Fat Liberation Is...

10/6/2013

To me, fat liberation is understanding that is it not my fat body that has failed; it is the culture that has failed for oppressing this body. To me, fat liberation is knowing that my body is not wrong because it is fat; it is the culture that is wrong for discriminating against and stigmatizing my body.

To me, fat liberation is refusing to "fix" my body because nothing is wrong with it; what's wrong is a culture that encourages every single body to look exactly the same.

To me, fat liberation is seeing that fatphobia/body discrimination is not an individual issue that can be solved through compliance (e.g. dieting). It is a cultural problem that will only be solved through the radical re-envisioning of body diversity.

To me, fat liberation is refusing to obsess about losing weight in order to get love or dates (because all obsession does is give me heart burn; it doesn't give me a different body); losing weight will not heal a broken culture's obsession with subjugating women and commoditizing romance.

When I talk with people about why they have spent so much of their lives pursing weight loss, inevitably they tell me it's because they want to be loved, they want to be seen, they want to be treated with humanity. Everyone wants those things. Everyone deserves those things. I have never met someone who wants to lose weight because it's something they think is fun or interesting or inherently useful.

But we live in a culture in which things like love, happiness, power and success are highly connected to thinness.

The meaning of thinness and fatness are created within cultures. That meaning changes over time, and even right now there are varying cultural attitudes toward thinness and fatness all over the globe.

When I think of my life, there are so many things I wish I could change! I want to be taken seriously by potential partners - not just seen as someone who's fun to sleep with but not appropriate to date. I want to be taken seriously by potential employers - not seen as someone who will detract from the overall professionalism of the workspace. I want to have more access to clothes I love. I want to fit more comfortably in planes and on trains. I want to be treated respectfully by doctors. I want to go out without holding the worry that someone will comment on my body.

The culture tells me that if I comply with dieting I can have those things and if I comply with hiding and self-loathing then I can avoid some of the other things. But I know that's a BIG LIE! What's real is that my body isn't the problem here. And since it isn't the problem then why would I change it? Now the moments I used to spend on hating this body are moments I spend plotting the deeply rad and mega sexy overturn of this gnarly cultural institution.

What I'm saying is that the solution to a cultural problem like fatphobia isn't more fatphobia.

Food for thought: Teach a girl to comply and she'll be safe for a day. Teach a girl to deconstruct patriarchy and she'll be free forever.

Virgie Tovar

Virgie Tovar, MA is one of the nation's leading experts and lecturers on fat discrimination and body image. She is the founder of Babecamp (a 4 week online course focused on helping people break up with diet culture) and the editor of Hot & Heavy: Fierce Fat Girls on Life, Love and Fashion (Seal Press, 2012). She writes about the intersections of size, identity, sexuality and politics. See more updates on Facebook.

WHY IS THERE NO COMMENTS SECTION?
I have permanently closed the comment section on my blog as of 8/20/15 so that I can better utilize the time I had previously dedicated to moderating comments. I encourage folks who have thoughts about my work to go out and have a conversation with someone about what you loved (or hated.. boo) about my writing over coffee.

magda link

10/7/2013 12:12:06 am

thanks so much, virgie. this article made my day <3

Virgie

10/9/2013 01:35:03 am

Yay! <3

Jenny

10/8/2013 09:49:23 am

love this.

William

10/8/2013 11:41:27 am

Now if you could only extend these ideas to include fat men instead of attacking their masculinity because they are fat!

10/9/2013 01:34:37 am

indeed, William. indeed.

10/9/2013 10:07:45 am

Virgie

Some of your own comments in another thread on this Blog are not about supporting and empowering fat men. Instead of rejecting what Society may say about fat men you incorporate what may be Society’s viewpoint as a proof in your Patriarchy Theories.

As a fat guy if for some insane reason I promoted any of the nasty things Society has to say about fat women as being true, I would be shunned in the Fat Acceptance Community.

I guess for you Fat Acceptance is not about helping fat men.

Anna

10/11/2013 01:52:46 pm

Hello, William. Please have in mind that a text written by a woman for other women is not obliged to include men to be valid . This doesen't mean that the author thinks that is not important to talk about the discrimination fat men suffer. She merely chose to focus the text in fat women.

Also, please consider that when you write a text in English the rule is to use the male gender meaning all humans, male, female and others. (ex.: when you say mankind instead of humanity, we ladies usually feel included). This may cause some confusion when you read a text written using only feminine pronouns. This may be a little hard at first, but when you see "her", "she", "girls", etc. try to read the text as if you are included. Most of the times the author doesen't mean to segregate other genders.

Also, don't be a baby. Please don't take this text as a personal offence because it did't say what you think in should have said.

Love, Anna.

10/13/2013 09:55:30 am

Anna

I never said that Women had to include fat men in their discussion of Fat Acceptance. I only said that Fat Acceptance and Feminism should not incorporate derogatory comments about fat and how it emasculates fat men. After all Fat Acceptance has made a practice of ignoring and rejecting the nasty comments directed at most fat people (especially comments directed at fat women).

It is not OK for Fat Acceptance and Feminism to an exception and embrace comments that Society or Fat Acceptance itself may have said about fat, fat men and emasculation just bolster the theory of the Patriarchy.

10/13/2013 09:55:43 am

10/13/2013 09:55:50 am

ALex

10/12/2013 03:19:15 pm

Of course, no one should be discriminated against because of how one’s body is. People should absolutely scrutinize fascistic and oppressive notions of what constitutes beauty and what doesn’t. People of color and disability movements know this all too well.

What many people of color also know about is how we’re marketed food that is truly bad for our health, such as food that is rich in high fructose corn syrup and GMOs. Many people of color also know that Latinos and Black people pretty much lead the country in rates of obesity and diseases like diabetes. Why do you think that is? The Answer: Poverty, lack of access to quality foods, racism, etc.

My question to you is this: How do you promote a type of food consumption that is literally hurting a large amount of marginalized people in the US? How do you promote a movement centered around “fat liberation” that erases the experiences of people of color as they pertain to obesity, the marketing of bad food, and racism?

When we consider how certain people of color are being impacted by diabetes, debilitating obesity, etc. how can you promote such a reckless and white fat movement? Nothing is necessarily wrong with your body and “fixing” it isn’t really the issue here. The issue is the larger, negative social and economic forces that are coercing people into being fat and obese. It seems to me like you never talk about this stuff. You instead talk about romance and cookies and cupcakes and tits and how you’re somehow oppressed because you can’t eat all the cookies and cupcakes you want.

You focus on wanting to be loved and finding romantic partners, well some people just want access to quality foods. “Fat liberation” reminds me of Michel Foucault’s classic argument in History of Sexuality, Volume 1. It makes me think of the possibility that biopower has managed to get some fat people to think that their liberation hangs in the balance so that they fight and fight for the right to be fat and to be more likely to have diabetes and to dangerously promote this to poor, marginalized populations of people… all the while the marketing industry is tracking the fat movement’s consumption habits and selling them cupcakes, cookies, fast food and amassing millions in revenue.

10/13/2013 10:00:43 am

Alex

I do not identify as a Fat Admirer, I think many of them are creepy and weird.

I approach Fat Acceptance as a fat person who is male.

I only said that Fat Acceptance and Feminism should not incorporate derogatory comments about fat and how it emasculates fat men. After all Fat Acceptance has made a practice of ignoring and rejecting the nasty comments directed at most fat people (especially comments directed at fat women).

It is not OK for Fat Acceptance and Feminism to an exception and embrace comments that Society or Fat Acceptance itself may have said about fat, fat men and emasculation just bolster the theory of the Patriarchy.

Christine

10/12/2013 09:38:38 pm

William

Also, she is not a bloke. She can't really write from a bloke's perspective.

Uemube

10/20/2013 06:56:51 pm

Fat Liberation Is...The title quite impress with everyone,Especially the persons care to lost weight.
Nice post. I learn something more challenging on different blogs everyday. I find good something from your post. I’d prefer to use some with the content on my blog whether you don’t mind. Natually I’ll give you a link on your web blog. Thanks for sharing.

11/13/2013 02:47:21 am

Is it ethical for the Patriarchy Theory to attack the masculinity of fat men? I mean both Feminism and Fat Acceptance are supposed to be about finding other ways of looking at things and rejecting main stream Society's Ideas.

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Fat Liberation Is...

Virgie Tovar

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