Dear Anonymous,

I moderate my comments. I do this so that discriminatory and rude nonsense doesn't get through. But sometimes i'll post the ignorant shit that people write because a lot of it is a perfect illustration of the discrimination that still exists today. People like to tell me i'm overreacting. They also say that on average, Americans are pretty "tolerant" and not discriminatory anymore. 1. Fuck "tolerance" we need equal rights, we also need to start celebrating difference; 2. Much of the discrimination now is a lot more subtle. However, here is an example of a less subtle attack.

Someone searched, "men gyped by feminism" and somehow found my blog. Specifically my post on fat-fingering. To which he commented:

Anonymous said...
Instead of complaining about it and crying over it and screaming "no fair".

JUST LOSE THE FUCKING WEIGHT. It's not healthy to be a FAT FUCK anyway.

May 14, 2008 1:45 PM (sic)

Then he wrote:

Anonymous said...
I'm actually not prejudiced against fat people. I dated a fat chick once. But she was on a diet and motivated to losing the weight.

All my comment proves is that I have a problem with WHINY LIBERALS ON A CRUSADE TO MAKE EVERYTHING AN "ISSUE".

The term "fat-finger" is not at all discriminatory against whiny fat fucks like yourself. If anything, it's making fun of people with LARGE DIGITS. IE- Big fingers.

You're fat. And you're a feminist. And you can't seem to have a happy, fulfilling relationship with a man. Your choice- your problem. Not our's. Get off your soap box. You're preaching about shit that makes no sense.

Seriously. Who cares if most men don't wanna date or have sex with a fat chick. Most women don't want to date a man who has no money and doesn't shave. *shrugs* I get off my ass and go to work every day and shave every morning. Maybe you should start your day with a low carb breakfast and some stomach crunches.

May 14, 2008 3:16 PM (sic)

Anonymous' comment is based on so many assumptions it makes my head spin.

I'll try to work them all out for you...

Assumption #1: Because he "dated a fat chick" he clearly cannot be a bigot. Right. Way to tokenize, asshole. Did you also "have a black friend back in college?" I thought so.

Assumption #2: I'm a "whiny liberal"... no comment

Assumption #3: I'm fat. Because I can't possibly care about discrimination against people on the basis of weight unless i'm fat. I also must be black since i hate racists and gay since i can't stand homophobia. Am I "fat", a WoC, gay? It doesn't matter. What matters is i shouldn't be treated differently if i was or wasn't any/all those things.

Assumption #4: I can't "seem to have a happy, fulfilling relationship with a man." Two assumptions wrapped in one, gee wiz. I'm obviously heterosexual and i'm obviously single. Of course since i'm "fat" (assumption #3) i can't possible be in a relationship. And i'm obviously straight because you're a heteronormative asshole.

Assumption #5: Being "fat" is a problem. Um... didn't you internalize any of what the original post said?

Assumption #6: "most men don't wanna date or have sex with a fat chick." Hm... any of my commenters wanna take this one on?

Assumption #7: "Most women don't want to date a man who has no money and doesn't shave." HUH?

Assumption #8: I don't exercise or eat right ("Maybe you should start your day with a low carb breakfast and some stomach crunches.") Physical appearance does not equate how "healthy" someone is. Nutrition and health are based on lifestyle, not on appearance.

That should about do it.

Dear Anonymous, my apologies for not being able to get to your comment sooner but D and I were out celebrating our 5 year anniversary.

5/15/08
UPDATE: I gave all this some more thought... i wanted to pick one main focus for readers to walk away with from all this this... there are actually two.

1. Discrimination based on a person's weight exists. Weightist attitudes exist and they've been referred to as the "last form of acceptable discrimination." Here are some examples. I don't usually participate in the "Oppression Olympics" but Yale did and found that "Weight/height discrimination is prevalent in American society and is relatively close to reported rates of racial discrimination, particularly among women. Both institutional forms of weight/height discrimination (for example, in employment settings) and interpersonal mistreatment due to weight/height (for example, being called names) were common, and in some cases were even more prevalent than discrimination due to gender and race."

2. The reason i don't post pictures or much personal information about myself on this blog is because it doesn't matter. It isn't the point. It doesn't matter how much i weigh or whether i'm gay or straight. It doesn't matter my ethnicity or race. What matters is that people's rights shouldn't be violated based on any of those things. This isn't about me. It's about equality. Which is why i don't entertain (or respond to) personal questions, attacks, or comments. I know i did a bit by adding that it was D and my 5 year anniversary but i only did so because of the irony :) So shoot me, i'm not infallible. Never said i was... The point is, people's rights shouldn't be taken away by anyone just because they don't fit into some skewed notion of "normalcy" that an individual might have.

A Fat Rant

A friend sent me this video, i thought it was fantastic!

Check it out, definitely worth the 7 minutes :)

Joy's ultimate message: "Stop putting life on hold." This rings true for all of us. She talks about a phenomenon that i've seen way too often. Friends will talk excitedly to me about these amazing plans they have for when they drop X amount of pounds. They plan to find their soul mate, get better jobs, go on a tropical vacation (in bikinis!), start going out more, buying "cute" clothes, whatever. As if the only thing stopping them from doing those things is their weight. No. If you want to do all those things and more, do them NOW. Go swimming NOW, start dating again NOW, look for a new job NOW, buy that kick ass dress you've been scoping out NOW; not when you lose X number of pounds but NOW. Seriously. What are you waiting for?!

The reason it is so important to stop waiting and start living is two-fold:

1. Waiting for life to start when you drop the weight sets you up for failure. It leads you to believe that the only thing that can possibly be "wrong" with you is how you look and once you look a certain way things are going to magically fall into place. This is very much not the case. Thin people have issues too, lots of issues actually. Weight should SO not be the "issue" that stops you from living life. Life's too short and there are way too many other things out there to worry about. Being thin doesn't miraculously rid you of stuff you've been putting off because you thought your biggest problem was "fat." Also, being thin won't magically solve all your other problems. There's this crazy misconception that thin = happy. I know many unhappy thin people. Being thin won't solve the problems you've been avoiding because you thought they'd go away as soon as you shed those pounds... which brings me to my next point...

2. In the video Joy talks about people using "fat" as a constant ingrained excuse. I think she's right on and explains it much better than i could:

They're not gonna hire me, i'm fat. He'd never ask me out, i'm fat... As if that is the only thing that could possibly be wrong with me! How about i'm late all the time? How about i'm mean to people? I have this automatic excuse. I never have to work on any other aspects of my personality. The only thing that anyone could possibly have a problem with is the fact that i'm fat.

Joy goes on to say, "FAT is a descriptive physical characteristic. It's not an insult, or an obscenity, or a death sentence." And she's right. So stop putting life on hold. I don't care if you're fat, thin, whatever - stop using weight as an excuse, get out there and start living!

Poetry Slam Shazaam!

Last weekend D and I went to a poetry slam with some new friends. We had a really great time out. It was an awesome night for many reasons:

1.) Because making "adult friends" is tough enough, let alone finding people with similar interests

2.) Ever since we got Beans we've had absolutely no social life (it's hard only being out for under 6 hours at a time)

3.) Poetry slams are apparently very intense

4.) Jenna is a terrific judge, an honest and fair critic ;)

5.) The girl who wrote about gerbils creeped me out... but in a good way, and i really liked her poem

6.) The hours my college roommates and I spent honing our stalking skills came in handy when I really wanted to post my favorite poem of the night for ya'll here to enjoy:

Girdle
By Tracy Caldwell AKA Mind Evolution (2006)

In the 60's they were burning their bras
In the 06 im burning my girdle
Because a girl should not be tortured like this
I'm sorry if you can't handle the fact that i'm fat
But everyone can't be a size 4
And i'm not taking it no more
No longer will I wear undergarments
That squeeze my rools into other places
And there are more than a few woman in here
Tying to keep straight faces
Wile their panties are cutting of circulation
Tying to please a nation that can never be pleased
Cuz it's obesity if you're too big
And if you're too small
It's the skinny woman's disease
Anorexia or bulimia
But believe me when I tell ya
I love my food to much to be throwing it up
And damn it I earned this gut
By giving birth to 2 boys and 2 girls
And there is at least one man in this world
That can't resist these childbearing hips
And he knows he has to come equipped if he wants to be spending time with all of this
Big girls if you feel me let me see you raise your fist
Gentlemen that agree
Let me see you do the same
Cause its a shame
More than half the female population is a size 12 or up
But its always a skinny person
Telling you, you need to shape up

"fat-fingering"

Sounds dirty doesn't it?

Unfortunately it's not. It's actually a term that was used today in a HIPAA refresher training i had to sit through. The presenter's recurring use of the term "fat-fingering" to imply typing passwords, email addresses, phone numbers, etc, incorrectly left me alarmed. Weightist attitudes are a huge problem in our society and weightist comments are much more socially accepted nowadays than racist, sexist, or homophobic ones even though they are just as discriminatory. The problem of weight bias is very real and can be just as oppressive as the other "isms" we fight against. Since the presenter is also the same guy who does the cultural diversity trainings for our company (HAHA!), i know that he didn't mean to be offensive by using "fat-fingering" and probably didn't even realize he was saying anything wrong. The problem that i see with it is that using the term with a negative connotation only further perpetuates weightist attitudes. Whoever said "fat is a feminist issue" hit the nail right one the head...

Weight bias can interfere with getting a job, obtaining fair health care, being promoted, and being treated equally in general. I don't mean to be the p.c. police here, and i swear that as a feminist i have learned to pick my battles. I realize that he was simply using a term that may have been thrown around (although i must admit i've never heard it before) but the truth is, a lot of discrimination is intrinsic and unintentional. I don't think that all people who say discriminatory things are terrible people, i think a lot of them don't realize the effect of their words and/or never took the time out to consider it.

For example, i've mentioned before that i work at a substance abuse clinic and see a diverse population of clients. A year and a half ago a client walked into my office for an appointment in a really bad mood. As we started talking through why she was pissed, she explained that, "the chink at the nail salon jewed me!" Holy Shit, WHAT?! Yea... You'd imagine i had an incredibly had time navigating between remaining unbias for my job to maintain the rapport i've established with her and wanting to shake the hell out of her based on my feminist values. What did i do? I calmly repeated back to her what she said and explained how offensive she was being to a number of different racial/ethnic groups. She said she knew "chink" was offensive but was really angry (and offending the Asian woman was a defensive mechanism) yet didn't realize "jewed" was a bad thing to say. I explained that "jewed" was based on the concept that jews are cheap, to which she said, "well aren't they?" I don't know ya'll, what then? It's not my job to teach her social politics, or even manners for that matter. Being a Jew, I had a hard time with that. I tried to explain the background to terms like "jewed" and "gyped" and relate them to race because she was a quick one to speak up when the counselors were being racist. I related the words she used to "jimmied" which seemed to do the trick and she quickly understood.

Tangents aside, words have power that people do not intend them to. A lot of the time this creates problems because people don't think before they speak. We are constantly bombarded with social messages that are nothing but discriminatory and perpetuate white/male/hetero/"good looking"/Christian/etc. norms. It takes a lot of effort to walk through life with a constant critical lens and those who do it seem to bitch, rant, and rave, a lot (i very much included). It's easier to ignore the status quo but like the pin i got from one of my favorite teachers, Marita, says, "if you want peace, work for justice."

Back to the original point (sorry, i'm pretty distracted tonight,) weightism is not ok. Not only is it not okay but it's one of those means of discrimination that is often overlooked and not acknowledged making it even less ok. Especially with the current push out there to get everyone "fit" (by whatever means necessary, i.e. The Biggest Loser). Now please don't get me wrong, "thin" doth not "fit" and "healthy" make. There's this overarching concept (read: misconception) out there that thin = beautiful = happy. This equation is faulty on many levels. Firstly, thin does not equal beautiful. Many a woman is absolutely gorgeous with curves (to link a few media crazed examples.) Next, even thin & "beautiful" does not equal happy. There are many "beautifully" miserable women out there as well (i simply couldn't resist). Now i'm all about being fit and healthy, hell, i'm the loudest proponent of women lifting weights, staying active, being strong, kicking ass out there... but not because media tells us what is "beautiful." Overweight women (more so than men) are constantly overlooked. How many plus-size female CEOs do you know? Now think, how many male CEOs that you know are plus-sized. Exactly. Once again we are whacked with the double standard stick.

As much as i hate the idea of "i lived for a minute in an oppressed person's shoes [or fat suit] so now i know their struggle," Tyra Banks did a show where she wore a "fat suit" for a day and, followed by her cameras, "experienced" the trials and tribulations of being discriminated against because of weight. Although a lot felt off about the whole thing, it did bring light to the issue of weightism in our society to an audience that may have not considered it prior, this i believe to be a success.

For what it's worth, the presenter that used the term, "fat-fingering" apologized and commented on how glad he was that i was comfortable enough bringing this directly to him (read: and not going over his head). But really folks, he must not know me... He said he never considered that it may be offensive and will find a different term for future trainings.

Many a time i've had people read my blog only to comment that i "read into shit too much" and i need to "calm down and not take things so seriously." I guess i'll get preemptively defensive on this one: if you think that weightism and fat-hate doesn't exist, please see here. Not only does it exist (as represented on the video) in mainstream America, but also within the feminist community (check out the comments that correspond with the post.)

(oh and p.s. it's De-Lurking Week so please leave a comment or just say "hey, sup?" :) I'd love to see who reads and especially what your thoughts are. Feel free to leave post ideas and comments with what you love/hate. Also, leave a link to your blog, if you have, for me to check it out! I'd enjoy reading what you have to say!)