I Write Letters

[Content note: fat-shaming, CICO talk, ableism.]

Dear Fat-Haters at my University,

Thank you so much for your latest missive. I can't tell you how excited I am that you've launched a new program to deal with me and my fat body, in the guise of "fitness."

It was fascinating to learn that your concern comes from the CDC statistics on obesity and the "economic effects" of obesity. I mean, at least you were honest; you didn't pretend that this was really about making my life better. It's all about the "economic effects."

(Presumably, we fatties [rather than the state legislature] are responsible for the continuing decline in public university funding. Wow! How did we do that? I have no idea, but if you have any thoughts on how we might re-focus our amazing ability to suck dollars down like the cheeseburgers you think we live on, let me know. I'd much rather use my FATSUCK! economic power to, say, de-fund the Republican Party.)

But anyway! Since you're being honest about why you want to get rid of me, let me be honest with you. I don't think that issuing pedometers to teams of walkers (who will also learn yoga, meditation, and nutrition facts) is going to work. You see, the causes of obesity are somewhat more complex than you seem to think. Many of us fatties are already exercising and burning quite a few calories. Since I currently run 3-4 times a week, and do heavy outside work, walk, dance, or weightlift on most other days, I wonder if you're thinking that switching over to just walking is actually going to make me thinner.

What about your participants with genuinely disordered eating or depression? Do you really think that your program is better than, say, counseling? Or people with thyroid disease or other conditions affecting their weight? Is your magical pedometer going to fix a non-functioning thryoid? Because, frankly, fat-shaming is a barrier to all kinds of medical treatment. If you force people to "prove" they're a "good fatty" before seeing their doctors, are you really contributing their health? Survey says: NO.

And are those people stuck in food deserts, or residing in unsafe neighborhoods, or living with physical disabilities, magically going to have access to better food and safe walking conditions and functional hips/knees/legs/etc. simply because you issued them a pedometer? THIS PEDOMETER IS TRULY MADE OF MAGIC! (And gnome kisses and unicorn farts, natch.)

And, finally: it's nice and all that you have "group walks around campus" scheduled as an optional part of your activities, but you DO realize that you are launching your program in July in a Southern state where the temperatures at your scheduled walktimes range from 85-90+ degrees Fahrenheit? And a humidity of... well, I don't know the scientific terms, but I'd estimate it at OMFG IS THAT JACQUES COUSTEAU SNORKELING DOWN THE STREET -type levels. Is that supposed to be a sustainable, healthy behavior? I don't think very many of your participants will actually find that invigorating or fun. So much for enjoyable exercise!

(Maybe I'm being overly pessimistic. But maybe I'm just not an amphibian!)

I could add a lot of other examples, but the bottom line is: sustained, long-term weight loss is a lot less commmon than you seem to think. I think you're setting people up to fail in this goal of weight-loss, and then to feel even worse about themselves thanks to fat-shaming. And that's a shame.

It's a shame, because you COULD have offered walking teams and nutrition advice and yoga and meditation practice and group walks in a different way. You could have been HAES-friendly and put this out there as an opportunity for anybody to reach a variety of fitness or health or lifestyle goals. After all, plenty of thin AND fat AND in-between people might want encouragement in walking, or information about nutrition, or meditation, or wev. And some people might find part of your program practical, but not all of it. For example, a person with mobility issues might find your walking program difficult or impossible, but welcome the chance to learn about stress reduction and meditation.

But that would have involved respecting that we are individuals who are experts on our own experiences.

By the way, I especially enjoyed the irony of this email coming right after the one about increasing "diversity and inclusion" on campus. You might have considered how your email would read to fat people as a part of that effort. You might have considered, too, the intersectional ways that fat-shaming is tied up with racism, sexism, and discrimination against people with disabilities and chronic disease, to name only a few issues. But no, thanks for letting us know that those systemic problems can be easily overcome by individual effort, if we will only do chin-ups with our BOOTSTRAPS!

In short, I can't think of anything that feels less "healthy and fit" than being shamed for my fat body, condescended to as if I am lazy and ignorant about my own life, and being pressured to join walks under conditions that both my veterinarian and physician say are not a great idea. "Not fit for (hu)man nor beast," as my mother used to say.

But it's good to know what kind of treatment is just fine for fatties.

No Love,

Aphra

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Daily Dose of Cute

"It's a day!"
Bonus Zelda: The other day, Paul the Spud sent me an adorable picture of his dog Rory rolling around on the rug, and I took this video for him of Zelly doing the same thing. She has a minor grass allergy, and everything is SO ITCHY after Iain mows the grass!


Video Description: Zelda the Black and Tan Mutt sits in the middle of the living room, scratching her ear with her back foot. She then dives face-first onto the rug and rubs her face with her paws. She rolls over onto her side to rub her head on the rug. She sneezes. Then she sits back up and scratches her ear with her back foot again, before trotting out of the room.

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As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.

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In The News

[Content note: Gun violence, homophobia, terrorism]

All Wormholes Belong to Morgan Freeman:

The crane operator wanted on involuntary manslaughter and other charges tied to a deadly Philadelphia building collapse has turned himself in.

Prince Harry saved an openly-gay soldier from a violent attack.

Long Island Democrat Steve Israel will introduce legislation that would see the repeal of dishonorable discharges of gays and lesbians who were drummed out of the military when their sexuality was revealed.

Abigail Heyman, a photographer whose stark portraits of women at work, at home and at weddings gave a visual concreteness to feminist doctrine of the 1970s about the oppressiveness of traditional female roles, has died.

Welcome to Obama's America!!!

Cory Booker has declared his candidacy for the Senate in this year's special election to fill the seat of the late Democratic Senator Frank Lautenberg.

Mitt Romney: Still a jackass.

A 4-year-old boy accidentally shot and killed his father in Arizona this weekend.

An actress who appeared in a bit part on The Walking Dead has been arrested for recent ricin mailings.

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Hillary Clinton on Twitter

Hillary Clinton is now on Twitter, y'all. No tweets yet, as she is probably waiting for Twitter verification, but even her Twitter bio is amazing.

Deeky and I are currently forming a band called The Pantsuit Aficionados. FYI.

[H/T to Alison.]

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Cultural Reproductive Coercion: What About the Men?

[Content Note: Reproductive coercion; hostility to consent.]

Since I wrote about cultural reproductive coercion last week, I've gotten a number of emails and linkage from people Very Concerned about the men who are victimized by women who get pregnant without their male partner's consent. So let's talk about that.

First of all, that happens. And it is no less shitty or unethical when women deceive men into parenting against their wills than when men deceive women in the same way. Full stop. No caveats.

There are, however, some related issues that warrant further discussion.

1. The perception that female coercion is more pervasive is almost certainly based on the fact that narratives of female reproductive coercion are more pervasive. We are all socialized with stories of desperate or vindictive women who "get themselves" pregnant to "trap" a man (or to enrich herself some other way, i.e. "welfare queen" tropes), but there is no equivalent archetype in mainstream culture of the man who sabotages a partner's birth control and/or coerces her into pregnancy. To the contrary, a man who puts pressure on his female partner to have a baby is often celebrated as a rare specimen. "Isn't she lucky to have a man who wants to be a father?" These disparate gender narratives about coercive partners act in service to the perception that women are predominantly the perpetrators of reproductive coercion.

2. Contraception user error, which is the primary cause of contraception failure, is frequently conflated with birth control fraud. These are not the same thing. A woman who is taking a daily birth control pill, for example, might undermine its efficacy because she doesn't understand the importance of taking the pill every day. One of the effects of contraception-averse sex ed is leaving young women with less knowledge about how contraception actually works. A woman who lacks information, or who has the right information but is careless about taking her pills daily, is not malicious. (Also note that trouble with maintaining self-care is a feature of some very common neurological disorders and mental illnesses.)

3. Women are not exclusively responsible for pregnancy prevention. Sexually active cis men who don't want to become fathers can wear condoms. And should. Condoms they take the responsibility to purchase and unwrap and put on before engaging in PIV intercourse. Taking no active role in pregnancy prevention, and simply trusting that a partner will be wholly responsible for contraception—using it at all, and using it correctly—is lazy and irresponsible garbage. Men can (and should) empower themselves to be part of pregnancy prevention. Put a raincoat on your dick, fellas.

4. Finally, we need to acknowledge the disparity in reasons why men and women tend to engage in reproductive coercion. Generally, men engage in reproductive coercion to control partners by making them dependent, not explicitly (or at all) because they want to be fathers. Generally, women engage in reproductive coercion because their value as humans is deeply tied to their reproduction—they explicitly want to be mothers. That doesn't make one less problematic than the other, but it's an important difference to understand, because they require some different solutions.

Dismantling cultural reproductive coercion is important in both cases. It condones and abets the pressuring of partners, and it is a key tool in conveying to girls and women that they are only worth as much as their willingness and ability to birth babies.

What about the men? Well, the patriarchy and its culture of systemic cultural coercion is bad for them, too.

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Zimmerman Trial: Jury Selection Begins Today

[Content Note: Gun violence.]

Today begins jury selection in the trial of George Zimmerman, who killed unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin.

Lawyers estimate the long-awaited trial will last four to eight weeks. Much of that time is expected to be spent picking a six-person jury that can be open-minded despite extensive publicity about some of the explosive issues, including racial profiling and self-defense, surrounding the case.

"They're going to have a tough time picking a jury. At this point who doesn't know who Trayvon Martin is and who George Zimmerman is," said David Weinstein, a former state prosecutor and criminal defense lawyer.

Zimmerman, a 29-year-old former neighborhood watch volunteer, faces up to life in prison if convicted as charged of second-degree murder.

More than 200 journalists have signed up to cover the trial and a tight blanket of security will be enforced by federal, state and local police in and around the courthouse in this town near Orlando in central Florida.

Even spectators in barricaded "public assembly zones" on the courthouse lawn will be subject to search. Four seats inside the courtroom will be rotated among local pastors who will monitor the trial and be ready to help calm any racial tensions.

The trial is being heralded as either a defining moment in the annals of civil rights, or an anti-climactic resolution of another senseless killing in gun-happy Florida.

Mmph. You know how I feel about calling this a "senseless" killing. It "made sense" to the person who did it, and it "made sense" to the local police who failed to arrest him for more than a month, and it "made sense" to every person who has spoken out in Zimmerman's defense, and it "made sense" to everyone who has donated to his defense fund.

Let us just hope the eventual jury consists of six people who don't think it "makes sense" to fancy oneself some sort of vigilante superhero, to stalk unarmed teenagers, and to take out a gun and kill them whether they do not or do confront you because you're being a scary, threatening, aggressive stalkfucker.

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The NSA Whistleblower

The whistleblower behind the NSA leak revealing a vast surveillance program has identified himself as 29-year-old Edward Snowden, an Army veteran and "former technical assistant for the CIA and current employee of the defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. Snowden has been working at the National Security Agency for the last four years as an employee of various outside contractors, including Booz Allen and Dell." He is currently in Hong Kong, living in a hotel room which he barely leaves.

Having watched the Obama administration prosecute whistleblowers at a historically unprecedented rate, he fully expects the US government to attempt to use all its weight to punish him. "I am not afraid," he said calmly, "because this is the choice I've made."

He predicts the government will launch an investigation and "say I have broken the Espionage Act and helped our enemies, but that can be used against anyone who points out how massive and invasive the system has become".

The only time he became emotional during the many hours of interviews was when he pondered the impact his choices would have on his family, many of whom work for the US government. "The only thing I fear is the harmful effects on my family, who I won't be able to help any more. That's what keeps me up at night," he said, his eyes welling up with tears.

...He described how he once viewed the internet as "the most important invention in all of human history". As an adolescent, he spent days at a time "speaking to people with all sorts of views that I would never have encountered on my own".

But he believed that the value of the internet, along with basic privacy, is being rapidly destroyed by ubiquitous surveillance. "I don't see myself as a hero," he said, "because what I'm doing is self-interested: I don't want to live in a world where there's no privacy and therefore no room for intellectual exploration and creativity."

Once he reached the conclusion that the NSA's surveillance net would soon be irrevocable, he said it was just a matter of time before he chose to act. "What they're doing" poses "an existential threat to democracy", he said.

As strong as those beliefs are, there still remains the question: why did he do it? Giving up his freedom and a privileged lifestyle? "There are more important things than money. If I were motivated by money, I could have sold these documents to any number of countries and gotten very rich."

For him, it is a matter of principle. "The government has granted itself power it is not entitled to. There is no public oversight. The result is people like myself have the latitude to go further than they are allowed to," he said.

..."I carefully evaluated every single document I disclosed to ensure that each was legitimately in the public interest," he said. "There are all sorts of documents that would have made a big impact that I didn't turn over, because harming people isn't my goal. Transparency is."

Yesterday, the Justice Department confirmed it has launched a criminal investigation: "The Department of Justice is in the initial stages of an investigation into the unauthorized disclosure of classified information by an individual with authorized access. Consistent with long standing Department policy and procedure and in order to protect the integrity of the investigation, we must decline further comment."

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Open Thread

Hosted by burrowing owls. *knowing wink*

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Sunday Shuffle

Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Fishin' in the Dark
How about you?

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Open Thread

Hosted by the three weirdos.
This week's open threads have been brought to you by characters from the Oddworld universe.

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Open Thread

Hosted by the Stranger.

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The Virtual Pub Is Open

[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]

TFIF, Shakers!

Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!

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Catching Up with an Old Friend

James Franco, at the Cannes Film Festival last week.
What—did you think James Franco wasn't going to promote and premiere his newest film, an adaptation of William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying that he wrote, directed, and stars in, wearing a fedora and reflective sunglasses? You're so weird.

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I'm keen to see this film at some point. Whether it's good or bad, I suspect it will at least be interesting. (See: Generally why I am fascinated by James Franco.) I adore this lede in an LA Times piece about the film:

Even by the standards of 20th-century postmodernists, William Faulkner is considered a difficult, if not unfilmable, moviemaking challenge. His sentences can be fractured, his action can be interior and his points-of-view often splatter in 10 different directions.

So of course James Franco thought this was good movie material.

Because James Franco.

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Friday Blogaround

This blogaround brought to you by leather.

Recommended Reading:

Tara: Five Ineffective Policies Our Lawmakers Are Pushing Under the Guise of 'Keeping Women Safe' [Content Note: The post at this link includes an image of a woman firing a gun; included in the post is discussion of hostility to consent and agency; guns; misogyny; transphobia.]

Hannah: A Teen to Obama on Emergency Contraception: Stop Patronizing Me

Joaquin: Sexual Violence Prevalent in Juvenile Justice System [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of sexual violence and grooming victims.]

Andy: Kristin Beck, Transgender Former Navy SEAL, Gives Powerful Interview to Anderson Cooper [The full transcript will be here, when available.]

Transgender Law Center: Arizona Bathroom Bill Flushed Away—For Now [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of transphobic legislation.]

Isabella: Vote to Get More Female Lego Minifigs Made!

Angry Asian Man: Surprise! Runner Goes to the Hospital for Back Pain; Gives Birth to a Baby

Trudy: Black Women Who Love Beyoncé!

Melissa and Kerensa: The Hobbit Gets Some Female Power with Evangeline Lilly

Taegan: Anthony Weiner's Still a Jackass

Leave your links and recommendations in comments...

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The Most Adorable Hero Ever

[Content Note: Home fire.]

I love this girl so much I don't even know what to do with myself:

Reporter Gus Rosendale in voiceover, over image of 11-year-old Janixia Sota, a brown-skinned girl wearing a pink hoodie with her hair pulled into a ponytail, talking to a white man and a white woman on the sidewalk of a NYC street: Janixia Soto says instinct took over when she woke up to the smell of smoke.

Janixia Soto, onscreen: I don't know what I thought. I just, I was like, I was shocked, and I had just woken up, and I'm like, I never, like, I guess I never thought this would actually happen.

Rosendale in voiceover, over video of building: The fire started in the ground floor of this four-story Brooklyn building on East 18th Street, near Church Avenue, around six in the morning. The smoke swallowed the homes above. Janixia woke up her mom and younger brother, Walter [photograph of three-year-old Walter, a brown-skinned little boy with curly hair, wearing an orange shirt and holding a toy]—all of them trapped in their top-floor apartment. The eleven-year-old helped her family, including a pet dog and cat, get to the fire escape.

Soto, onscreen: I was thinking in my head, I was like, I hope this works; I hope this works; I hope this works!

Rosendale, in voiceover, over video of building: They made their way down, but then—another problem. The ladder was stuck. So Janixia looked down and made a tough call for a sixth-grader: She threw her younger brother to safety. She hoped and prayed neighbors down below would catch him. They did.

Soto, onscreen: My main concern, I guess, was to get him to safety. 'Cause I know how damaging smoke can be to, like, younger children.

Rosendale, in voiceover, over video of Soto holding the photograph of her brother Walter: Now Janixia is being called a hero. She says she's just a big sister—who knew what to do when every second counted.

Soto, onscreen: There was no time for me to, like, just stress and cry. No time at all. The main point was just: Get outta there and get safe.

That the fire escape failed in a crisis is unconscionable bullshit. But given that circumstance, I am awed by Janixia's calm under pressure, quick decision-making, and general competency in getting shit done. She is so smart, and so brave, and so precocious! I love her. And I'm so glad she and her family are safe.

[H/T to BYP.]

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This garbage doesn't only happen in Texas, but I am Texan, and I am angry.

[Content Note: Rape culture; gun violence; death; devaluing of sex workers.]

Via San Antonio news -- Jury acquits escort shooter:

A Bexar County jury on Wednesday acquitted Ezekiel Gilbert of murder in the death of a 23-year-old Craigslist escort. [...]

Had he been convicted, he could have faced up to life in prison for the slaying of Lenora Ivie Frago who died about seven months after she was shot in the neck and paralyzed on Christmas Eve 2009. Gilbert admitted shooting Frago.

“I sincerely regret the loss of the life of Ms. Frago,” Gilbert said Wednesday. “I've been in a mental prison the past four years of my life. I have nightmares. If I see guns on TV where people are getting killed, I change the channel.”

The verdict came after almost 11 hours of deliberations that stretched over two days. The trial began May 17 but had a long hiatus after a juror unexpectedly had to leave town for a funeral.

During closing arguments Tuesday, Gilbert's defense team conceded the shooting did occur but said the intent wasn't to kill. Gilbert's actions were justified, they argued, because he was trying to retrieve stolen property: the $150 he paid Frago. It became theft when she refused to have sex with him or give the money back, they said.

Gilbert testified earlier Tuesday that he had found Frago's escort ad on Craigslist and believed sex was included in her $150 fee. But instead, Frago walked around his apartment and after about 20 minutes left, saying she had to give the money to her driver, he said.

That driver, the defense contended, was Frago's pimp and her partner in the theft scheme.

The Texas law that allows people to use deadly force to recover property during a nighttime theft was put in place for “law-abiding” citizens, prosecutors Matt Lovell and Jessica Schulze countered. It's not intended for someone trying to force another person into an illegal act such as prostitution, they argued.

I don't know how to begin to express how horrified I am by this acquittal and the laws surrounding this case.

I am horrified that I live in a state where there is a law that allows people to use deadly force to recover stolen property, as if a television or a car or $150 is worth the cost of a human life. I am horrified that this law is being used (and of course it is being used) to justify homicides over what essentially amounts to business transaction disputes, as though someone taking money and then failing to provide an agreed-upon service is the same type of "theft" that was invoked in order to sell this law, which I can almost guarantee was instead marketed as a home invasion deterrent.

I am horrified that I live in a state where (apparently) the prostitution laws are written such that being a sex worker is illegal and profiting from sex work is illegal, but actually paying for sex work is either legal or of such dubious illegality that the prosecution in this case either couldn't or wouldn't or chose not to charge this murderer with soliciting prostitution even though his entire defense rested on the fact that he was paying his victim for sex and she was refusing to provide it. I am horrified to live in a state where sex workers -- who are routinely victimized by members of our society and by our laws -- are criminalized, but their clients are not, even when those clients commit crimes against them.

I am horrified that I live in a world where "he said, she said" is frequently invoked as a flippant defense for why rape cases should never be prosecuted because how can we ever really know, yano? but a man can be acquitted for murdering a woman simply by claiming that she wasn't providing the service he paid for in a timely fashion. I am horrified that apparently no one on the jury felt that a man who admitted to shooting a defenseless woman in the neck might not be motivated to tell the whole truth of the matter, or that it might be entirely plausible that this man judged the situation incorrectly and that the woman really was going to pay her driver and come back up, or that there was a whole other side to the altercation that we can never know because the victim is dead.

I am horrified that the jury took only eleven hours to acquit. I am horrified because I recognize it is not incidental that the victim in this case was (or is claimed to be) a sex worker, that she appears to be a woman of color, that her murderer appears to be a white man. I am horrified because no one on this jury or in this case apparently cared that Ezekiel Gilbert shot Lenora Ivie Frago with a gun because she didn't have sex with him in the time and manner that he demanded. For all that this is being spun as a case about theft or property or stolen goods or burglary, this case boils down to a man shooting a woman because he wasn't getting the sex he felt he was owed at the moment and in the manner that he wanted it. And now that woman is dead.

And because she was a sex worker, and because she was marginalized and he is privileged, a jury has ruled that it's okay. No harm. No foul. It's not like anyone important was killed today, it's not like anyone important was hurt by her death, it's not like anyone important will be terrorized in the wake of this blatant ruling that men can murder women and after the fact with no living witnesses to contradict them claim that they were sex workers who weren't performing according to expectations and thus get off free and clear. No, the important thing is that Ezekiel Gilbert will be able to move on from this terrible tragedy and begin to heal and maybe be able to watch television again someday.

Today, I'm ashamed of my state and afraid for the women in it.

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Daily Dose of Cute

"Don't hate me because I'm adorable."
Did you know that June is the ASPCA's Adopt a Shelter Cat Month? It is! If you've been thinking about rescuing a cat or kitten from a shelter, June is a great time to do it. Many shelters across the country have adoption specials on cats during the month of June, because overcrowding is a real problem this time of year with lots of kittens being born. On that note, if you have a cat who isn't fixed, June is also a great time to find lots of shelters and vets offering free or low-cost spaying and neutering.

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As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.

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This is so the worst thing you're going to read all day.

[Content Note: Misogyny.]

"Ladies, Want That Promotion? Then Quit Your Cheerful Demeanor." Subtitle: "Authority Doesn't Smile."

Fannie, brilliant as always, makes this observation about what is definitely the worst line in the piece:

Anyway, I want to end by noting an irritating line from the "cheerful demeanor" article.

"But before we start pointing fingers, know this: women too are guilty of holding these stereotypical views about female peers."

"But before we start pointing fingers"? What a truly strange, inapt thing to say immediately prior to pointing fingers at "women too."

The rest of her takedown is also great.

It's not like there's not another way to report the findings of yet another study concluding that women lag in workplace authority and/or promotions because of male privilege. There is. "Ladies, Want That Promotion? Then Let's Challenge and Dismantle Misogyny in the Workplace."

Because, ultimately, even coding this issue as one of "fe/male behavior" is a red herring. After all, women who "act like men," who are ambitious and assertive and confident and expect what they are owed, are not rewarded. They are demeaned as bitches who aren't acting enough like women.

Authority doesn't smile. Ha ha sure. And as soon as a woman stops smiling, we know what happens.

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In The News

[Content note: Violence, homophobia, fat hatred]

Friday Stuff:

A California anti-obesity campaign has Photoshoped kids in their ads to make them look fat.

Southern California Edison has announced it will permanently shut down the San Onofre nuclear power plant.

The Salvation Army believes gay parents deserve to be put to death.

Justin Bieber is going into outer space. Neat!

Esther Williams, a teenage swimming champion who became an enormous Hollywood star in a decade of watery MGM extravaganzas, has died. She was 91.

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I Write Letters

[Content Note: Discussion of fat-hating tropes.]

Dear Population Action International:

I really admire your advocacy on behalf of global access to modern contraceptives. I'm writing you this letter in good faith, as someone who values and supports your advocacy, in the hopes you will hear this criticism and use it to make your work even stronger.

My concern is about the infographic "The Dollars and Sense of Family Planning," which makes an excellent case for how logical and decent it is for the US to allocate funds to international family planning. Specifically, this part, intended to show how little, in the grand scheme of national spending, $1 billion really is:

Three of your four examples here are what is commonly referred to as "junk food" (a term I don't like because no food is "junk" to someone who needs the calories). And "junk food" is commonly associated with fat people—and increasingly associated with fat people, as the "war on obesity" is waged via public initiatives like Mayor Bloomberg's soda ban.

The intent of this graphic may not have been to suggest that spending $1 billion on candy, or Superbowl snacks, or potato chips, is profligate and self-indulgent spending, but it certainly reads that way to me.

I think there's a problem with focusing on what average people spend on anything, when US government spending on war and weapons, often in countries with low birth control access, is a more pertinent issue. But that problem is exacerbated when the specific implication is that people are spending money on a type of gluttony associated with fat people.

In a country where fat people are (wrongly) being blamed by their First Lady for higher healthcare costs and lower productivity, where we are blamed for the rising cost of airfare, for higher insurance premiums, for all sorts of financial burdens on "taxpayers" (as if we are not taxpayers ourselves)—and, further, in a country where we are often denied access to healthcare on the basis of being fat—it is not okay to even obliquely suggest that if only fatties weren't eating so many potato chips, woman would have better access to contraception.

I am quite certain that was not your intended message, but this graphic doesn't exist in a void. It exists in a culture of pervasive and harmful blaming of fat people for wrongful spending, in a culture rife with narratives that it is only fat people who eat "junk food," and that consuming "junk food" is immoral.

I beg you to reconsider using these sorts of examples in future.

Best regards,
Liss

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