All About That Bad Activism: Bodies in Trouble

Hello wonderful readers! It’s the BB here with some ideas that I’ve been meaning to commit to words for awhile, but it just took the right inspiration and research to articulate my feelings.

Our blog is all about breaking the fat glass ceiling; we want to show how successful, powerful, and worthy fat women are. Even though we operate through this lens because we identify as fat, feminist, cisgender women, we often open up the discussion to all bodies. This is an absolute necessity as part of the Body Positive Movement, because fat bodies aren’t the only bodies under scrutiny, and women aren’t the only group subject to body shaming, either. I reiterate these truths so that readers can keep in mind the expansive nature of the BoPo movement as we discuss the specific dimensions of body shaming that together form the need for body positivity. Overall, Gribbski’s Guide brings our lovely readers along on the many aspects of our journey to body acceptance.

Today, I’d like to write about an extremely important aspect of that journey: how I reclaimed my femininity in a fat body, and how those of us who consider femininity an important part of our identities (and I mean individuals of any body type, gender, or sex) are under fire.

When I first heard Meghan Trainor’s “All About That Bass” I really wanted to be thrilled about it. Here was a sexy, curvy woman singing about how big women are desirable. In her music video she wears these unconventional outfits that show off her shape and she even incorporates a fat man in the dance crew. At first I thought this was great—she gives both fat women and men visibility as worthy and sexy. However, I quickly became skeptical of the video, lyrics, and overall message when I started to analyze the subtle body shaming within a song that is supposed to be body positive.

WAIT, WAIT! Pop culture throws fatties a bone and now you’re going to criticize it?!

You’re goddamn right I am.

If you haven’t already, please check out the video and lyrics here. As I said, it seems wonderful on the surface; but as much as I want to love it I just can’t. For weeks something about this song, and about various images I’ve been seeing online, have been bothering me. Finally, I figured out the specific aspects of the song that were problematic for me, and they line up with phenomena I’ve been experiencing in my own life recently. The following messages (lies) are steadily becoming more popular in the mainstream version of what masks itself as body positivity:

1. “Real Women Are Curvy.” There are so many problems with this statement. First of all, it’s an offensive backlash against the idea that fat women (or fat female-identified individuals) are often made to feel like they aren’t sexy or feminine. Instead of addressing the problems with that line of thinking, some have adopted the idea that curvier, larger women are actually more feminine and small, petite women aren’t. Instead of reclaiming femininity for all body types, proponents of the “real women” message only support one body type at a time, taking an extremely reductive approach to what can be feminine, sexy, and worthy. 

Check out Reddit’s Fat People Hate page here to get an idea of how fat women are reduced to sexless, identity-less objects of disdain. Reddit is by no means a scholarly source; what I'm trying to show is how fat hate, body hate, and body shaming are perpetuated at the cultural level by media from music to forums. 

The term “androgynous blob” is used in the comments to describe fat people. Fat men are berated for having prominent breasts while fat women are chided “you only have breasts because you’re fat; they aren’t real.” Statements like these spark the flawed activism of saying “real women have curves” and contribute to a body shaming cycle that doesn’t help anyone.  

For a long time I felt as though my own femininity was at stake because of my weight. I felt like I had to exaggerate and perform my gender in an over-the-top way to be taken seriously as a cisgender female who values femininity as a part of her identity. I would alternate between feeling like my over-performance made me look childish, to thinking that it was the only way I could be sexy. My immersion in feminism and body positivity is really what helped me realize that my expression of my own identity is not contingent upon anyone else’s biases, and certainly not upon their unfair and destructive stereotyping. If I feel feminine, worthy, and empowered, then I am, despite what Reddit users are saying.

I also don’t need to shame petite women as “sticks” or tell them that they are less desirable to men to make myself feel better about my own identity. Here’s a common internet photo that is, unfortunately, one of many adopting the “real women are X” fallacy:

Problematically, there has been backlash to the backlash by others adopting the idea that “Real Women are Skinny/Thin/Petite/” etc. It is incredibly dangerous to invalidate another individual’s femininity because it sends the cultural message that it is 1. okay to put certain types of women into neat, suffocating little boxes, and 2. it is okay for others to dictate how women should perform their gender. Check out this advertisement for a plus size clothing store: 

This ad says: “Well, real women are curvy BUT they also need to be modest and wear a certain type of clothing to be considered feminine, worthy, and attractive.” What is modest for a fat woman? No cleavage, rolls, or stretch marks showing? Covering up big arms and legs? A myriad of other body shaming dress code rules? I wholly reject that idea there is one particular way to perform my femininity as a fat, cisgender female, and I wholly reject that idea that there is any one particular way for any individual to perform their gender, sexuality, or identity.

These internet rants and ads bring us back full circle to “All About That Bass.” The following lines, meant to boost the confidence of curvy women, cannot do so without shaming thinner women, essentially invalidating the body positive purpose behind the song:

“I'm bringing booty back
Go ahead and tell them skinny bitches that
No I'm just playing. I know you think you're fat
But I'm here to tell ya
Every inch of you is perfect from the bottom to the top”

Although Trainor seems to recapture the BoPo message at the end of the stanza, the lines about “skinny bitches” and “I know you think you’re fat” go beyond ‘playful’ and prey on the insecurities of smaller women and invalidate their own worries about body image. This is not a productive way to empower any body type; if you have to shame one to hold up the other, then the activism isn’t effective.

Additionally, if you glorify feminine bodies by rigid standards, regardless of whether you purport small or large as more attractive, then you limit the power and potential of those feminine identities and bodies. Another limiting notion in “All About That Bass” links sexuality and attractiveness to self-worth:

2. Worth is intrinsically linked to ability to attract a mate. This statement has been perpetuated in pop culture for a long time. With songs, movies, and magazine ads pushing the “perfect” types of women for the pleasure of the male gaze, women have long been expected to live up to unrealistic ideals. "All About That Bass" has not created, but rather re-energized, the idea that curvier women are more attractive to men. Here are more lines that communicate this message:

“'Cause I got that boom boom that all the boys chase
And all the right junk in all the right places”

“Yeah, my mama she told me don't worry about your size
She says, "Boys like a little more booty to hold at night."”

There are no right or wrong places to have “junk;” the idea that there is a right or wrong way to have a body is one of the foundations of body shaming. It certainly shouldn’t be used in a song that has been championed as a mainstream big girl win. Further, it perpetuates the idea that having these curves is a good thing because it will help attract a mate. The myth that women in particular are only worth their ability to charm, entice, or keep a man happy, besides being extremely patriarchal and heteronormative, is completely reductive towards the potential and worth that women possess. The fact that a woman’s worth is still being connected to her attractiveness in so many pervasive cultural outlets is disturbing.

Lately I’ve been having conversations with a very close friend about body shaming and the need to find a partner. She is a small, petite, cisgender female who has been made to feel that her body isn’t attractive to others, and that her worth is based on her ability to find and keep a partner. It has been so rewarding and also challenging to help her see how smart, worthy, and beautiful she is both inside and out. It is an absolute atrocity that a strong, empowered, smart mother of three has been made to feel less in her identity because of the bad activism of others. The difficulty of changing our minds about ourselves lies in the cultural bombardment of body shaming and women’s prescribed roles that we experience and absorb everyday.

In every song that we listen to and movie we watch where body shaming and misogyny run rampant, we are being complicit in letting these attitudes control us if we don’t fight back and think critically about the cultural bullshit we’re being served. If we are going to reclaim our identities, whatever identities they may be, then we have to strike back against our culture. Every television ad, every lyric, and every happy ending to a whitewashed romcom is just another stab at body positivity and feminism. These stereotypes invade our media and culture and when we don’t see them, or when we see them and let them thrive, they are shaping who we become and how we think of ourselves and others.

Now although “All About That Bass” sparked my line of thinking and helped me articulate how I reclaimed my own femininity, I am by no means saying there aren’t other songs that contain the same fallacies. In fact, there are A TON of songs that contain the same fallacies, and even those that INTEND to offend or stereotype. I am simply using this song as an example of activism that could have been well-intentioned, but in the end falls short. I’m not being critical or oversensitive here; poor activism must be identified if we are going to remedy body shaming and other social injustices.

We can talk about specific experiences within the BoPo movement and specific identities WITHOUT shaming others by taking an intersectional approach where we acknowledge that we are talking about a particular experience situated in an array of unique experiences that acknowledge privilege and push back against offensive cultural constructs.   

Stay tuned for an example of productive activism in music from the WW coming soon, and in the meantime enjoy these empowering internet memes:

The Right Way to Have An Eating Disorder

From the WW

Warning:  In this post, I will divulge some things that I did before I began living with a healthier concept of myself and my body.  I have not done any of these things in over a year, and I rarely talk about them, but after an incident with a student today, I felt inspired to share and speak out.

For those of you who are new to our blog or who may have forgotten, I work at a residential treatment center.  Because our main focus is on relationships, I have certain freedoms in my job as a teacher that I would not have in a public school.  Among these freedoms is time to sit down with my students and "process," which basically means listening to what they're struggling with and showing empathy and care.  Today as I was processing with one of my students, she informed me that she has an eating disorder, but that she doesn't talk about it often.  She said that when she tries to talk to people about it, she stops because of the looks she gets.  As she started to tear up, she struggled to find the words for what the looks mean, but I already knew.  Finally, she said, "It is because I don't look like I have an eating disorder."

This was one of those moments where I had to fight back my own tears, because I have felt a similar hurt in my own way, and I wish I could protect all of my kids from ever feeling that way.  I've never been diagnosed with an eating disorder, but I firmly believe that I am living with one.  Eating disorders are terrible roommates.  Even with my recent acceptance and love of my body, I have days in which I feel the familiar pull of dieting and restricting, bingeing and purging.  This is something I have under control because I know how to live with it, but it is something I do not see going away anytime soon.

See, there is no "right" way to have an eating disorder.  I may not have been anorexic, and I have NEVER been underweight in the slightest, but as a teenager, I would hide and hoard and binge and then purge, either with a finger (not often) or with laxatives and/or a ridiculous amount of water.  I even made the water into a game.  How many times can I go to the drinking fountain to refill my water bottle during study hall?  Six was my record.

As a young adult, I have restricted myself to insane amounts.  One summer I lost thirty pounds by eating nothing but yogurt and nuts.  I'd tell myself the headaches and lightheadedness would go away eventually.  I thought I was smart enough to not use the "stupid" ways to purge, like the finger.  Instead, I'd drink raw eggs to make myself sick.  One time, I "accidentally" swallowed soap.  Muuuuuch healthier.

I was pretty good at covering most of my disordered eating by calling it "counting calories."  Don't get me wrong, counting calories is NOT bad.  In fact, it works for a lot of people.  Not so for me.  For me, it becomes a race to the smallest amount possible.  For me, it gets out of control.

But you know the biggest reason for it being easy to hide my disordered eating?  My body.  The common misconception about eating disorders is that they always make you smaller.  Unhealthy looking.  Anorexic.  But that is so, so, so false.  No matter how hard I tried to make it smaller, I only ever made it bigger.  It was an endless source of frustration, one that damaged my body in ways I may never be able to change.  It was one of the reasons that I never even thought of my behavior as disordered eating, and one of the reasons that I don't think anyone else really picked up on it.  When a fat person loses weight, our first instinct is to congratulate them, not think that they might have an eating disorder.  In fact, the summer that I finally lost thirty pounds, I remember getting a lot of compliments on my weight loss, but not a lot of comments on my diet, which only solidified my belief that what I was doing was okay.

I have never looked like I have an eating disorder, and I guarantee that I am not the only one.  Telling people like me that what we dealt with was not really an eating disorder only invalidates our experiences.  I'm not trying to say that my eating disorder was ever life-threatening, nor was it extreme. But telling me that my eating disorder was just poor self-control and uninformed dieting takes away the power I have in having pulled through those times, and sets me up to fall back into bad habits.

Please be mindful of the fact that there is absolutely not one way to have an eating disorder.  If you or someone you know is suffering from an eating disorder and is not receiving help, I urge you to check out places like NEDA who have helplines and other resources.  

Weight Talk is NOT Small Talk...especially in the Fat Galaxy

In the last couple of weeks, I’ve had some “compliments” about my body.  People I don’t know well are the people providing me with these morsels. 

Please do not compliment me if you think I’ve lost weight.

I understand that it is socially acceptable (more like encouraged) to be cheerleaders for those of us who carry a bit extra.  I understand that you’ve never even considered the possibility that I liked and that I miss that ten pounds that I lost. 

This is my PSA.  This is me, making you aware.

My body is safe.  As a fat woman, I am less often the target for unwanted sexual advances than my thin friends.  As a fat woman, I am less often sexualized by society and by those close to me.  As a fat woman, I am often overlooked in certain discussions and in certain groups of people.  Sure, being fat has its own dangers.  I am constantly aware of the space my body occupies and how much is left for those around me.  I am constantly aware of how my clothes are falling on my body.  I am constantly aware of my public food intake.  But these are discomforts that are comfortable to me.  I have grown accustomed to these thoughts and worries; this is auto-pilot for my brain.

Weight loss is dangerous.  It makes me visible to people I have never been noticed by before.  It throws off my measurements on occupied space.  It makes me unsure of how my clothes are fitting.  It makes me hyper-aware of what I am eating, taking me back to a dark place I never want to see again.  It makes me a stranger to my body.

After a year of maintaining approximately the same weight, it is frightening to hear someone ask if I’ve lost weight.  It reminds me of that old ache I would feel when I weighed myself every morning, the ache that tugged at my health and my sanity, the ache that reminded me it was never good enough.  You know, that ache that I can’t resist, even now.  There’s a reason I avoid the scales, and it isn’t because I’m ashamed of my body.  It is because I know my mind is fragile, even though I tell myself almost every day that it isn’t.  It is because I am barely holding onto the reigns of that ache which dominated my life.  I’ve managed to harness the control I once abused on my body and redirect it in more productive and less harmful activities.  I don’t want to let that control take its old position back.

I will almost always say “no” if you ask if I’ve lost weight because it is easier and it ends the conversation very quickly, which is ideal.  If I’m feeling sassy, I might respond with a simple, “That’s a personal question.”  You will never again hear me say, “Thanks” when you follow up with something like “well, you look great!” or “keep doing whatever you’re doing because it is obviously working!” because why should I?  I know I look good to me and I know that what I’m doing is working for me, and that my looks are not contingent on shrinking.  I would also prefer a comment on something not about my appearance, like maybe my attitude.  But if it has to be my appearance, at least compliment my t-shirt or shoes, which reflect my taste and not my personal struggles with my body.

Please be more mindful of this in the future.  Please do not automatically assume that people you don’t know well who appear to have lost weight have done so intentionally.  There are many reasons for a person to lose weight outside of aesthetics.  Perhaps this person needed to lose weight in order to get an important surgery.  Perhaps this person lost weight as a result of medication or an unhealthy eating habit, or even disorder.  Perhaps this person lost weight due to illness.  Perhaps this person is me, who is comfortable in her own skin and is frightened of losing that comfort. 

Regardless of the reason for the change, it is not any of your business if someone else has lost weight.  We do not have the authority to make judgments or criticisms about another person’s body.  We are not and should not ever be body police for each other.

It won’t hurt anyone if you don’t say anything, but there is always a possibility of doing some damage if you do.

-WW