I Am Living

[Content Note: Fat hatred.]

"I would die if I looked like that."

The words floated across the space between where I was sitting and where a group of 20-something women were sitting in the interior of a crowded mall at the holidays. I was waiting for Iain, who was making a purchase inside a small store that didn't need any additional bodies, and I was people-watching happily while I waited.

They were people-watching, too, but for an entirely different reason. We were all unwitting contestants in a pageant they were judging.

I would die if I looked like that. It hadn't been said in that faux-concern for fat people's health way, but in the I would die of embarrassment way. The I would kill myself way.

I assumed they were talking about me, but when I glanced over, I saw that they weren't. They were talking about a woman who might as well have been me.

Some of them caught me looking and registered the expression of contempt that must have been on my face. They had the decency to look slightly ashamed. I greeted their shame with a bright smile, not because I felt like smiling, but because I needed to communicate to them with a single look that I was not dead, and that their hatred wouldn't kill me.

One might reasonably imagine that I had an urge to respond angrily to this open hostility. And I suppose part of me did. But what I know is that people who hate fat often fear it — and those words, I would die if I looked like that, are words of fear as much as hatred.

What I wanted to tell them, and what I will tell any of you reading this who might regard my body as a figure of hatred or a cautionary tale, is that you probably wouldn't die if you looked like this.

I look even fatter sitting down!
People who look like this have varied experiences with looking like this, have all kinds of different relationships with their bodies, have wildly disparate lives, as the human experience prescribes.

So I am not speaking for everyone who looks like this when I tell you that I am not dying, of shame or humiliation or self-loathing.

I am living.

And I am living more contentedly than many people who are certain they would die if they looked like me.

I have a job that fulfills me. I have a spouse who complements me; who loves and likes me. I have pets who make me happy. I have friends with whom I actually have the amount of fun it looks like we're having in our Instagram photos. I have a home in which I feel lucky to live every day. I have some minor talents that I try to put to good use or good fun. I have a big laugh that carries across a room.

And I have a body that has (at this size or bigger) carried me across the sandy shores of the Indiana Dunes and up the slopes of the Scottish Highlands and through the waves of the Caribbean and back and forth in the lanes of a pool for a mile at a time. I have a body that cannot sweat, which makes physical activity difficult and has limited me more than being fat ever has. I have a body that is strong and a body that is disabled. I have a body that holds a mind that thinks complicated thoughts valued by lots of people, and a heart that loves fiercely and loyally.

I am living in this fat body. And I am doing it well.

What I wanted to tell them is that someday they might look like this, and, if they do, they can also live well.

And that they could do a lot better not looking like this, too. Judging others, publicly and loudly, is unkind. But it's also a kind of death — the death of something you can allow yourself to be. It puts up walls, ever more rigid walls, around a life that gets smaller and smaller by what options are set off-limits by judgment. It's a thousand tiny deaths of your own possibilities. And your own self-love.

They were dying in the constrictions of their own judgments.

I know, because I have felt it myself, long ago, long before I knew how to live well.

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Quote of the Day

[Content Note: Fat hatred.]

"While it is not an obligation for anyone at any size to have to engage in physical activity, it's important progress to create spaces that welcome those who do for everyone's physical and mental health." — Ragen Chastain, quoted in a recommended piece in the Washington Post by Rebecca Scritchfield, "Why we need to take fat-shaming out of fitness culture."

This is, of course, something about which I've been writing for many years. If not-fat people who purport to care about fatties' health really did care about our health, they wouldn't do things like shout abuse at us out car windows while we're out for a walk, or body-shame us while we're swimming, or condescendingly "compliment" us for engaging in some physical activity that we may well have been doing for most of our lives, or take sneaky pictures of us in locker rooms and post them publicly without our knowledge or consent, or any one of a seemingly endless number of things that not-fat people who totally care about our health do, thus creating a massive psychological barrier for us to overcome to engage in physical activities.

If you care about fat people's health, then know this: Fat Hatred Is Unhealthy for Fat People.

Allowing us to live our lives free of fat hatred and shaming and judgment, however, is very good for our health indeed.

[H/T to Shaker girlunderthsea.]

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Today at the Intersection of Fat Hatred and Disablism

[Content Note: Fat hatred; disablism. Some pix at link may be NSFW.]

Normally, I will do everything I can to avoid linking to the Daily Mail, but, in this case, it's about the least offensive article on this story I can find: "Plus-sized protester strips NAKED at Bluewater shopping centre to demonstrate against mannequins being too thin."

Which is really saying something, given the all-caps alarmism at fat nudity right in the headline, and the description of the protester herself as "plus-sized." (NB: Clothes are plus-sized; people are fat.)

The gist of the story is that a fat white woman was reportedly protesting the lack of fat mannequins by standing naked in a store window. She was eventually escorted away from police, who said later she had been "passed into the care of medical professionals."

That's really something, isn't it?

It's considered perfectly sane to invisibilize the existence of fat people in every way except when calling us a scourge or an epidemic, or bullying us, or shaming us, or in some other way expressing contempt for our bodies and lives — but, if you are a fat person who is so fed the fuck up with being disappeared and monsterized that you stand naked in a store window to demand recognition of your existence and humanity, you're the crazy one.

Welp.

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SUMMER ANTHEM

Miss Eaves: "Thunder Thighs"
[Video Description: A bunch of women of all shapes, sizes, and colors prancing through Bed-Stuy wearing whatever the fuck they want and feeling awesome about it.]

This is giving me liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiife!!!

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TV Corner: This Is Us

Is anyone else watching the new NBC show This Is Us and keen to talk about it? I hope so! Because I have been watching it, and I have lots of thoughts about it!

(No major spoilers below, so anyone who is considering watching it won't have anything ruined for them.)

I'm not going to say I love the show, because it's only been a few episodes, but I think I could love it.

So far, I really like the way the story is unfolding, the way the timeline shifts to reveal how experiences in the siblings' childhood inform their adult lives and selves.

I am deeply connecting with Randall, played by Sterling K. Brown (who was sooooo good as Christopher Darden in The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story), and also with Kate, played by Chrissy Metz. I could write an entire book on how I'm connecting with Kate, even though our own personal experiences with fatness are very different in many ways.

I've also been quite fond of the writing for Rebecca, played by Mandy Moore, and how complex and complicated and conflicted and well-meaning but hurtful and stubborn and hard-loving she is.

Really, the only weak points for me so far have mostly been around Toby, played by Chris Sullivan, whose pushiness and passive-aggressiveness masquerading as romantic gestures is rubbing me the wrong way big time.

Anyway! Are you watching? What do you think?

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Fat and the Bikini Body Meme

[Content Note: Fat hatred; body policing.]

It's again that time of year where a popular meme starts showing up on social media. It tends to feature silhouettes of what are meant to be read as female bodies, including or sometimes exclusively very fat bodies, and text which is some variation on: "How to Get a Bikini Body: Step 1: Buy a bikini. Step 2: Put it on your body."

Let me first say, once again, that fat women are not a monolith, and different fat women will have different reactions to this meme. I don't purport to speak for all fat women, some of whom like this meme very much, and I am not seeking to police or criticize their individual reactions to it.

I do, however, want to do some awareness-raising on behalf of the fat women who aren't so keen on the meme, because I know there are a lot of thin and in-betweenie women who spend time in this space who want to do good fat ally work and may not have considered some of the reasons not all fat women find it a strictly positive or supportive message.

So, here are a couple of things to consider before you share this image under the auspices of being a fat ally (or even as a fat person):

1. Not all fat women can buy a bikini. That's not just a consideration of financial realities, which are always at issue in consumerist memes, but it's also a reflection of the fact that even off-the-rack (or off-the-website) "plus-size" bikinis have a finite size range.

There are sites who will custom-make bikinis for women of any size based on their individual measurements, but that is, of course, a costly option. And naturally there are women who are skilled enough to make their own bikinis, but that is not an option for anyone who lacks those talents.

Casually suggesting that all fat women can just go "buy a bikini," without any acknowledgment of the fact that purchasing a bikini in one's size might not be an option, especially for very fat women, is not supportive. It also reinforces the idea that there's an "acceptable" level of fatness which tops out at the maximum size of most "plus-size" fashion lines, and anyone whose body exceeds those standard sizes is thus "unacceptably" fat.

2. Putting a bikini on one's fat body is not just about the physical act of getting into a swimsuit. There are all kinds of cultural disincentives to be a fat woman in a bikini in public, and we are obliged to navigate them no matter how much we might love our own bodies.

There is a vast difference in being a woman who has insecurities about a body in which she sees imperfections but is broadly culturally acceptable, and a woman who has insecurities about a body that significantly deviates from what is considered culturally acceptable. That is not to diminish, at all, the seriousness of body insecurities no matter what one's size. It is merely to observe that even if fat women get okay with their own bodies, there is not an existing cultural space in which we are accepted.

There's no equivalent for fat women to the narrative "we all have flaws!" No deviation from some impossible ideal should ever regarded as a "flaw," anyway, but fat is not regarded as a mere flaw.

And we are not, outside fat acceptance spaces, celebrated for a willingness to show our bodies "despite" their imperfections. We are not considered brave. We are harassed, shamed, policed, threatened, attacked.

The thing about "love your body" campaigns for my fat self is that I can love my body all the fuck I want, but the bigger problem for me is other people hating my body.

It's so much more complicated than just putting on a bikini, for lots of fat women. We need to respect and recognize that.

* * *

This isn't a comprehensive list of potential objections. I hope if fat women share in comments any additional concerns they may have with the meme, not-fat women will listen to their perspectives.

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Today in What Fat People Have Been Telling You

[Content Note: Fat bias.]

So, here is something I, and lots of other fat activists, have been saying in multiple ways for a very long time: Fat is not a reliable indicator of health. And to treat fat as a reliable indicator of health is not only bad for fat people, who are axiomatically presumed to be unhealthy (and thus suffer the consequences of a perceived lack of health, like denial of access to insurance and medical care), but is also bad for thin people, who are axiomatically presumed to be healthy (and thus may be harmed by undetected health issues they are assumed not to have).

Well, whaddaya know?

Millions of Americans who have been labelled overweight or obese based on their body mass index (BMI) are in actual fact perfectly healthy, according to a new study.

Scientists in California say that 34.4 million Americans considered technically overweight due to their BMI are actually healthy based on a range of cardiometabolic health markers, as are some 19.8 million 'obese' people. The massive misclassification isn't just about which words we use, either, say the researchers, since the flawed BMI's usage in the health insurance industry unfairly penalises some, while rewarding others.

"In the overweight BMI category, 47 percent are perfectly healthy," said researcher Jeffrey Hunger from the University of California, Santa Barbara. "So to be using BMI as a health proxy – particularly for everyone within that category – is simply incorrect. Our study should be the final nail in the coffin for BMI."

The researchers looked at data from the most recent US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey to analyse the link between BMI – a measure calculated by dividing a person's weight in kilograms by the square of their height in metres – with a range of specific health markers. These cardiometabolic assessments included blood pressure, blood sugar, and cholesterol, among others.

What they found was that BMI incorrectly pegs people's health at both ends of the weight scale.

"Not only does BMI mislabel 54 million heavier individuals as unhealthy, it actually overlooks a large group of individuals considered to have a 'healthy' BMI who are actually unhealthy when you look at underlying clinical indicators," said Hunger.

This study, by the way, comes at a time when the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has proposed a rule which "could penalise people with BMIs higher than 25...by making them pay higher premiums."

I've noted that these sorts of policies are, truly, nothing more than fat hatred that penalize fat people for the way we look—and this study confirms it. Despite the alleged concern about "health," it's really just a tax we're required to pay, irrespective of our actual health, because we don't conform to a kyriarchetypical Beauty Standard.

BMI is garbage. And using it as a metric to assess health is actively incompatible with meaningful healthcare.

[H/T to Shaker ariadne83.]

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Faith

[Content Note: Fat bias.]

Via K8theCurst comes news of a fat female superhero heading our way! Yes!

Harbinger, a comic book series about super-powered but socially challenged teenagers, has been penned by men and centered on male characters since the early '90s. In a few months, however, the series will get a female-powered breakout: a spinoff miniseries featuring a bold, full-figured female protagonist Faith, a Harbinger ensemble character, written by acclaimed comics writer Jody Houser.

...Valiant editor-in-chief Warren Simmons describes Faith as "one of the most unique characters in comics — a sci-fi loving, Firefly-quoting fangirl" who, when given the chance to stand alongside other superheroes, ends up proving herself "to be the bravest of them all."

Houser agrees. Faith's authenticity makes her particularly likable and relatable, she told Mic. The protagonist, a "superhero fan" herself, is enthusiastic in "embracing her powers and her determination to help others," and is like "the real-life geek friends we all have instead of a stereotype of a comic fan or a plus-size woman," Houser said.

At the linked article, however, I gave this bit a big fat side-eye: "Faith is an affront to the comic book industry's status quo, which often renders female characters as hypersexualized objects who exist to please and support male heroes, if they're not excluded altogether." Because, sure, I don't want hypersexualized female protagonists, but I also didn't like the implication that the only way to not sexualize a female character is to make her fat. As though fat and sexy and desired are mutually exclusive.

But that was from the writer of the piece, not the writer of the comic. The writer of comic, Houser, positions Faith a little differently: "While Faith isn't hypersexualized, she's 'still allowed to be sexual,' Hauser added, noting that Faith has an intimate relationship in the series."

That sounds a little better.

Clearly, one of the ways Faith is being rendered as not hypersexualized is with her superhero garb, which includes a full-body suit and a flowy cape/duster jacket. You can see Faith's figure, but she is covered from shoulder to wrist and neck to toe. And I have really mixed feelings about that.


It's not that I want to see female heroes clad in skimpy outfits, but I also don't totally love that a fat female hero's outfit skews wildly in the other direction. Because then the question is: Is she that covered solely as a reaction to the hypersexualization of (thin) female superheroes, or is she that covered because she is fat? Because fat women aren't supposed to show our bodies? Because fat women aren't supposed to/allowed to be sexy?

I mean, she's not even sleeveless. She's got multiple layers covering her up, as her cape starts at the waist, like the sweep of a long coat, rather than from the shoulders, like a traditional cape.

I don't want Faith to be hypersexualized, but I also don't want her body treated as something hideous that must be covered with eleventy yards of fabric, either. It's the very tension that I described in "On Harassment and the Marking of Visible Womanhood," where women who are invisibilized by virtue of their transgressive bodies want to be visible in the way conformative female bodies are, lest we still be marked as less than.

There has to be a middle-ground for Faith, in which she is neither hypersexualized nor treated like an object of disgust whose bodies needs to be concealed. I hope her creators find it.

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In the News

Here is some stuff in the news today...

[Content Note: Some images may be NSFW] Substantia Jones, the genius behind The Adipositivity Project, has launched a new Tumblr called Fat People Flipping You Off, and IT IS GIVING ME LIFE TODAY. Naturally, I had to immediately take a picture of myself and submit it, because, as y'all know, I've been a fan of being fat and flipping people off FOR YEARS! You can submit your own picture here.

*insert sound of ticker tape* And now for the stock market news: "The global stock market panic appeared to be easing Tuesday as US markets opened up following a dramatic sell-off by investors around the world dubbed 'Black Monday.' On Monday the Dow Jones industrial average crashed more than 1,000 points when it opened, ending the day down 586 points, or 3.6%. In the first two minutes after the opening bell on Tuesday, the Dow rose 300 points and was up 372 points, or 2.35%, before noon. The S&P 500 was up 2.43% and the Nasdaq 3.29%, also reversing much of their Monday declines." Bulls and bears and bells! This investment expert's advice? Stick your money under your mattress!

[CN: Racism; over-policing] In good news: "A new judge in Ferguson, Missouri, has halted court practices that were seen as a major factor in unrest over the shooting of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown a year ago. Judge Donald McCullin cancelled arrest warrants issued before this year, mainly to African Americans. Defendants of minor offences will also be offered alternatives to prison. It follows a US justice department report that found the police in the city unfairly targeted black people. The report, released in March this year, said court officials and the local police were exploiting people to raise revenue." So that's very good. Except: "Part of the sweeping changes to court practices announced by municipal Judge McCullin on Monday include offering defendants options to dispose of their cases, such as payment plans and community services." Those payment plans? Can wreck people financially for years. Honestly, what needs to happen is that "community policing" that essentially boils down to using municipal violations to make money just needs to stop the end.

[CN: Terrorism; guns; injury] Deserved: "At a ceremony on Monday, French president François Hollande presented three Americans and a Briton with France's highest honor for subduing [a gunman on on a Paris-bound Thalys train on Friday], while [Mark Moogalian, 51, an American-born professor at the Sorbonne, who was shot attempting to tackle the gunman] was being treated in Lille for the injuries he sustained during the attack. He is expected to recover and will receive the Légion d'honneur later. A young French banker who also intervened has asked for anonymity and will also be presented with the award, but at a private ceremony."

[CN: Misogynoir] Good fucking grief: "A group of black women were escorted off of a train taking them on a wine tour after a white woman complained they were laughing loudly. After the women, who are all members of a book club, exited the train they were met by a group of police officers. No charges were filed. ...The complaint that this is 'not a bar' is perplexing considering the primary purpose of the train is to serve alcohol. A maître d' also told them they were making too much noise. Asked who was complaining, he said that 'people's faces are uncomfortable.'" Jesus Jones. For the record, laugh loudly around me all you want! I love listening to people laugh loudly!

[CN: Homophobia; violence; terrorism] Among their other many reprehensible policies and actions, the Islamic State is also ruthlessly, violently homophobic: "They hunt them down one by one. When they capture people, they go through the person's phone and contacts and Facebook friends. They are trying to track down every gay man. And it's like dominoes. If one goes, the others will be taken down too." Sob.

[CN: Racism] Black American Airlines employees have appealed to US Attorney General Loretta Lynch to investigate their on-the-job treatment: The "employees at Reagan National and Philadelphia International airports say they have been subjected to racial taunts and are routinely assigned unsafe equipment and the most difficult tasks. ...'I was told by one manager to go back out to that plantation, go back out to the cotton field. They thought it was hilarious, but I didn't think it was one bit funny,' said a woman who has worked as a counter and gate agent for more than 30 years at National, which occupies a site that once was a 1,000-acre plantation." Fucking hell.

Oh nooooooo this poor kid: "A 12-year-old Taiwanese boy lived out a slapstick nightmare at the weekend when he tripped at a museum and broke his fall with a painting, smashing a hole in it. Exhibition organisers said the painting was a 350-year-old Paolo Porpora oil on canvas work called Flowers, valued at $1.5m." You break it; you buy it! Just kidding. The collection is insured, and the damage will be repaired as best as possible.

Speaking of ART: "Woman Sees Trump's Face in Her Tub of Butter." LUCKYYYYYYY!

[CN: Some images/lyrics may be NSFW] Here is Tom Hardy lip-synching to EVERYTHING. You think that's hyperbole? It's not!

And finally! A British woman spends a whole lot of time and money and energy rescuing a stray dog in Greece who saved her from an attack. Best! Friends! Forever!

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"To show beauty in a different way really lights me up inside."

So, Orange Is the New Black is a show that I like, even despite its problems, for a few reasons, the primary one being that THERE ARE SO MANY WOMEN. I didn't particularly like the plot or central characters in the very first episode, but I kept watching because I was held in rapt thrall by the sheer number of women in the show! (And, as the show went on, the focus stretched to include more of them more meaningfully.) There were just all these incredible women! All of them talking! To each other! And they didn't all look alike!

After a lifetime of television, with some notable exceptions, in which shows "about women" often tend to have a single, white, straight, cis, thin, able-bodied woman at their center, who is surrounded by men and maybe one other female character whose only purpose is to be a foil or a lesser contrast to the female star (the Murphy Brown model), to see a show "about women" actually be about an abundance of diverse women was pretty amazing.

And there's been a lot of digital ink spilled about the diversity of the show: The racial diversity, the prominence of lesbian and bi characters, the trans character who is played a trans actress.

Less has been written about the incredible body diversity of the cast, so I am majorly appreciative of this month's issue of Essence, which is their annual "body issue," featuring six of the black cast members from OITNB in all their stunning body diversity. (Although it's not lost on me that the fat girls are in the back, ahem.)

Clockwise from top left: Danielle Brooks (Tasha/Taystee), Adrienne C. Moore (Cindy), Uzo Aduba (Suzanne/Crazy Eyes), Vicky Jeudy (Janae), Laverne Cox (Sophia), and Samira Wiley (Poussey).

In the issue, the actresses discuss not only their body shape/size, but also their unique physical features—and learning to love and appreciate oneself:

Two-time ESSENCE cover star Laverne Cox describes her ritual of learning to love herself, no matter what: "This is intense, and it's hard. What I've been doing is looking in the mirror and listing all the things I have an issue with and then saying, 'This is beautiful.' I just go down the list and tell myself, 'You have to accept that this is you today.' I make time to do this."

"Being [my size] in this industry is so rare," says 25-year-old stunner, Danielle Brooks, "but regular people look more like me than runway models. To show beauty in a different way really lights me up inside. That's so cheesy, but it does."

Emmy-winner Uzo Aduba admits it took her time to fully embrace her signature smile. "For the majority of my first 18 years, I hated my gap. My mom would tell me that in Nigeria, it's a sign of beauty. I was like, 'We're in Massachusetts.'" She continues, "Today there's not a selfie or personal photo I take where I'm not smiling wide. It sometimes feels as if I'm making up for lost smiles."

Blub.

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Why I Dig Melissa McCarthy

by Shaker Lysis

[Content Note: Fat bias; misogyny.]

Since appearing in Bridesmaids, for which she received an Oscar nomination, Melissa McCarthy has become one of Hollywood's most bankable stars. She has done so in the face of rampant misogyny and fat shaming. This week, she will release Spy, her third collaboration with director Paul Feig. As Melissa McEwan noted earlier this year, "part of the premise of the film is a fat woman's cultural invisibility becoming her biggest asset."

McCarthy doesn't have the luxury of cultural invisibility anymore, and her very existence as a happy and successful fat woman has made her a target. As she promotes Spy, she is speaking up more about the challenges she faces, and confronting the misogyny and fat shaming head on.

The backlash against McCarthy became most prominent upon the release of Tammy, her first leading role that was marketed solely on her appeal. The film was a big financial success, making more than four times its limited budget, and it did it all on McCarthy's name. As McEwan noted, "It's like suddenly time to criticize her when she's saying LOOK RIGHT AT ME. That's no coincidence."

She was chastised for allowing herself to look physically unappealing, despite that being consistent with the character she was playing. When she was back playing a supporting role in Bill Murray's St. Vincent, (a critically acclaimed film where Murray's character was not costumed and styled to conform to beauty standards, yet nobody criticized that because it was what the character required), one of those critics of Tammy had the audacity to go up to her and praise her work in the new film. This was her response:

"Are you the one who wrote I was only a good actor when I looked more attractive and that my husband should never be allowed to direct me because he allowed me to look so homely?" she asked him.

He admitted he was. "Would you say that to any guy?" she continued. "When John C. Reilly—or any actor—is playing a character that is depressed and dejected, would you say, 'Well, you look terrible!'?" She asked the critic if he had a daughter. He did. "Watch what you say to her," she told him. "Do you tell her she's only worthwhile or valid when she's pretty?"

McCarthy went on to lambaste the sexism that plagues her industry:

"It's an intense sickness," she says. "For someone who has two daughters, I'm wildly aware of how deep that rabbit hole goes. But I just don't want to start listening to that stuff. I'm trying to take away the double standard of 'You're an unattractive bitch because your character was not skipping along in high heels.'"

One thing that I find very powerful about McCarthy publicly speaking out is that she's refusing to pretend the criticism doesn't hurt. The personal backlash against Tammy has led to her not reading negative press anymore:

"I've stopped because I finally said, 'This is not making me better. This hurts my heart,'" she says.

Her unique position as a visible fat woman put enormous pressure on her to be invulnerable to criticism so her confidence can be praised (and used as a weapon against other fat women who would do so much better if they just had confidence). She won't do that. I think that's important, and I think it's connected to her insistence that she be a fully realized human being in real life as much as she is onscreen.

See, there's something different about how McCarthy works. With every film she's in, the knot in my stomach that waits for her to be an object of ridicule because of her appearance is smaller. Because those moments don't come. Not that her appearance is never ridiculed on screen, but we're never meant to laugh at her. The audience's scorn is always directed at those who do the ridiculing.

McCarthy and Feig both commented on why that is in the same article linked above, though it was only included in the print edition:

McCarthy said she fell hard for Spy's Susan Cooper - "I really kind of miss her now" - which she has a habit of doing when she locks into a character's messy complexity. "Family, friends - we're all the sum of our weird quirks," she says. "I don't want to watch the perfect person. But some strange person who is riddled with tics? Those are the people - and I mean this lovingly - that I will follow around the Big Lots store, that I could watch all day."

Inevitably McCarthy becomes protective of her creations. "I've been lucky enough to play women that I truly love even if their actions aren't always so great," she says. "I don't know if I could play a character I didn't like."

Feig says this is exactly why he and McCarthy are well suited for each other. "I have an inherent hatred of comedy where the performer clearly has a disdain for the character they're playing," he says. "That's what a lot of comedy in past years has felt like to me: somebody who's funny going, 'I'm playing this really stupid character. I know he's stupid and you think he's stupid, so let's have fun laughing at him.' Melissa and I don't like that. We want people to care about them - you laugh with them and laugh at their expense occasionally, but you still want them to succeed."

Feig's pro-female stance makes him an outlier as a male director, and McCarthy believes that widespread change can only occur when systemic gender discrimination in Hollywood is addressed. As she told MTV:

"I would love to be directed by more women," McCarthy said. "I think there's so many points of view, that you want to make sure your stories are being told from men and women… you get all of the different backgrounds. You don't want every story being told from the same point of view. So just for better storytelling, I'm like, 'yes, please, bring some more ladies on.'"

McCarthy's not the only bankable female star making that push. Meryl Streep has been working with female directors more than any other star, yet it went completely without notice that it was a female director—Phyllida Lloyd—that, with two separate films, earned Streep her biggest box office hit hit and then her first Oscar in 29 years.

But McCarthy's success in genres traditionally dominated by men give her an opportunity to be heard that is unparalleled in Hollywood history. Here's hoping filmmakers listen.

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Fat Is a Feminist Issue: Concert Tee Shirts

by Sue Kerr, who can be found blogging at Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents and tweeting at @PghLesbian24.

[Content Note: Sizism.]

I'm not a big fan of live music so my collection of concert shirts is pretty limited. My partner, Ledcat, on the other hand loves both—she has a closet filled with shirts and an impressive collection of ticket stubs.

The shirt is a tangible reminder to her of the live music experience—a memento, a souvenir, and an opportunity to immerse herself in the actual experience each time she pulls the shirt out of the drawer. It is more than a memory; it is a reflection of her very real bond with the music and the artist.

I like tee shirts quite a bit, but there's one significant difference—Ledcat is a size medium and I am between an XL and a 2x. And even allowing for the "fit" difference in tee shirt styles, she always finds a shirt that fits. That's not even a question—for her it is more about selecting a style or design. As a larger sized fan, I am not so fortunate.

When we went to our first Sleater-Kinney show in March, I was pretty excited to have a real feminist music experience. Ledcat bought herself a medium shirt and I thought it was sort of cool, so she tried to find a 2x for me (it looked like slim cut.) No dice—just a XL in tee shirts. They did have a 2x hoodie for $60, but that's far more than I'll pay for any hoodie. So I opted for an XL and hoped for the best.

I took a closer look at the shirt later in the week. It was made in a sweatshop free factory which is great. It wasn't terribly expensive ($25) which is also great. But when I put the shirt on my body, I hated it. It was clingy and uncomfortable. I immediately consigned it to the "wear around the house or under something" pile. I was bummed.

I looked at the Sleater-Kinney website and still saw nothing bigger than an XL. That seems very odd for a feminist rock group. After all, isn't fat a feminist issue? Wouldn't a feminist group be conscious of the fans who wear larger sizes?

Why does it matter?

Two reasons. First, I expect feminist bands to be conscious of the inclusion of all of their fans in the fan experience. The graphic designers and printers I asked about sizing told me that bands requesting 2X or larger usually do so because of an actual person that they know—a fan, a band member, family, etc. In other words, they have a personal awareness of the need for larger sizes. That makes sense, but I would expect feminist groups to have that heightened awareness on a systemic level—much like buying shirts that are sweatshop free. It isn't just a personal favor; it is a conscious choice by the artists to invite all of us into the full-fan experience, not just those in typical sizes.

Second, the merch is a way to engage the community. If I walk around with a Sleater-Kinney shirt, the world knows that people like me are fans and listen to the music. People whose bodies that look like mine. I'm not just a listener; I'm a fan. It is a message that transcends my personal engagement. The XL shirt that I bought is cute, but not comfortable so it will never see the world. Or be seen by the world. It will be a sleep shirt or a shirt used for layering during cool weather. I won't put it on because I want to be a fan that afternoon; I'll put it on without any real conscious thought. Or worse I'll just cram it into the back of my closet because it annoys me to think that I dropped $25 on a shirt I don't really like until a few years down the road when I finally think to donate it to Goodwill.

After first posing this question to the Shakesville community in comments, I started doing some digging to see what sizes are available online. I could identify only three artists who profess feminist ideals offering shirts in size 3x—Mary Lambert, Nicki Minaj, and Beth Ditto (of Gossip). Several have a few options in size 2x, including Ani DiFranco, Beyoncé, The Indigo Girls, Miley Cyrus, Kelly Clarkson, and Taylor Swift. Janelle Monáe had extra smalls, but no XL or above on her website. Queen Latifah has an entire clothing line devoted to plus-sized women, but I can't find any licensed official merch items.

A few things to keep in mind: First, online stores don't necessarily reflect merch options on the road. Second, I limited my search to artists who have the financial resources to spend extra funds on printing multiple sizes. I realize many feminist artists are touring out of suitcases and have more limited means to invest in merchandise. Third, this is a limited sample based on my own perspective of feminism and musicians. I visited the merchandise stores a few times to confirm sizes. I did reach out to Mary Lambert, Beth Ditto, and to Sleater Kinney for comment, but got no responses.

And, finally, what about fans who wear sizes larger than a 3x who are seemingly shut out of the entire realm of tee shirt fandom? Should they just buy a CD and an embossed baseball cap?

There's no reason a website store cannot offer a variety of sizes, even if they may have to take backorders. The per-shirt cost of larger sizes can be absorbed into overall prices of all shirts—I did the math with several graphic printers. On the road? Yes, you run out of certain sizes. But if you tell me I can order online through your website, I personally probably would do so to get the shirt that I want.

And rest assured I want to get that shirt, enough that I did all of this research around the issue. The end goal is to convince more artists to invest in all of their fans, across all of our body sizes.

What concert shirts would you like to see available in sizes larger than XL?

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Fat and the Bikini Body Meme

[Content Note: Fat hatred; body policing.]

It's again that time of year where a popular meme starts showing up on social media. It tends to feature silhouettes of what are meant to be read as female bodies, including or sometimes exclusively very fat bodies, and text that is some variation on: "How to Get a Bikini Body: Step 1: Buy a bikini. Step 2: Put it on your body."

Let me first say, once again, that fat women are not a monolith, and different fat women will have different reactions to this meme. I don't purport to speak for all fat women, some of whom like this meme very much, and I am not seeking to police or criticize their individual reactions to it.

I do, however, want to do some awareness-raising on behalf of the fat women who aren't so keen on the meme, because I know there are a lot of thin and in-betweenie women who spend time in this space who want to do good fat ally work and may not have considered some of the reasons not all fat women find it a strictly positive or supportive message.

So, here are a couple of things to consider before you share this image under the auspices of being a fat ally (or even as a fat person):

1. Not all fat women can buy a bikini. That's not just a consideration of financial realities, which are always at issue in consumerist memes, but it's also a reflection of the fact that even off-the-rack (or off-the-website) "plus-size" bikinis have a finite size range.

There are sites who will custom-make bikinis for women of any size based on their individual measurements, but that is, of course, a costly option. And naturally there are women who are skilled enough to make their own bikinis, but that is not an option for anyone who lacks those talents.

Casually suggesting that all fat women can just go "buy a bikini," without any acknowledgment of the fact that purchasing a bikini in one's size might not be an option, especially for very fat women, is not supportive. It also reinforces the idea that there's an "acceptable" level of fatness which tops out at the maximum size of most "plus-size" fashion lines, and anyone whose body exceeds those standard sizes is thus "unacceptably" fat.

2. Putting a bikini on one's fat body is not just about the physical act of getting into a swimsuit. There are all kinds of cultural disincentives to be a fat woman in a bikini in public, and we are obliged to navigate them no matter how much we might love our own bodies.

There is a vast difference in being a woman who has insecurities about a body in which she sees imperfections but is broadly culturally acceptable, and a woman who has insecurities about a body that significantly deviates from what is considered culturally acceptable. That is not to diminish, at all, the seriousness of body insecurities no matter what one's size. It is merely to observe that even if fat women get okay with their own bodies, there is not an existing cultural space in which we are accepted.

There's no equivalent for fat women to the narrative "we all have flaws!" No deviation from some impossible ideal should ever regarded as a "flaw," anyway, but fat is not regarded as a mere flaw.

And we are not, outside fat acceptance spaces, celebrated for a willingness to show our bodies "despite" their imperfections. We are not considered brave. We are harassed, shamed, policed, threatened, attacked.

The thing about "love your body" campaigns for my fat self is that I can love my body all the fuck I want, but the bigger problem for me is other people hating my body.

It's so much more complicated than just putting on a bikini, for lots of fat women. We need to respect and recognize that.

* * *

This isn't a comprehensive list of potential objections. I hope if fat women share in comments any additional concerns they may have with the meme, not-fat women will listen to their perspectives.

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I Love This

"Plus-Sized Model Challenges Beauty Standards By Starring in Her First Modelling Shoot." Tess Holliday is a "plus-size model" who does not just have the same acceptable body shape but slightly bigger, as we've come to expect when we hear "plus-size model." She is fat. She has dimpled thighs. She has tummy rolls. She has fat upper arms that roll at her elbow.

Just like mine. The ones about which I've been so sensitive for years, and I look at her fat tattooed arms and I think they are gorgeous, and I stop hating mine just a little bit more.

Says Holliday: "There is no one way to be a woman, or to be beautiful. We all deserve a place."

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Research Confirms What Fat People Have Been Saying

[Content Note: Fat hatred; food policing; diet talk; disordered eating.]

This is a pretty terrific interview with Traci Mann, "who teaches psychology at the University of Minnesota and has been studying eating habits, self-control and dieting for more than 20 years...at the University of Minnesota's Health and Eating Lab," and who has a newly published book titled Secrets from the Eating Lab, in which she explains why diets don't work for the vast majority of people long-term.

And, again, it's another situation in which research has simply confirmed what many of the people being researched have been saying about their own lived experiences for a very long time, so, hey, maybe we could have just listened to them and treated them as authorities on their own lives, but, okay, since lots of people refuse to do that, it's great to have Official Science to which to point, saying the same thing.

Which essentially boils down to this: People have natural body diversity; dieting fundamentally changes your body; the issue is not as simple as "willpower."

[Related Reading: "No one wants to be fat."]

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Hero Things

[Content Note: Fat hatred.]

Last week, I wrote a piece about not using fat as shorthand to indicate that a character is bad, which ended thus: "It's not just important to avoid writing fat villains whose fat is used to lazily communicate their inherent badness. It's also important to write fat heroes."

In response, I received an email from a rather defensive professional storyteller who wanted to assure me that the ubiquity of fat villains is just a coincidence, but conceded that I had a point about the lack of fat heroes. Only to then ask: "What would a fat hero do, though?"

I read it. I read it again. I blinked at the screen.

At first, I didn't even understand the question. Then slowly it dawned on me, with a sickening twist in my gut, as these things always do, that the question was indicative of how thoroughly dehumanized fat people are, our lives so invisibilized and our bodies so pathologized that we are a mystery to our fellow travelers on this bit of dirt.

What would a fat hero do, though?

Save the world. Rescue people. Leap over tall buildings in a single bound. Fly. Run so fast they are but a blur to mere mortal eyes. Lift mountains. Traverse oceans. Fight for justice. Rescue a kitten stuck up a tree. Stop an oncoming train with a single hand. Drive an amphibious car. Throw a weaponized bowtie with alarming accuracy. Wear a cool costume. Pilot an invisible jet. Walk through walls. Get the bad guys. Travel with a sidekick. Reverse time. Catch a nuclear bomb in their bare hands. Fight off an alien invasion. Lead an alien invasion. Negotiate with an alien overlord. Punch an alien overlord. Pow! Drag themselves up from the rubble to make one last stand when all hope seems lost. Morph into a bird, a leopard, a shark. Fall in love. Ride a glorious stallion into battle. Pull a sword from a stone. Breathe life back into a fellow hero. Breathe life back into a nemesis. Have a secret identity. Search for the truth about one's mysterious origins. Go on a quest. Fall from grace. Redeem themselves. Fail. Triumph. Win the day.

A fat hero would do hero things.

This should be as obvious as understanding that an XL t-shirt does the same thing as an XS t-shirt. T-shirts, whatever their size, do the thing that t-shirts are supposed to do.

But fat humans are not regarded as doing the things that humans do. We are presumed to lead different lives, limited lives, less than lives. And if there is evidence that our lives look very much like our thin counterparts, then our experiences are questioned and demeaned. Your happiness isn't genuine happiness. Your marathoning is inferior marathoning. Your day at the beach is a sad day at the beach. Your love isn't real love.

Which is the way we rationalize how it's possible that a fat person, who is not meant to deserve any of these things—joy, motion, social participation, affection—somehow manages to have them all the same.

We can't even imagine that a fat mortal lives a human life. No wonder we can't imagine what it is that a fat hero would do.

This is the reality of a fat person's lived experience: It is easier for someone telling the stories of heroes to conjure a man from another planet who can fly, shoot lasers out of his eyes, blow icy cold wind from his lips, lift the earth itself, and successfully conceal himself behind a pair of glasses than it is to imagine a single thing of which a fat hero might be capable.

Imaginary heroes are more real to us than ordinary fat people.

I say again: It is important to write fat heroes. And fat heroes do hero things.

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A Life of Having

[Content Note: Fat hatred; weight loss talk.]

"Fat girls have fucking nothing." This is the first line of Kaye Toal's beautiful essay "How Finding a Fat FA Heroine Changed My Life." And that line—it is a true thing.

Fat girls have fucking nothing, by design. The life of a fat girl is one of being constantly admonished to lose pieces of oneself. To lose weight, certainly. But also to lose one's self-esteem. To lose one's expectations of success, of accomplishment, of contentment, of joy. To lose one's very visibility to the rest of the world.

All of these things are contingent upon getting thin. And if you don't get thin, if you don't lose weight, you instead continue to lose more and more of yourself, under a metric fuckton of hatred and contempt of fat people.

You don't get to define yourself. You don't get the presumption of competence, or intelligence, or wit. You don't get invitations, or promotions, or fashionable clothes that fit you. You don't get to be confident. You don't get to be beautiful, or sexy, or desired. You don't get to date. You don't get to be loved.

And if you have the unmitigated temerity to take those things for yourself, in radical resistance to a culture telling you that you aren't allowed to have them, you get abuse.

Abuse is the one thing fat girls always have, in bountiful abundance.

Lose weight. Stop eating. Deny your sexuality. Hide yourself. Don't take up space. Be small. Be invisible. Be quiet. Don't eat that. Don't move in public. Don't make a scene. Don't wear that. Put down the fork. Lower your expectations. Lower your voice. Keep your thoughts to yourself. Cover your body. Quit making people uncomfortable. Lose weight. Get lost. Lose yourself.

Being a fat girl is a life of deprivation, until you are left with nothing.

Because you either lose weight, or you will lose everything else. Every other thing that can be taken from you, by force or neglect or aggressive cruelty.

You don't have anything, and you don't deserve anything.

What you get is a constant drumbeat of messaging that you will—and should—live a terrible, unfulfilling, limited life because you are fat.

You get a tiny little cage, in which you're meant to stay unless you can change your body and squeeze through the bars.

You get the tools to reinforce the iron frame of your own confinement, but not the tools to break free.

Unless you happen to stumble upon fat acceptance.

Fat acceptance might feel like the first gift you've ever gotten, the first gift designed and selected just for you, and carefully wrapped in shimmering paper of your favorite colors. It feels precious and exotic and invigorating, like fresh air reaching the deepest part of your lungs after too long underwater.

Because fat acceptance might be the first thing that any fat girl experiences that doesn't want to diminish her; doesn't want to take something away from her—but instead wants to give her something.

Wants to give her life.

When I first encountered fat acceptance, and fat advocacy, I didn't have fucking nothing anymore. Suddenly, like the burst of colorful light from an exploding firework shattering the darkness of the night sky, I had something.

I had confirmation of my humanity, and validation of my suspicion that I actually did deserve to have things, to be things, to be.

I had access to people who looked like me and valued themselves and other people like us. I had a map to take me on a journey to having more and more and more. I had a filter through which to look at the life I was already living, and see that it mattered—see that my life "counted," even while I was living it in a fat body.

I had freedom from shame and anxiety and rigidly self-imposed (and externally imposed) boundaries around what I could and couldn't do, who I could and couldn't be.

I had my life. I had my voice. I had myself.

I had a chance, an opportunity, a way to open up the tightly-closed vault sitting in my chest to people who wanted to fill it with good things.

And I had desire for more. Everything that had been taken from me, or that I'd conceded because I felt like I didn't deserve it, or for which I hadn't reached because I felt like I hadn't earned the right since I wasn't thin.

I wanted it all. And I still want it all.

I want it all for me, and I want it all for every other fat girl.

I want none of us to ever live a life of losing. Of being told to lose weight, of trying to lose weight just to deserve, of losing pieces of ourselves in increments as penance for not losing weight.

I want us to live a life of having.

Having what we deserve and what we want, whatever that looks like for us as individual people.

I am not losing and lost anymore.

I have. I have confidence. I have self-worth. I have freedom from the obligation to apologize for my existence with reflexive self-loathing. I have a job that is meaningful to me. I have friends who I love with enough love to fill galaxies, and who love me right back. I have game nights, bad movie nights, make love 'til dawn nights. I have problems, but they are problems of any life, not a life I feel is less than. I have the best cats and dogs. I have a home with a warm red wall. I have clothes that I like and that fit my body. I have tattoos. I have wacky hair. I have a partner who complements me, and who takes my face in his freckled hands and looks at me with gold-flecked green eyes so full of abundant knowing and affection that my heart feels like it will burst right out of my chest. I have safety in that space. I have contentment. I have the gift of having.

I am a fat girl who fucking has.

And the only thing I lose now, because I am fat, is anyone who wants to deny me the right to have what I need to be whole.

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Recommended Reading

[Content Note: Discussion of fat hatred, diet industry, body policing. Photos at links may be NSFW.]

If you're not familiar with the Adipositivity project, you need to check it out, because it is amazing. It's a now 8-year-old photography project by Substantia Jones which "aims to promote the acceptance of benign human size variation and encourage discussion of body politics, not by listing the merits of big people, or detailing examples of excellence (these things are easily seen all around us), but rather through a visual display of fat physicality. The sort that's normally unseen."

And then you need to read this great interview with Substantia about the project, and its objectives, and the people who participate in it.

I am so grateful for this project, which has meant a lot to me for many years. And I am so indebted to Substantia Jones, who has had such a positive influence on me and countless other people.

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An Observation

[Content Note: Fat hatred.]

Fat haters think that fat advocacy is about asking people to like you.

No.

Fat advocacy is about asking people to respect you. And about liking yourself, irrespective of whether anyone else does.

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In the News

Here is some stuff in the news today...

A small drone crashed on the White House property this morning whut whut whut: "A small drone flying at low altitude crashed into the White House complex before dawn Monday, the Secret Service said. President Barack Obama was not at home and the White House said it did not pose a security threat. The crash prompted an immediate lockdown of the White House grounds until officials could examine the drone. The Secret Service said the 2-foot-long device was a quadcopter—a small, unmanned aircraft that is lifted by four propellers. 'An investigation is underway to determine the origin of this commercially available device, motive, and to identify suspects,' said Secret Service spokesman Brian Leary." GOOD GRIEF WHAT IS GOING ON WITH WHITE HOUSE SECURITY?!

[Content Note: Terrorism; violence] Boko Haram unleashed a serious assault on the northeast Nigerian city of Maiduguri over the weekend: "Officials here called it the group's most audacious assault on the city to date. ...The attack on this city of more than two million people, a commercial and administrative hub, began late Saturday when the militants from the Islamist insurgency rushed in from at least two directions. Loud explosions could be heard in the center of the city, as well as small-arms fire and artillery in its suburbs. The attack was a significant thrust forward in a creeping campaign that began last summer to encircle Maiduguri, officials said. 'Certainly this is the most serious attack yet,' said Kashim Shettima, the governor of Borno State, of which Maiduguri is the capital. 'We faced a really existential threat.'" The Boko Haram fighters were eventually pushed back, but dozens of soldiers defending the city were killed in the battle. Fucking hell.

Something about gold prices after the Greek elections, which ushered in an anti-austerity coaltion.

In good news: US District Court Judge Callie V. S. Granade has ruled Alabama's ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional: "According to Granade's ruling, Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange failed to explain how allowing or recognizing same-sex marriage between two consenting adults prevents heterosexual parents from caring for their biological children. 'If anything, Alabama's prohibition of same-sex marriage detracts from its goal of promoting optimal environments for children,' the ruling states. 'Those children currently being raised by same-sex parents in Alabama are just as worthy of protection and recognition by the State as are the children being raised by opposite-sex parents.'" BOOM. Congratulations, Alabama!

In more good news: Monica Jones' conviction for "walking while trans" has been overturned. Yay!

In even more good news: Viola Davis and Uzo Aduba made Screen Actors Guild Awards history last night, as Davis won outstanding lead actress in a drama for How to Get Away with Murder and Aduba won outstanding lead actress in a comedy for Orange Is the New Black. It's the first time ever that both winning lead actresses were black. Congratulations to both of them!

Also: Viola Davis' acceptance speech was awesome, because OF COURSE IT WAS!

[CN: White supremacy] This piece by Amy Davidson on "Why Selma Is More Than Fair to L.B.J." is so, so good. You should definitely read it!

[CN: Misogynist terrorism] What the absolute fuck: Five Wikipedia editors have been banned from "making corrections to articles about feminism" by Wikipedia's "arbitration committee, the highest user-run body on the site," because they were actively preventing the Wiki "GamerGate" entry from becoming a cesspool of lies about "ethics in game journalism." Goddammit.

These images of fat and in-betweenie women nailing yoga poses are amazing. The next time you hear someone saying fat bodies are ugly, or incapable, or weak, just send them this link with all the mirthless laughter in the multiverse.

OMGOMOMG: Two rescued baby eagle-owls trying to figure out how to play with tennis balls. Squeeeeee they are sooooo cute!!!

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