with the head cheerleader, is the regular booty call for another Cheerio and the some time fallback boy for a girl whose biggest draw for him is that they are both Jewish.

  He even went on a date with Mercedes.

  It took me a while to understand why I wasn’t feeling the uproar about Mercedes not having a sexual interest in this show. Does she deserve one? Well, yeah. If she were a real girl. And if she wanted one. But, saying that the character is being dissed by the writers for not having a boyfriend or girlfriend assumes something that hasn’t been written into the show. That she wants one.

  (more inside…)

• • Body Politics

  Myth Three: Fat is Unwanted

  May 2, 2011 • Shaunta Grimes

  Dr. Pattie Thomas wrote a book called Taking Up Space: How Eating Well and Exercising Regularly Changed My Life that is just really awesome. If you haven’t read it, it’s well worth investing in.

  The first chapter of the book has 10 fat myths. As I read them, I had so many ideas and thoughts and things I wanted to say about each one. I contacted Dr. Thomas and she said that it would be okay for me to use her list to talk about each of the myths here. So – welcome to a 10-week series.

  Myth number three on Dr. Thomas’ list: Fat is unwanted.

  (more inside…)

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