Return of the WW

Today’s post will be a solo post by the WW.

It is good to be back!  I have been extremely busy adjusting to my new life, so apologies for not writing much.  In fact, the adjustments I have been going through are part of what I wanted to talk about in today’s post.  So, without further ado…

As you probably know by now, in February, my partner and I uprooted our lives in Illinois and moved over to Missouri for work.  We split up our small family, complete with pets, after two-and-a-half years of living together.  At the time, we thought that we’d be able to find a place to live pretty quickly.  After three months of hard searching with only a few leads here and there, I’m here to tell you that it isn’t.

BUT.  This is not about that.  This is about the feelings that this change brought about.  Since moving, I have questioned a lot about myself and what I believe about my body.  My journey into BoPo Land had only just begun before moving, and when my partner and I left our home, I also left behind everyone I ever felt safe around.  The BB and I would be living in entirely different states for the first time since the beginning of our friendship, and not living on the same street was going to be a difficult adjustment, especially since we had leaned so heavily on each other during the first few steps of acceptance.  My few solo posts since then have taken a more contemplative turn, which really reflects what has been going on in my head for the last three months.

Recent events (both personal and national) have inspired me to recognize what was happening with me, so of course I have to write about it.  In true Gribbski fashion, I present you with a list:

1.     Safety

2.     Activist Burnout

3.     #YesAllWomen and Cyber Activism

Yes, that’s right.  We’re going to talk about that hashtag that almost everyone is talking about.  You’ve probably seen it on Facebook, but if not, I will happily explain what I know about it.  Patience.  We’ll get there.

1.  Safety

I’ve been thinking a lot about safety lately.  Actually, I’ve been thinking about almost nothing else.  I currently work in a teen residential treatment center where safety is the number one concern, and in my three months there, I’ve learned quite a bit about how important it is.

Obviously I’ve always known that safety is important.  From a young age, we are generally taught that we need to do certain things to stay safe, like avoiding strangers and holding your parent’s hand while in a parking lot.  But after working with the population of kids that I work with, I’ve realized just how much I’ve taken my personal safety, especially emotional safety, for granted.  My privilege of being white, middle-class, and with a family gave me that allowance.  Emotional safety is the slightly invisible cousin of physical safety; you don’t tend to think about your emotional safety as being at risk unless it already has been.  We don’t have any rules for small children on protecting their emotional safety.

Now that I am becoming more aware of emotional safety and its importance, I am starting to recognize its importance in my personal life.  I had grown comfortable with my life in Illinois.  I was living with my loving, supportive partner, and I was down the street from my fat writing partner who shared the same experiences with me.  People there knew I was fat and happy.  It was home, and I was emotionally safe. 

Moving to a new place and being distanced from everything and everyone that made me feel safe with my identity of happy and fat completely derailed me.  It took me this long to put into words just how all of the pieces fit together.  But man, it has been rough.  I cut off all my hair, and at the time, I told myself it was because it would be easier to take care of, but I think its because I was too upset to bother with the long hair.  I’ve cried a lot.  I’ve slipped back into unhealthy habits.  I’ve tried covering it up again.  I’ve even started having panic attacks, which is new for me.  There have been some nights where I feel so hopeless that I can’t even sleep, but I don’t know what to do about it.

But after three months, I am rebuilding.  I am starting to feel secure in my identity again.  Here’s a funny story:  I always told myself I wouldn’t care if a student called me fat, but until it actually happened, I wasn’t quite sure.  When it did happen (more violently than I expected), I had to hold in the giggles because I was so relieved that it didn’t sting.

I saw the BB a couple of times, and we discussed all of our life changes.  My partner and I are so close to getting a place to live.  We’re checking one out tomorrow!  I’m growing my hair out.  And after about three weeks of having panic attacks and telling myself that nothing was happening, I finally told someone about it and I’m coming to terms with it. 

I have one final thought to add to this safety section, but it requires a bit of back story, so bear with me.  In fact, I probably could have made it a subsection of safety.  Let’s call it “Support.”

I may have written about this before, but if not, here it is.  My parents and I have struggled a lot with conversations about my health, which I often confused as conversations about my appearance.  There was a lot of miscommunication that made these conversations strained and extremely stressful for both sides.  It wasn’t until the BB and I started this blog that I was finally able to have a healthy conversation with my parents about my body.  I sent them an email and crossed my fingers, hoping for the best, and I got more than I could have asked for.  My parents have been very supportive of my BoPo journey, and if I could tell teenage me that, I would go back in time and save us all a bunch of tears and frustration.

I received an email from my Dad recently that I really wanted to share with everyone.  With his permission, here it is:

Hello, [WW]. Our first disc golf club outing was pretty cool yesterday. [Your sister] came along, and we had five total people. It’s a start!

That’s not why I’m writing, though, and I know email is damn informal, but I want to tell this to you right now while the feeling’s here. For some time now, I have been jotting down phrases in a Kahlil Gibran fashion: little thoughts of big ideas. Short phrases fit well in my short attention span. Anyway, I just found one I had written down and don’t know where it came from, though it reminded my of your blog’s message. Here it is:

Define your own Beautiful.

I really like what you and your Friend are doing in cyberspace. The two of you are sharing thoughts that need to be thought of. Maybe the line I wrote down came out of something I read of yours; I don’t know. However, I wanted to share it with you, because I think of you when I read it.

You are a strong, independent woman. Who cares what other people do? You achieve what you want, and what you want is nearly always for the good of others.

I’ve got hundreds of pages of writings lying around: poems, stories, songs, etc. No one will likely see or hear the majority unless someone goes through my things someday. If you can find a use for this little thought, please share it. You inspire me, and I love you for that. Most Parents are so busy trying to turn their Children into themselves that they don’t take time to learn from the people that are often the smartest in the room. You, however, have taught me much, and I thank you.

Have a great weekend, Abri. You are a Beautiful, Beautiful person.

Love,

Dad

This email is just one of the many kinds of communications I have with Dad, and I think it really ties in well with this idea of emotional safety.  It feels so wonderful to have such an important person in my life validate my thoughts and feelings about something we haven’t always seen eye-to-eye on.  This email came when I was just piecing things together again, and it helped solidify my identity as a body-positive activist again.  Which bring us nicely into my next point…

2.  Activist Burnout

One of my oldest and greatest friends, who happens to be a regular reader of this blog, shared an article on facebook a while ago and tagged both the BB and myself in it.  At the time that she posted it, I didn’t read it, and it turned out to be pretty ironic.

Here’s the article.

At the time, I was in the midst of my busiest week at work so far: the parent retreat.  This is the time when the parents from each gender’s community come out to have a couple of great therapeutic bonding days with their kids.  I was so exhausted from work every day that I would barely even look at my Facebook.  SO when I saw this post, I read the title, thought about how interesting it would be, and promptly fell asleep. 

I read the article for the first time yesterday and I was amazed at how much it would have helped me if I had read it sooner.  Note to self, never put off reading something again.  The whole thing is about self-care and how easy it is to get activist burnout if you don’t take care of yourself first.  This whole time, I’ve been wondering if I’m really as BoPo as I claim to be, or if that was just something I forced myself into.  I never realized that I just wasn’t doing the self-care thing properly!  The last three months have been like a recovery period. 

Seriously, read the article, because realizing that it was okay that I didn’t want to write blog entries all the time made me feel a lot better. So much better that I even started looking into the whole #YesAllWomen thing that I kept seeing on Facebook…

3.  #YesAllWomen and Cyber Activism

There are so many things to talk about here, but since I’ve already made this post pretty long, I’ll narrow it down a bit.  #YesAllWomen is a conversation about the persistence of misogyny in every woman’s life.  You know when a man does something terrible and then men around the world say, “well not all men are like that”?  This is sort of a response to that.  Sure, not all men are rapists, but yes, all women have a one in six chance of being raped.  That sort of thing.  #YesAllWomen are targets of misogynistic practices such as street harassment.  #YesAllWomen are taught to never leave drinks unattended at parties, but #NotAllMen are taught to not rape.  Make sense?

You probably heard about Elliot Rodger by now.  If not, here’s a link.

Basically, this guy felt entitled to sex, and when it didn’t happen, he killed a bunch of people and blamed it on women.  This was a punishment for ALL WOMEN who never slept with a guy who was kinda good-looking and nice to them.  What really is getting a lot of people is the fact that before this shooting happened, Rodgers’s therapist called the police.  When they arrived at his house, they decided that everything seemed okay and that Rodgers was lucid and not suspicious, so despite his therapist’s warnings, they left.  But what is really blowing my mind (and a lot of other angry feminist minds) is the fact that we’re blaming this entirely on a mental illness rather than even a little on misogyny and entitlement.  Even though this guy outlined his misogyny-based reasons in a manifesto, we can’t talk about that.  Instead, we’re going to focus on how there’s nothing we can do because he was crazy, and there’s going to be a bunch of arguments about gun law reform. 

Instead of reading my rant about it, you should check out Laci Green’s video about it.

The part of this that I really want to focus on is the Cyber Activism piece.  While the BB and I do practice BoPo in our lives outside of cyberspace, we really push it on the internet.  A lot of people call this kind of activism cowardice or lazy activism, but the #YesAllWomen conversations have been showing why Cyber Activism has a really important place in today’s society.  The internet is a place where women are regularly abused, objectified, harassed, and terrorized, and part of the reason for that is that it is anonymous and easy to do.  The internet is not a safe place for anyone, but especially not for women.  People like Laci Green and Arthur Chu (author of this masterpiece) are making their voices heard in the fight for making safe spaces online for women, but it is certainly not lazy activism.  While Cyber Activism may seem like cowardice, it is really about the medium.  It would not be effective to stage a protest on the street about creating safe spaces online because that isn’t where the violence is happening. 

But the coolest thing about Cyber Activism is that it is more convenient than anything else.  If you can find something that you can really get behind and support online, then do it.  This is an easy step towards implementing some activism into your actual life, like the BB and I did.  We started out with writing about our BoPo journey online, and then we started bringing it up in conversation offline. 

Here’s a small paragraph summarizing what I hope you get out of this (I hope you’re not saying to yourself, “Why didn’t I just scroll down to get the summary?!” but if you are, I won’t be mad about it): Sometimes finding your voice online can help you strengthen it offline, which is what I am rediscovering.  Don’t be afraid to take some time off for yourself, either.  Surround yourself with the people who love you and support you.  Take care of yourself and then take small steps back.  That’s all it takes.

Thanks for being patient with me, readers!  We’ll be back again soon.

Gribbski's Top 3 Practical Activism Tips

Hello lovely readers! As our loyal readers know and our (hopefully) new readers are about to find out, we at Gribbski's Guide post a new body activism article about twice a month. For our second month of May post, we wanted to let you know what we are doing when we aren't researching, writing, and collaborating to bring you content. Besides Gribbski's Guide, both the Bigger Blogger and the Wider Writer enact body positive activism in their everyday lives and spread the word about breaking the fat glass ceiling. Fat bodies ARE just as beautiful, valuable, and successful as all other bodies! Thus, we wanted to share with you the other types of activism practiced by the BB and the WW so that YOU can enact BoPo activism in your everyday life as well.

Gribbski's Top 3 Practical Activism Tips: 

1. TALK ABOUT IT, SHOUT ABOUT IT: This may seem incredibly obvious, but simply talking about body image issues, stereotypes, and activism really helps fuel the BoPo movement. Overcoming that silence when you hear someone you are close to make an inadvertently offensive comment about othered bodies is so important. We aren't talking about strictly academic conversations either; in fact, it is those conversations which take place on an immediate social and cultural level that often do the most to change people's minds when they are just beginning to learn about the BoPo movement. For example, the BB has been talking to close friends about her body positive journey by starting conversations around something simple like unhealthy diet talk or a discriminatory advertisement. When a friend says "God I hate X about my body" don't just nod and let it slide--challenge that self-loathing and maybe help them consider this: Do they really hate that part of their body, or were they taught to? Starting these conversations with those closest to you is so important for yourself and for anyone who cares about you. It is so empowering to share your activism with others, and when your friends and family understand your position and benefit from it, you have built a supportive community that may help spread the activism further. Don't be that person at a family gathering who doesn't self-identify as an activist; be vocal and proud of your activism as a strong part of your identity! 

2. USE SOCIAL MEDIA TO REVERSE STIGMA: Social media sites such as Facebook, tumblr, Twitter, Pinterest, and even just the internet in general are so popular and heavily used that they serve as excellent forums for spreading information. Although newspapers are available online and many sites offer online news, a large segment of internet users seem to increasingly get their news, information, and current events from shares on social media sites. We've all see those photos with incorrect statistics that people get in arguments over and the article shares that are meant to be satirical but are taken seriously. Use these social media sites to spread facts and reverse the stigma of having an othered body. Both the BB and the WW share articles, inspirational quotes, and photos on their social media websites. The BB has even created a pin board for Fat and Body Positive Activism. We have been pleasantly surprised by the people who have "liked," shared, or reposted BoPo materials via social networks. Even people who do not share or interact with BoPo posts are still being exposed to it. Seeing consistent activism on a social media site has the power to influence people's way of thinking and pique their curiosity. The BB has personally reconnected with long-lost friends through bonding over fat activism. If number 1 is all about talking about and shouting about your activism, number 2 is really the same thing, but on a cyber level. 

3. You've talked & shouted about it, spread it through the cyber world, and now you should

 WEAR YOUR ACTIVISM: See our last post for a discussion of why the body is so important as a form of communication and identity expression. For most people appearance is the first thing we notice about someone (and that most people judge about someone) so if we literally wear our activism, we can send a message without having a conversation (although hopefully it would lead to a conversation!). Here's what we mean: There's a lot of body policing concerning what women are and aren't "allowed" to wear. Think of slut shaming and the fact that women whose bodies are "too visible" in "skimpy" clothing are often looked down upon. Since fat is what we know, the BB and the WW will use some personal examples. Fat girls are stigmatized, especially in summer weather, as not being worthy or beautiful enough to wear shorts, skirts, bikinis, and sleeveless shirts. The WW has been wearing shorts in her daily wardrobe, showing off her lovely, large legs. The BB has been doing this as well, and going sleeveless with her big, fat arms out and proud. We hope that anyone with an othered body will see our clothing choices and feel empowered or inspired. At the least, we want to be role models and show othered bodies that confident versions of themselves ARE found out in the real world. We are sending a positive message with our bodies, and that message breaks the fat glass ceiling everyday when the WW teaches students in shorts and the BB walks around her neighborhood with no sleeves, living life as beautiful, confident fat women. If you don't have an othered body, there are plenty of activist fashion choices for you as well, such as ally shirts, hats, jewelry, and more with BoPo messages inscribed upon them. 

We hope that these practical tips will help you in your daily activism, and we hope you've enjoyed this peek at what we do when we aren't working on Gribbski's Guide! Remember, always be a proud activist!   

   

Why We Can’t Take the Body out of the Body Positive Movement

Hello Gribbski Readers! Today’s post was inspired by the following article:

Five New BoPo Directions

While we love this website and really appreciate what this contributor and others have to say, we would like to expand upon and clarify these ideas (which we do not totally disagree with but feel need to be modified) in order to express why the physical body, which is at the same time so much MORE than the physical body, is inextricably linked to the body positive movement.

So first of all, let’s explain what we mean by body.

For a lot of people with othered bodies, the body has been something to fear.  We have been taught to believe that our bodies aren't good enough.  Whether it was too fat, too thin, the wrong color, the wrong shape, possessing not enough abilities, we have been told that our bodies are the enemy.  However, this perception of the body is usually more about physicality than anything else (I realize this isn't true for everyone, but please remember we speak from personal experience).  Through the BoPo Movement, we've come to understand our bodies as beautiful and representative of our whole, unified selves.  So when we discuss our bodies, we are not just focusing on the physical aspect, but also the all-encompassing body that is a canvas for cultural codes, norms, and social expectations as well as a representation of self-identification both inside and out.

Here are Gribbski’s top reasons why the Body, as defined above, is integral to the BoPo Movement:

1. Beauty IS Important; Let's Make it Inclusive:

As we mentioned before, people with othered bodies are often made to feel like their bodies are not good enough.  This is not just something applied to othered bodies, though.  The exclusive and near-impossible body standards affect almost everyone, including people who may appear to fit them.  The damage caused by these impossible beauty standards includes, but is not limited to, eating disorders, low self-esteem, feelings of worthlessness, and more.  While eating disorders take an enormous emotional, mental, and physical toll on a person, other damages may seem a lot smaller, but are also very persistent and detrimental.  For example, maybe a person with an othered body doesn't have an eating disorder, but instead a lack of confidence in themselves. 

For most social problems, there is not an easy fix.  You have to do a lot of deconstructing, which takes time and involvement and acceptance.  We obviously can't prove this, but in theory, this is one social issue that might actually be pretty easy to fix.  All it takes is exposure.  We don't need everyone to find every kind of body attractive; instead, we need to make our current standards of beauty more inclusive so that it actually becomes acceptable to either be or be attracted to an othered body.  This does not mean that we eliminate the one beauty standard that we have now.  This means that we toss in some other beautiful bodies to get people used to the idea. 

Something that the article from Everyday Feminism seemed to focus on was the devaluing of physical beauty, which we don't really agree with at all.  Instead, we think that a more inclusive idea of physical beauty will lessen the strain that exists already.  For us, becoming our whole selves STARTED with the realization that our physical bodies were beautiful.  Wouldn't it stand to reason, then, that if someday in the future, people don't have to question or accept their physical beauty, they could be their whole selves sooner?

More importantly, the physical part of the Body should not be separated in order to be valued less in comparison to the abstract parts of our whole selves, i.e. intelligence, confidence, etc.  That separation is a part of the problem.  If we devalue physical beauty, we border on saying that physical bodies aren't important, even though they absolutely are.

2. The Body is an Important Form of Personal Expression:

The article we referenced at the beginning of this post points out, with validity, that people put too much focus on physical beauty and not enough on other indicators of value and worth, such as intellect, personality, etc. While this is true to an extent, the solution is not necessarily to put less focus and/or value on the body, but instead reconstruct what we mean by body and acknowledge and appreciate what we can communicate, achieve, and accomplish with our bodies. A simple example is as follows: I (this is the BB, BTW!) am a huge fan (pun intended) of the show Girls on HBO. For my birthday I received a t-shirt with a quote from the show on it. I plan to wear this shirt not only because I enjoy the program, but also because I hope others will see the shirt and start a conversation with me about the humor, feminism, and life lessons abundant in the show. I am using my physical body to express something that otherwise may not come up in casual conversation; I am using my physical body to interact with people that have shared interests with me; I am using my physical body as a signifier of my personal interests, and I believe that we simply cannot place ENOUGH value on that utility.

I (the WW now) also use my body for personal expression, and I have a really great example for what that looks like.  I have been a queer ally since the moment I knew what "gay" was, which was about third grade.  This is something that actually brought the BB and I together when we first met.  For my birthday this year, I got a tattoo (from my dad, by the way, so that's pretty awesome! thanks, Dad!) of an ally symbol.  I am literally using my body as a canvas for something that is important to me in order to communicate that with other people and I absolutely use it as a conversation starter.  It has been an especially interesting one with my students, one that brought up some thoughtful remarks.

Gender expression and identity is another vital and valuable use of the body. As a cisgender Female, I enjoy using my body for gender performance to express my thoughts on gender, beauty, identity, and more. I enjoy wearing makeup and clothing that makes me feel comfortable in a feminine gender identity (while others choose to wear no makeup and traditionally non-feminine clothes and still feel feminine, which is also awesome) because it validates who I feel I am internally while at the same time it shows others what I believe about myself and what I want them to believe about me. The body as a canvas for gender expression is also extremely important for those who identify as a gender that does not “traditionally” match up with the sex assigned at birth.

There are so many other examples of how we use our bodies to connect with others and express ourselves, but the main point here is that the body is the most visible and lucrative part of the whole that we can use to portray ourselves to the world and connect with other human beings. The problem here isn’t that we place too much value on bodies; it is that we stereotype bodies instead of looking at the value of what they actually say. The body is the first thing that others see when they encounter you (cyber meetings excluded, obviously) so responsibility lies on both sides. Take advantage of the body you have to express yourself to the world AND withhold any snap judgments or negative comments/assumptions that you have about another person’s body before you know them as a whole person.

Additionally, for people with Othered bodies (let’s focus on fatties ‘cause that’s what I know) being proud of one’s body and being able to call it beautiful is so empowering. The body is an important part of a whole being and it should not be focused upon less simply because people misinterpret, stereotype, judge, or otherwise misuse their own and others’ beautiful canvases. Rather, we should reshape how we think of bodies and why we value them rather than devaluing them in favor of compartmentalizing our beings.     

3. The Body is an Effective Tool for Reconstructing Gaze (which we absolutely cannot eliminate):

In feminist theory the male gaze refers to the fact that women are often objectified because they are meant to be viewed by heterosexual men and are thus encouraged to dress, act, and perform their gender and sexuality in ways that are traditionally pleasing to this group. The BoPo Movement runs into issues with the male gaze because othered bodies are not considered the typical beauties desired by this group. This phenomenon is extremely limiting when it comes to self-expression, media, entertainment, etc. Even women are taught to look at and criticize one another in this way, and the male gaze certainly eliminates any discussion of how people of genders beyond traditionally male or female look at one another.

No matter how much or how little value we place on bodies, it still stands to reason that they are among the first indicators of our inner selves that we show to others (again, cyber personalities excluded…that’s another interesting conversation and certainly a game-changer). As humans we place a lot of value in what we can see and how we interpret it, and we also bring our own biases, judgments, and experiences into that seeing and interpreting. By valuing the bodies involved in the BoPo movement, we can manipulate that gaze to include othered bodies as valuable. We can start to examine our own gaze and how we approach new people and situations. We can change the lens from that which is pleasing to a heterosexual male audience (stereotypically) to one that is inclusive of beauty and wholeness. Women can use their bodies as self-expression as opposed to visual stimuli for a certain audience.

A completely unbiased gaze is arguably not achievable; gaze is destined to be influenced by cultural norms, socialization, and personal experiences. However, valuing all body types and valuing the body as an equally important part of a whole human being will help us expand and manipulate the gaze to be more inclusive. We must examine how we view others in addition to how we view and express ourselves.

Our central message is that the body and conceptions of beauty are inextricably linked to inner and outer qualities. We must look at each part of ourselves as equally valuable, and we must look at those parts of others as unique, individual, and beautiful. If we are going to break the Fat Glass Ceiling and prove that all bodies are beautiful and that all bodies can be successful, we have to take every part of ourselves with us. 

#BoPotipoftheweek: Check your own bias. The next time you notice yourself making a snap judgment about someone’s selfie on a social media site, check the bias in your gaze and try to consider what that person wants to world to know about them through the beautiful canvas that is their body.