Hide my unsightly cellulite? No thanks.
Sunday, August 15th, 2010
Despite knowing how bad they can be for me and my mental health, I am still a reader of fashion magazines. I am a bit of a consumer at heart. I get a little thrill when I open the pages and the amount of “WANT. NOW.” overwhelms my senses and I am enthralled.
What takes me out of my “Oooo shoes!” trance is reading icky body shaming comments disguised as “helpful advice” for the girls.
My own fault for expecting something different from a mainstream women’s fashion magazine, I’m sure, but I was still disappointed to read a column in the latest issue of Shop ‘Til You Drop (September 2010), especially after their recent body love issue.
A writer from Australian Harper’s Bazaar has been writing a regular column for Shop from the viewpoint of being a plus sized woman in the fashion industry. I expect working in the fashion industry, being surrounded day in and day out by fabulous clothes that largely exclude a plus size body would take a toll on a person’s viewpoint of themselves, no matter how confident they usually are. The comment made in the column (“No one looks good with cottage cheese thighs” [pg. 60]), made me sad.
Yeah, ok, it’s probably seen as a pretty innocuous comment. Innocent, even. But couched in the “just us girls” rhetoric and the attitude that whenever girls get together, all they do is gossip about the state of their bodies, what they ate, what they bought, who is a bitch, how hot that guy is, it seems problematic at the very least.
Not everyone is at the stage of loving their bodies. I don’t love my body 100% of the time, 24 hours a day. To expect people to do so would be unrealistic. Everyone has their moments.
But, I worry about the influence of these comments and columns in a mainstream fashion magazines on impressionable teenage girls (hell, impressionable women and people who identify as women). I worry that it convinces them that it’s expected of them to hate their bodies, that they’re expected to tear themselves apart.
I’ll admit that, for a moment, I focused on my cellulite, the dimples on my arse.
Until I shook myself out of it. Until I remembered that I like my thighs, my arse. I’m still not quite at the love stage yet, but I’m getting there. And I don’t care if “no one wants to see it”, I will be happy when I’m ok to see it.
Dr Samantha Thomas – an honorary fat.
Wednesday, August 11th, 2010
So in case you don’t know, the fat-o-sphere has a fair bit of activity going on via Twitter. This is how I was introduced to Dr Samantha Thomas – in my opinion she’s one of the coolest supporters of the Fat Acceptance movement. If you don’t know of her work, I highly recommend subscribing to her blog. Her latest post is so awesome; and it’s making me feel as if some people are finally getting it.
We at Axis of Fat have been approached by several different academic and media outlets to give fair and accurate representation about Fat Acceptance. While sometimes the questions seem a little obtuse to me, I think it’s merely because the idea of Fat Acceptance is so foreign to so many people. We currently live in a society where body shaming is key, so whenever anyone brings up a contrary opinion it’s a shock to the system. But I think it’s a good sign that people want our opinions. In ten, twenty or even fifty years, it will be this time where people will look back and say that the tide began to shift.
What do you think?
Nick interviewed by ABC Radio Australia
Monday, July 19th, 2010
Today I was part of a panel interview on ABC Radio Australia which also featured Samantha Thomas from Monash University (on twitter as @samanthastweets and soon to have a blog).
I don’t think they quite got what they bargained for as we certainly weren’t there to sell weight loss to the pacific. Have a listen and let us know what you think.
I made the recording myself so sorry in advance for my twitter client making all sorts of noises during the recording.
Not unless I’m swapping lifestyles with Oprah
Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010
We get a bit of mail at Axis of Fat through our contact form and a lot of the messages we get are wonderful, supportive and thankful and make us feel really good about our writing and motivate us to continue to blog about being fat Aussies. On the odd occasion there are media requests too, and Nick fields those because I’m not really interested in making a fool of myself in print or on air and he does such a fantastic job speaking as a fat advocate. I’m really proud of our blogging efforts, and even though I haven’t been blogging as much due to being busy with my other endeavours, I’m really chuffed to see the blog chugging along and continuing the conversation about being fat in Australia.
Today Nick got a media request from a current affairs program requesting one of us appear in a story that involved swapping “lifestyles” with a “gymbunny” for a period of time. The opportunity (and I use that word ever so loosely) was turned down straight away by those of us on the Axis team who have access to our emails during the day, with much booing. We found out that the journalist has approached a number of fat acceptance bloggers today regarding the same story only to be met with similar responses. No thank you. We’d prefer not to consent to being demonised on national television. But thanks. Besides, I would feel awfully dishonest pegging myself at the fat/ bad end of the good-fat lifestyle paradigm because while I am fat and I just ate lemon pudding, I also go to the gym and eat vegetables!
This kind of “lifestyle swap” story is tired and hackneyed, and I really question the value of stories like this – other than acting as stocking stuffers on slow news days. I follow Source Bottle on twitter and at least a few times a week there are call outs for fatties to participate in “lifestyle swaps”. I’m starting to think that there are very few fat journalists and producers in Australian media, because you’d have to be completely unobservant or even mired in your own thin privilege to fail to see that people of all different shapes participate in different lifestyles. Unless they’re only observing what’s published by mainstream media – in that case you’d go for months (maybe even years) without seeing any kind of positive representation of a fat person’s lifestyle.
I wrote a FA101 post on my blog just the other day and I said, “The truth is, healthful and not-so-healthful behaviours are performed by EVERY sort of body.” I guess that’s just not an interesting enough news story for these journalists, when they get more ratings out of pumping out manufactured stories that fuel hurtful assumptions about people’s body types and the kind of lifestyles those bodies lead. The media characterises fat people as lazy, disorganised and unattractive and a “lifestyle swap” story would only serve to make a fat person complicit in this characterisation, something we think is dishonest, reprehensible and irresponsible. It’s just not an accurate reflection of society. I guess “URGENT BULLETIN: WE’RE ALL DIFFERENT. In related news, fat people have heads and feelings.” is the kind of headline I can only envision in fits of mirth and delusion.
We at Axis of Fat are, sadly, rare kinds of publicly and unashamedly fat individuals, and it’s natural that we’d be approached to represent fat people. When the angle is as damaging as this, we will not be complicit. What kind of person would submit to having their character slighted in such a way? To the current affairs program we turned down – we aren’t regretful not to take part in this story, and we hope that no fat person agrees to participate in this “lifestyle swap” segment. I’m pretty sure you’ll have terrible luck scouting talent from fat acceptance blogs anyway. However, if you’ve got time to fill on a slow news day we’d love to talk to you about producing a fair and positive story about visible fatties fighting social injustice.
Feelings, nothing more than feelings…
Wednesday, June 16th, 2010
As a male member of the Fat Acceptance community and as a blogger on this site, I have been contacted by the media to talk about fat acceptance or being fat in general. I’m more than happy to agree to these requests where I’m sure that it isn’t just a chance to put down fat people for being fat. I have no interest in helping the media reinforce the negative perceptions which were created by the media in the first place.
People have commented on how confident I sound and how I have the capacity to communicate my points clearly and in an manner that is easy to understand. It probably comes as a surprise then to learn that I actually have problems speaking on the phone or in person with people I don’t know. I’m hopeless at face to face communication with someone I don’t know when it is a social situation. If I don’t have to do it, I don’t seem to do very well at it.
Perhaps then it is my passion for Fat Acceptance and how strongly I believe in it. It’s because of my unwavering belief in myself and those around me. Let me tell you this is wrong. Very wrong. Very recently I’ve been struggling a bit with how I feel about my body. It’s very easy in these times to fall back to old habits and believe that all my problems are because I am fat, and therefore weight loss is the solution.
Yesterday I was in the chemist and they have a weight loss program that they run there. I saw the after picture of the lady who had completed the program and she seemed so happy with herself. I want that happiness, so surely by drinking nothing but shakes and losing 75+kg I’m going to be just as happy as her.
Somehow I doubt it.
Happiness comes from within a person. How many unhappy people do you know who aren’t fat? Does the height of a person affect their happiness? What about their race? Does the fact that I was born in November mean that I’m more or less happy than Natalie, who is born in December? Think about it for a minute instead of sprouting the rote learned answers that the media/your friends/your parents/society have conditioned you to have.
I’m not a psychologist. In fact, I struggle to spell the word correctly without a spell checker. If I asked you to think about what makes you happy and unhappy, you would find two things (or at least I did). I feel happy or unhappy when a) someone does something/something occurs/something external to me makes me feel happy or unhappy or b) when I think something/feel something/something internal makes me feel happy or unhappy.
Being fat doesn’t make me happy or unhappy. People’s reactions/thoughts/words about me being fat make me happy or unhappy. How I perceive the fact that I am fat make me happy or unhappy. And really since you have to process the external stuff as well as the internal stuff, it’s how you process it that determines how you feel about it.
“Wha? It’s all my fault that I’m unhappy? Should I just accept being discriminated against?” No. But you decide what you feel about it.
I can decide to feel sad and retreat inside myself. Alternatively I can calmly explain to the person why I think they are incorrect in whatever they’ve said (or done). There will be times where I just decide that the person isn’t going to get it, so I choose to not waste more time and more on. I can remain happy because I realise within myself that I am fat and that this doesn’t mean I need to be unhappy or feel inferior and that is all that really matters.
Sometimes I will not feel happy about being fat. It’s true that society is designed around the “normal sized” person, whatever that is. There are things that I want to do that I physically can’t because the designer has said “Thou shalt not be fat.” Other times, I’ll just feel fug in my clothes and blame being fat, instead of raising up against the fashion designers who decide that a tent is perfect for a fat man to wear to work.
But it doesn’t make me any less committed to the Fat Acceptance movement. Sometimes you have to fall over, feel like crap and then get up again. It doesn’t mean you failed.
It means you’re human.
What is Fat Acceptance?
Friday, May 14th, 2010
I’m currently laying in bed feeling a little under the weather. I’ve never really found a comfortable position to lay down and use a laptop, but this is as good as any.
This week there has been a lot of talk regarding Mia Freedman’s recent blog posts on gainers and how she believes they are glorifying obesity. I have no intention of linking to the post; you can find it through a Google search but I have no intention of providing any more readers to that blog post.
Those of you who know me well know that I don’t take a lot of time out of my day to read the blogs of the fatosphere. I certainly don’t read Mama Mia, which seems to be a blog about women’s fashion, body image and similar. The first I had heard of the blog post and the ensuing debate was yesterday morning when contacted by a producer for the Steve Vizard radio show on 3MTR in Melbourne.
So despite my ignorance, I read the blog post and it actually seemed pretty innocuous to me. Then again, I’ve read on a few other sites that it has been edited to tone down the language. The comments are still full of fat hatred and I would think that someone in Mia’s position would realise the need to moderate the discussion to remove the blatantly fat phobic comments.
She also didn’t do herself any favours by suggesting fat activists had eaten a “big bowl of crazy for breakfast” in one of her comments. Actually, that entire comment seems to show that she doesn’t understand fat acceptance.
So what is fat acceptance? This will mean different things to differnet people. To me, fat acceptance is about learning to love and accept yourself for who you are, no matter your weight, shape and size. It is also accepting and respecting people no matter what shape or weight they are. If we were to throw in the idea of accepting people no matter their religion, colour, or ethnic background you could really turn “fat acceptance” into “human acceptance”.
The reason for a separate stream called fat acceptance is that there are issues that affect fat people that don’t affect those discriminated based on their sexuality or colour or religion. We may share some issues but we don’t share them in the same way either.
Some of the issues that I notice being a fat person is:
- The assumption that being fat, and therefore calling someone fat, is offensive.
- Being fat means you are disorganised, unclean and somehow defective.
- A fat person cannot be fit and healthy.
- Fat people must change themselves to fit the norms that are decided by the rest of society.
- Fat people should be blamed for sky rocketing health costs.
- A fat person cannot expect to go into a clothing store and find clothes that will fit and look good on them.
- A fat person should expect that any health issue they suffer is because they are fat. Mental health included.
As I mentioned earlier, a producer for the Steve Vizard show on Melbourne’s 3MTR contacted me regarding the Mia Freedman incident. I did a phone interview with Steve and while we did touch on the Mia Freedman issue a bit, most of the discussion was about what fat acceptance really is and what it means to be fat. Have a listen and let me know if you think I got it right or not.
Being a fat activist means that I am fighting these issues and more every day. I don’t blog about this every day but it is important to remind ourselves regularly of what issues we face. I’ve noticed that LGBT groups get together the protest about the right to marry and that other groups have held protests over the years to fight discrimination. It’s weird that fat people don’t feel the need to get together and fight this stuff ‘in the field’.
Perhaps fat people are used to being put in the corner. Perhaps we feel it is our deserved place; after all that is what everyone tells us.
What do you think?
Promises, Promises – Today Tonight story on Fat Fashion in Australia
Wednesday, October 28th, 2009
So you might remember that Today Tonight did a story last night on fat fashion within Australia, featuring an interview with moi! Well someone has kindly uploaded the video to youtube, so here I am in all my television glory.
By the way, it’s actually not all about me. They also talk to Fashion Hayley as well.
ETA: The youtube video was removed. Once I can get another version I’ll add it back in.
ETA ETA: Finally found one!
Greetings television viewers
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009
Hello, welcome Today Tonight viewers! We hope that you enjoyed tonight’s story on the show, and extend a warm welcome if you find yourself sized out of straight sized fashion. You’re not alone!
If you are keen to connect with Australians who are interested in size acceptance and fat activism, please leave a comment! We have a whole heap of posts on the site since starting it a few months ago, so have a browse so you can bring yourself up to speed.
Here at Axis of Fat, we do not tolerate hate speak and fat bashing. If you are tempted to do so anyway, please leave a comment so we can delete it and block your IP address. Fat people put up with this hurtful and unproductive discrimination on a daily basis, and this is a most ineffective method of delivering your nastiness.
Cheers!
Catch me tomorrow on Today Tonight
Monday, October 26th, 2009
Hi guys,
I thought you all might like to know that I’ll be appearing tomorrow night on the Australian current affairs program Today Tonight. If you aren’t in Australia, I’m hoping to be able to link/embed a copy of the story once it has gone to air.
Otherwise, tune in at 6:30pm tomorrow night and check it out. I’d love to tell you more about the story, but I’m sworn to secrecy. Lets just say that I wouldn’t post it on this blog if it didn’t have something to do with the blog theme. 
Love your body, but only if… (you have one)
Thursday, October 15th, 2009
I’ve seen a lot of the body image stuff that’s been happening recently in the media (magazines, news, tv) and haven’t really commented on any of it anywhere. Sometimes it’s nice to digest developments instead of bashing out an immediate response on my keyboard.
I’m very happy that body image is getting more and more play in the mainstream media, because Maude knows we’ve been talking about it online for years. The tricky thing about mainstream media is that instead of getting a bunch of like-minded people discussing the topic rationally (like in our fat-o-sphere vacuum, maybe), every person gets access to the topic and has the right to bash out an opinion even if they’ve never really thought about it before. It sounds kind of condescending, but many people don’t actually question their conditioning and resort to those pre-formed notions when talking about weight, body image, fashion and health. Let me illustrate this: a magazine hires a plus size stylist to write a column about her plus-size fashion experience and many people outside the body acceptance vacuum hammer out knee jerk opinions: What about her health? Blah blah blah health insurance! Fat people are TOTES GROCE! The hoi polloi aren’t even commenting on the actual topic: fashion. Instead they are falling back on the “go to” reaction to a fat person made visible.
So we have all this cultural conditioning, but the people outside the vacuum aren’t really aware that they have it. I’m trying to figure out if the awareness campaigns are genuine attempts to make people aware of their body image conditioning or if they’re just paying lip service to those inside the vacuum. I’m actually starting to think that the media is appealing to the masses, and limiting the scope of “acceptance” in order for people to deal with such a revolutionary notion. And that’s hurtful.
I’ve noticed that many stories on body image and acceptance also have this glaring caveat: it’s a wonderful thing to love your body, but not if you’re too fat. When Ellen had an army of plus size models on her show she bought into this notion and I was left with a bitter taste in my mouth. So, as a “deathfatty” I’m supposed to hate myself into an acceptable weight range and it’s only then that I can love myself? I don’t think it works that way Ellen! Not on a practical or academic level. It’s so arbitrary too, do I get a hand written invitation from some “deathfat” panel once I cross the threshold of acceptable body type? I will not, because as it stands no one can agree on that – well they can agree that slender is acceptable but where’s the line in the sand?
It sounds a lot like many stories in the media are aiming this body image talk at women who are at a “typical” body weight and are aiming thinner. Are fat people totally co-opting this body acceptance talk? If we are, I don’t think it’s an intrusion. There’s this awareness campaign I’ve been seeing here and there called “End Fat Talk” and while I totally agree with it, I get the impression it’s not aimed at people of my size, it’s aimed at people who think they’re fat. I don’t mind co-opting this message. Actually I don’t mind co-opting any body acceptance message. We have a great privilege as blog authors, internet connection users and people who can communicate ideas and as part of that privilege I get to discuss these things that matter to me, with you.
We can’t exclude anyone from the body talk, I don’t think that’s fair. It’s the reason why many in the FA movement reject the notion of the “Real Woman” and thin woman as enemy. We’re all in this together.
