Things No One Will Tell Fat Girls (7 page)

Hallelujah and praise the Kale.

Overcoming and understanding this health/beauty myth was the last gigantic barrier in my path toward truly feeling good about my body. I learned to love my shape. My cellulite. My arms. My adult acne–ridden face. But I still found an unbearable amount of shame in all things health and fitness related. I was
terrified
to go to the doctor because they might tell me my cholesterol was too high and that I was now unhealthy. I had extreme shame about eating anything that wasn't “health food,” especially in public. I would feel unsurmountable guilt if I missed a dance class (or four) and would internally berate myself for days. I would get embarrassed ordering a venti anything, even if I wanted it. I would try and hide my breathing when hiking up mountains
or stairs. And the worst part was that I felt like there was no way out. I felt like the importance of health in relation to worthiness was inarguable and that it wasn't in any way unreasonable for others to expect me to obsess about it also.

I used to watch other fat activists post pictures of delicious s'mores and coffee that they found in a Bay Area café. Or write about a party they went to and how amazing the food was. Or mention how awesome pizza was in general. I was floored by their openness about their enjoyment of “unhealthy food” (and honestly, food in general), and, years into my activism, I still thought, “I could never do that.” I thought they were
so brave.

The reality? They know that our beauty ideal evolves with every standard we shatter. They realize that a new one arrives just as we find self-love in a new way. They get that the obsession with proving and glorifying health and fitness is just another way to regulate people and hinder self-esteem. Those activists weren't just brave. They were
smart.
Smart and onto the scam of obsessive health presented as a way to keep us all in line. I've got some serious RESPECT for those rad bitches.

Now, in addition to that focal point, other aspects of the original beauty ideal have shifted significantly in recent years. Namely, the subject of cisgender men and their body image issues. Naomi Wolf says in her updated introduction to
The Beauty Myth
that between 1990 and 2002 she watched the male body image market grow by leaps and bounds. Men are now increasingly targeted with anxiety-creating marketing formed around pure profit. “Men of all ages, economic backgrounds, and sexual orientations are more worried [about their appearance]—some a bit, others more substantially—than they were just ten years ago.”
⁷
And this has continued to gain momentum since Wolf's update. In fact, since 2012, “beauty products” targeted at men have increased by
70
percent and men's “personal care” has become the fastest growing segment of the beauty industry—earning over four billion dollars in 2014.
⁸
This obsession with perfecting the male body isn't good by any means, but there is something else about this situation that REALLY
concerns me. As women, we are now demanding and commandeering space to discuss and confront body images issues, and YAY, here's a book on it for chrissakes! But men? Because our culture now glorifies (white) strong, healthy, muscular, and “unbreakable” MEN, body pressure now affects them, too. But because of the focus on “manliness” and masculinity, guys are completely discouraged from talking about it.

Because women's economic and social power has increased over the years, men's old self-esteem standby of accumulating power and prestige through traditional and patriarchal means has started to diminish. This leaves men more vulnerable and in search of other ways to build confidence and worth. Cue men's health and fashion magazines, cosmetic surgery, Viagra sales, and, of course, eating disorders. Men are bullied, too. Men are taught to hate their midsections, too. Men are taught that they need to improve XYZ as well. But they are also told to “shake it off” and “man up” instead of addressing these traumatizing situations. Quite frankly, y'all, there is nothing more terrifying to me than complete silence when it comes to social injustice issues. Male body image issues may be “newly emerging” in comparison to the female beauty myth, but they are no less important than those of others. I can only hope that we as a society can work toward opening a safe space where these issues can be aired, processed, and then addressed.

It's really important to acknowledge that the beauty ideal will continue to evolve, change, and keep individuals imprisoned within their bodies for the foreseeable future. Say that we fight hard enough and normalize fat bodies. When/if we do, there will be another “you must become” that will sweep in and take its place. What this tells me is that believing that feeling “beautiful” (even our redefined version of it) can't be the totalistic goal of our body journey. The
start?
Sure! But not the end goal. We must also come to appreciate our bodies for what they are and do, come to peace with them as a whole, and love them so we can love others.

Now when I explain this to women, many are concerned about their urges to engage in traditional rituals that are directly connected
to our “beauty ideal. They often ask me: “But what about wearing lipstick? Is that bad?”

Here's my personal opinion: We will always be influenced by the culture we grew up in. It's inevitable, and I don't think it's totally a bad thing. What's important is that we are conscious of this fact, cognizant of what that means, and aware that we have options outside of the norm. When we know these things, we are then able to make the very personal decision of what feels good to US.

There is a concept taught by a “professional tidier,” named Marie Kondo, (yep, that's a thing) where she asks everyone to go through their houses and pick up each object. While holding each one, she challenges them, ask yourself one question along the lines of
:
Does this bring me joy?
If the answer is yes, keep it. If no, discard it.

This also applies to the beauty standards we were raised with. I'm going to challenge you to mentally pick up each rule that you've been taught and ask yourself:
Does this bring me joy?

For me? LIPSTICK BRINGS ME JOY. Especially the “fuck you” shades of red. Does dieting in pursuit of skinny bring me joy? No. It destroys my soul and will to live. Well, okay then. DISCARD. Dresses? Yes, so much joy. Tanning? No. Shaving my legs? Yes. Stilettos? No.

Your turn.

The most important thing is that you know how these beauty standards came about. That you know they were created by wealthy men in smoke-filled offices more than fifty years ago for monetary gain and control. That our hatred (which is fundamentally fear) of bodies that look different is
learned
. That the majority of photos are altered and impossible to achieve. That your level of engagement or disengagement in regard to “pretty” is up to you, and, no matter what you choose, it doesn't have any effect on your worthiness. That we have become so extreme in our adoption of “the beauty myth” we forget that we hate ourselves for not living up to a standard that does. Not. Exist.

Lord, help us all.

guest essay
guest essay

WEIGHTING TO BE SEEN: RACE, INVISIBILITY, AND BODY POSITIVITY

SONYA RENEE TAYLOR OF THE BODY IS NOT AN APOLOGY

M
y best friend Denise Jolly stood on a subway train and disrobed, revealing all 311 pounds of her formerly hidden body in a black bra and panties. This was the culmination of a thirty-day journey in which she took photos of herself in various states of partial nudity at home and in her community. She called it the Be Beautiful project. The extent of her nakedness in the photos was no more than what we might see on Victoria's Secret commercials or in beer ads, and yet it was revolutionary. In a society that tells us anyone with a body like hers is unworthy of being seen, let alone being loved, her work was a reminder to herself and others that “the active practice of loving myself exactly as I am is radical self-love.” The photos were bold and powerful, and I asked her to capture her journey in an essay for The Body Is Not An Apology (TBINAA), a radical self-love and body-empowerment movement I founded four years ago.

The day after Denise's blog post was published, the story went viral. Denise was contacted by
The Huffington Post
,
Yahoo!
,
Inside Edition
,
The Queen Latifah Show
,
The Laura Ingraham Show
, and several other media outlets with requests to appear and give interviews. Her project achieved what it was supposed to: It made her seen. But when
The Huffington Post
re-posted her TBINAA, a slideshow of “body image heroes” was included—and nine white women's faces beamed
at me with each click. The last woman pictured in the slideshow was Asian. If I am being honest, I felt the ugly tinge of jealousy creep up my spine when media outlets started calling me. After all, TBINAA started because of my choice to post a picture of my large body in just my undies on a social media page. I wondered,
Where was
The Huffington Post
then?
When I looked deeper at that ugly feeling it became clear it was not a personal jealousy about my gorgeous friend being seen in her brilliance. It was the bitter reminder of how often women of color, Black women specifically, are not seen.

The same day I watched the slideshow of body positive heroines, sans any Black or brown bodies, TBINAA posted a clip of
Glee
's Amber Riley dominating the cha-cha-cha on
Dancing with the Stars
. There was nary a peep from the media about her beautiful example of movement, endurance, and power in a large body. Sure, several articles discussed what a great job she did. One even mentioned the fact that she was “plus-sized,” but no one described television star Amber Riley as a body positive heroine. Why? Because the social narrative is, “She is a singing Black girl; she's supposed to be fat.” That narrative renders her body an act of happenstance. Her body “just is,” and therefore is not noteworthy. It would be like reporting that she has a nose. Of course she is fat, and her boldness in her particular body is nothing to aspire to.

Gabourey Sidibe, the breakout star of the 2009 film
Precious
, defied all odds and persevered beyond most of the entertainment industry's attempts to equate her with the illiterate food-addicted character she played in the film. Her out-loud, charismatic, ebullient personality and beauty continue to shine through, and yet she is not touted as a hero of body positivity. Her size and dark skin make her an outsider even in movements of inclusivity. Her absence from being included in any meaningful way in this dialogue is unsurprising but important. Black women have always found ways to live in our skin with a dignity the world has not afforded us. When Black women's bodies are acknowledged, it is usually to pathologize them. A Google
search of “Black women” and “body image” leads to scores of Internet hits on the “obesity crisis” in Black communities. When the word “Black” is removed, the same search generates article upon article of white women embracing body positivity.

In Western culture, white womanhood is held up as the epitome of beauty and desire. Part of the machine of size discrimination is stripping white women of that status as punishment for fatness. There is a way in which body positive movements both reject the notion of the body as object while reclaiming it as beautiful by dismantling the definition. Black women's bodies have always been objects in the social sphere, but are never exalted as beautiful. The fat Black woman's body has been rendered as an object of service, whether for food, advice, care-taking, or other areas, but it has never been something to aspire to, not a thing of beauty. The mammy, a stereotypical trope born out of slavery, validated large Black women's existence only through their service to white women and white families. Think
Gone with the Wind
, the 1980s television show
Gimme a Break
, or the film adapted from the book
The Help
. Our society tells us fatness is not beautiful. Blackness is not beautiful. So, even while as a society we may be starting to reclaim size diversity as beautiful, the presence of Blackness complicates the narrative. We don't deal well with complications, which often means we don't deal with complications at all, particularly in the realm of race. We simply don't tell those stories. It is this unwillingness to wade through the murky waters of race that make Black and brown women invisible even in the places where we say we are trying to make people seen.

There are reasons women like Stella Boonshoft and Denise Jolly's images have gone viral. Without question a great deal of that is about their brave declarations of beauty about their bodies, bodies that the world says should not be seen as such. However, their loud demands for a seat at the table must be mitigated by the reality that, as white women, they at least have always been
invited
to the table so long as they could fit into the prescribed seat. This is a birthright women of
color have never had. What I thought was jealousy about a friend's success was not that at all; what I was feeling was the aching reminder that the vehicle to even beginning to dismantle weight stigma in order to be seen as fully human in this society is, far too often, a privilege that requires white skin. No matter how much I weigh or how naked I get, I will never have that.

if you're happy and you know it, cut in line: fat hate isn't your problem
if you're happy and you know it, cut in line: fat hate isn't your problem

[ CHAPTER FOUR ]
[ CHAPTER FOUR ]

W
hile I was writing this book, a radical thing happened. Something SO BIG it broke the entire Internet: Plus-size model Tess Holliday rocked people's worlds by becoming the first model “of her size” to be signed to an agency. Her size: 5′5″ and a size 22—a far cry from the industry's standard of size-10 hourglass-y figures. Plus-size models
never wear above a size 16/18
, and are usually 5′8″ or taller. Guys . . . Tess is super short and super fat and breaking all the mother-fucking rules like the
super
hero she is.

GOD I WAS EXCITED.

But changing the status quo is
anything
but easy. If I ever want to mourn humanity, all I have to do is scroll through the comments on Tess's Instagram. Kids, don't try this at home. Just let me tell you what you'll find so you don't have to mourn humanity, too. It's a rare practice for me, but when I DO take a second to remind myself that body
activism is important by looking through her account, I find hundreds upon hundreds (collectively, thousands . . . we might be up to millions) of comments in which people call her barnyard animal names, spout “facts” about how she'll die early because: science, or express their concern about the fact that she's a negative role model for promoting obesity by loving herself . . . and those are the kind ones.

But let's distract ourselves for a second and recognize that Tess has been covered positively by so many major publications it leaves
this
gal in awe.
Time
magazine, the cover of
People
,
Cosmopolitan
,
CNN
,
Nylon
magazine,
TMZ
, the
Daily Mail
,
Life & Style
, and dozens (and dozens) of others. For a few days after the announcement that Tess was signed to a modeling agency, if you were to look at your Facebook sidebar you'd see her name trending. The fact that this woman's sexy mug was on every website during that time was revolutionary, and I enjoyed every second of it.

But even that positive press attracted judgmental opinions and nasty comments. Tess is not the only one who regularly receives a monstrous amount of blatant hate and criticism; I am presented with my fair share of cruel words, and so are most of the bloggers and advocates I know. And sadly, this is not just limited to well-known personalities. The #fatkini hashtag (which is used as a tag on plus bikini photos) was attacked on Instagram not too long ago, and hateful comments were left for everyday users who posted a picture with the empowering tag.

For years, this vitriol has left me puzzled and asking: WHY is this happening? WHY is loving yourself so controversial? WHY U SO MAD, WORLD?

Well, I've since learned why, and I'm gonna tell you all about it, goddamnit! The explanation is as multifaceted as they come, but I'll share with you
three significant reasons
for the confounding weight hate we see online and in real life. Not only is this information fascinating in a know-your-enemies kind of way, but it also gives us a starting point for our personal understanding—which is critical if we're going to ignore the hate and continue on our awesome way.

1. Body Currency

This is the issue that strikes me the hardest. This, along with learning the historical events behind body hate, completely transformed the way I see body image issues and politics. In short: THE CONCEPT OF BODY CURRENCY BLEW MY MIND, Y'ALL.

Body currency goes something like this: We as a society are taught that IF we achieve the ideal body that we see in traditional media (and not before), our work will then be rewarded with everything we desire: love, worthiness, success, and ultimately happiness. Which is what we all want, right?

Because the vast majority of our culture buys into this, we have millions upon millions of people
investing everything they have
into achieving the ultimate goal: thinness, which
obviously
equals happiness, remember? (Other body “goals” also apply here, like able-bodied/light
skin color/cisgender appearance, and so on.) SO, people spend their lives in a perpetual state of self-loathing (which we sadly call “inspiration”!) while working their asses off to become that ideal. We Americans sink billions of dollars into beauty products every year, and we gift the weight-loss industry over
$60 billion
.
¹
Fourteen million of us had cosmetic procedures in 2012, and yes, that number keeps growing.
²
Perhaps we starve ourselves or maybe we just fixate on our calorie count like it will determine our salvation. Maybe we make the gym our god. Whatever we choose individually, we as a country have made “fixing our bodies” our main obsession, and we let it consume our lives. This is the case for most of us, whether we choose to acknowledge it or not. We live to give our all to the quest toward impossible perfection (marketed as happiness).

So THEN, after all of this, when a fat chick who
hasn't
done the work, who
hasn't
“paid the price” by trying to fix her body, who
doesn't
have any interest in the gospel we so zealously believe in,
stands up and says
: I'M HAPPY! . . . we freak the fuck out.

Because: That bitch just broke the rules. She just cut in front of us in line. She just unwittingly ripped us off. And she essentially made our lifetime of work totally meaningless.

It's kind of like investing everything you have into some sort of stock, and instead of its worth increasing you're notified that its value is now the same as Monopoly money. Suddenly, your investments (a.k.a. “body currency”) have the devastating value of
zero
.

I've been there, and I was pissed too.

The obvious problem with body currency is that thinness doesn't necessarily equal happiness. Remember the last chapter? Our thinness quest just equals money in the pockets of companies who sell us insecurity to make sure that we're repeat customers. It's a real shitty move on their part, and leaves anyone who believes in the scam SOL, which then makes them angry without really knowing why.
So
they direct all their anger toward those who cheated the system and found the pot of gold (happiness) without doing
any
of the goddamn work.

Tess is the perfect target for this sort of anger and fat hate: She's successful (Italian
Vogue
, y'all), she's in love (he's darling
and
has an Australian accent), she publicly shares that she believes she's worthy, and . . . goddamnit, she's fucking happy. All while being very much NOT thin, and NOT in any way working toward becoming thin.

THE NERVE! Amiright?

In a killer interview with
Yahoo! Shine
, Virgie Tovar recaps it ever so eloquently (as she often tends to do):

“Fat” is just the current catchall word for all the things that we as a culture are afraid of: women's rights, people refusing to acquiesce to cultural pressures of conformity, fear of mortality. [People who hate fat people] see body love as a move toward people taking charge of their lives and choosing what they want to do, no matter what the culture says. This is really scary to a lot of people. The anger they express is actually toward themselves. A person who hates seeing a happy, liberated person wishes they had the strength to do that, but they are too entrenched or “bought in” to the way things are right now to see it as a beautiful thing. So they see it and they hate it . . . People have invested a lot of time and a lot of resources into this game that says “thin wins.” So when people see exceptions to that rule, they feel personally invalidated, personally stolen from, personally affronted.”
³

If you haven't listened to the episode of
This American Life
called, “If You Don't Have Anything Nice to Say, SAY IT IN ALL CAPS,” I'd recommend you do. Within this illuminating episode, Lindy West shares her constant run-ins with Internet hate and recounts an
unheard-of
instance where a particularly vile “troll” emailed her with a genuine
apology
.

It totally happened, so pick your jaw up off the floor already.

Because this girl ain't got no fear, Lindy called him up to talk
about why he hated her so much. After asking him why he chose
her
of all people to torment, the interview went something like this:

Man:
Well, it revolved around one issue that you wrote about a lot which was your being heavy—the struggles that you had regarding being a woman of size, or whatever the term may be.

Lindy West
: You can say fat. That's what I say. . . .

Man:
Fat. OK, fat. When you talked about being proud of who you are and where you are and where you're going, that kind of stoked that anger that I had.

The man shared that he was done with Internet harassment nowadays, but confessed that during the time that he lashed out at Lindy, he was living what he called a “passionless life.” That he hated his body, had been dumped, and worked at a job he despised. He had the opposite of happiness.