The Self-Esteem Myth (or "why it's the fatphobia not my outlook on life, asshole")

1/23/2014

These boots are cute but boot-strapping isn't, ghurl!

Today I was reading the comments on a post that was up on my friend Kitty’s Facebook feed. The post was about a woman who had been fat and currently isn’t fat and how her transition in size helped her understand the intensity of weight discrimination. As a thin-bodied person she talked about receiving more eye contact, more enthusiasm when people meet her, etc. Someone had commented that she wondered how much of the change had to do with this woman’s level of self-esteem before the size transition. And I remembered a time when I would have wondered the same thing...

Because that’s the line I was fed. It goes something like this:

“Virgie, it’s not that there is a major culture-wide system of discrimination and bias, it’s that YOU have a bad outlook and aren’t working hard enough to create the life that you really want. Why do you choose not to create the life that you really want? In fact, your low self-esteem is getting everyone down. You should probably do something about that. Chop. Chop.”

Let me tell you what’s wrong with the self-esteem myth line by line.

1. “Virgie, it’s not that there is a major culture-wide system of discrimination and bias, it’s that YOU have a bad outlook and aren’t working hard enough to create the life that you really want.”

I am certainly not the first person to have made this observation, but I think it’s worth repeating: THIS IS VICTIM-BLAMING/BOOTSTRAPPING RHETORIC. Victim-blaming is about convincing someone that it is the victim’s fault - not the victimizer’s fault - for whatever negative outcomes have resulted from the experience of having been victimized. Boot-strapping is about convincing people that each and every one of is personally and solely responsible for our success or failure.

Both of these ideologies are sold especially hard to people who are (wait for it) marginalized (oppression can get so predictable sometimes, ghurl) because our psychology has already been primed through a lifetime of having been taught that we are inferior. The idea that each individual person regardless of what their experience with discrimination has been is personally responsible for having a sunshiney outlook on the world is weird, creepy, wrong, fallacious, and non-sensical. It just doesn’t make any damn sense at all. Oh, and it’s racist, sexist, and classist too.

2. “Why do you choose not to create the life that you really want?”

The language of “choosing” has made its way into more conversations I am a part of recently (I will admit that this could be a San Francisco thing). Don't get me wrong: I love choice! But sometimes the language of choice is used to obscure the very real ways in which oppression affects our ability to make choices.

Time for a dating anecdote! Once I was on a 3-day date with this New Zealand former-fat-now-skinny-yogi-master named Bruce. We were in Santa Cruz, which he’d driven me to in his bio-diesel fueled Hummer. Seriously. He asked if he could watch me take a bath, and while I was in the bathtub he proceeded to spend the entire time reminding me of how much weight he had lost and how I am at risk for a panoply of diseases blahblahblah. Seriously. Not only was this totally wrong for the obvious reasons - I’m naked and he’s not, I’m fat and he’s not anymore - I didn’t consent to having this kind of conversation with him while I was bathing and he was touching his dick. Seriously. Fat shaming me while he was touching his dick. If that isn’t the perfect metaphor for patriarchy I don’t know what is, ghurl. Anyway, I got upset and the yelling started and then he looked at me and asked: “Why are you choosing to ruin our weekend?” Oooh. I knew he was trying to mind fuck me, and I wasn’t having any of it. Moral of the story: don’t go on 3-day dates with a kiwi who has a hummer.

Back to the analysis. This language of choice keys into bootstrapping, but with an extra dose of mind fucking. Mind-fucking (aka gaslighting) is particularly sexist, in my opinion, because it pushes people to question their sanity and their ability to decipher what is “really happening.” This is a tactic that has been used on women for a very long time because we are taught that women are likelier to be unhinged, “hysterical,” or otherwise mentally unstable.

3. “In fact, your low self-esteem is getting everyone down. You should probably do something about that. Chop. Chop.”

Seriously? So let me get this straight: I was totally fine until the culture taught me that my fat body was wrong and worthless. Then I developed low self-esteem and the attendant body language of surrender so that people would understand that I knew my place (SO THAT I COULD SURVIVE). Now it’s MY responsibility to fix the problem that I didn’t create AND it turns out that somehow it’s actually all my fault? That just doesn’t make any sense, ghurl.

The Take Home Message
What I'm saying is that you don't have to buy into the self-esteem myth anymore if you don't want to, ghurl. The problem is REAL. It's not just in your brain and we can't solve a system of oppression by all making aggressive eye contact and having all of the oppressed people just pretending that the discrimination and injustice aren't really real.

My analyzing brain is tired and I need some eggs now. But you get why this shit is fucked up. So, I trust you to take it from here.

Xo,
Virgie

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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.

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Gwenn link

1/23/2014 02:47:48 am

Re: the whole "you choose" paradigm, Kent Greenfield wrote a book about the usefulness of it in oppressing people and about how we all have less control in our lives than we like to think. It's called The Myth of Choice.

Thank you, as always, for you insightful and delightful post!

Virgie

1/23/2014 03:01:45 am

Oooh! I will take a look at that! Thank you for the reference, Gwenn!

Lynne Murray link

1/23/2014 03:11:18 am

Thanks for the great analysis and encouragement, Virgie! The "let me watch you bathe and get off on criticizing" made me squirm and brought back dating memories that confirm how wise it was of me not to carry firearms in those days. Now I see it all through power-colored lenses and it's amazing how many of these encounters and statements seem to have the primary purpose of adding social power to the speaker by taking it away from the target. That may sound overly simplified, but I can't seem to un-see it once I've seen it!

Meicka link

1/23/2014 04:27:41 am

Virgie, i really just love your sassy sarcasm and truth telling grrrl. Thank you for this post on the myth of self esteem. It has inspired me to write-again as most of your post and hearing you speak does. Much appreciation for your insight. Peace.

Pavini Moray link

1/23/2014 04:51:07 am

As usual, you are not only spot-on but really funny. As I am making my bagel I'm envisioning the look on your face in that bathtub. Fabulous metaphor for patriarchy, yep. Thanks for this.

DeAun Nelson link

1/23/2014 05:19:13 pm

Love the post.

I read the article you referenced, even tangentially discussing it in my own blog. Reading the beginning of this entry made me think of something. Now, I know that sometimes people are put off by my weight, or may judge me, I have seen it. I have also noticed that the times I interact with a smile and confidence, that is more often than not reflected back at me. When I assume that I will be judged, I notice it more. Now, admittedly, I am coming from a white, upper-middle class, safe background, and I am aware that has something to do with it. I have also always been one of the fattest people I knew. Yet, I see people like the woman in the article, or even friends of mine who, though not large and from similar backgrounds, only see the body checking and the negative responses to their bodies.

Another possibility is that I am just blind to it all or not sensitive enough. I am also writing this very late at night and anything else I was going to try to convey is gone. I hope it makes sense. I'm basically saying that I don't doubt her experience got better as a thinner woman, but I also wonder if her experience as a fatter woman could also have been good with better self esteem. She's gonna need it when she gains all that weight back.

Donny D.

1/25/2014 09:18:28 am

DeAun Nelson, are you trying to say that someone can magically raise their level of self-esteem whenever they want? If so, that is a truly (un)impressive combination of bootstrappery and victim-blaming, especially as it's in a direct reply to a post about vicim-blaming and bootstrap ideology.

Grela

11/5/2014 07:46:52 am

Excuse me? "When she gains all that weight back"?!? Who the hell are you to state unequivocally that the OP will regain any weight she lost? I want that crystal ball of yours, DeAun Nelson.

phatmofo

1/31/2014 05:41:30 pm

Goddamn thin privledge

Susie

2/15/2014 06:52:48 am

I really love this blog. I wish more people would speak out like you do. I think that every day is hell. I can see the way people are looking at me and treating me. Fat-shaming is a real problem and has to stop...something needs to change. I would do everything in my power if I just knew how.

justinandtheangryinch

2/19/2014 04:10:57 pm

Totally agree. This happens with trans boys like myself without passing privilege as well as genderqueer faabs. When I bring up an instance where I was treated as crap and subsequently misgendered vs another time where I was treated well and subsequently called "he" or "sir", a "bootstrapper" will try to tell me that this didn't happen because of sexism but because I "knew they saw me as a woman and so it lowered my self esteem and made them feel like they could take advantage of me". So problematic on so many different levels.

Julia

3/11/2014 04:34:35 pm

While I somewhat disagree with you, this is among the best thing I've ever read: "Fat shaming me while he was touching his dick. If that isn’t the perfect metaphor for patriarchy I don’t know what is, ghurl"

desds

4/16/2014 12:21:24 pm

I love this post so much. It speaks to me on so many levels. I've been in therapy for almost a year now and I'm just starting to identify and work on the gas lighting and victim blaming that I dealt with growing up. The biggest hurdle I'm facing is conceptualizing and accepting the fact that "No, it wasn't me, it was them (parents, community, society etc)" Once I can get that down I'll be able to really work on the trauma and heal. This post has been very helpful to me. Thank you!

Carrie

4/19/2014 03:18:36 pm

I had often wondered about this myself, and read the article discussed. I know for a fact it is a matter of society rather than self-esteem. As someone who has struggled with her weight her entire life, I have had a very low self-esteem. A few years ago, I moved to New York to live with my now husband. He lived in a part of Manhattan (Washington Heights) that was largely populated by minorities and immigrants who have different values when it comes to body image. Just stepping out on the street was exactly the experience described in the other article: people smiled at me, held doors for me, complimented me on my appearance, and even helped me when I fell on the street. It was a whole different world in that little pocket of Manhattan. As soon as I stepped out of it, the same cruel world would come back to me. While I was in my little neighborhood I truly felt like I was a person for the first time in my life.

Sean

4/19/2014 06:25:06 pm

I'm currently fat, but losing weight, and not for societies' sake. I am fat because I worked for five years in a sedentary, soul crushing job in finance, followed by a management job. I had bad eating habits (caloric surpluses and high sugar and fat intake) and did not exercise. I excused this because I was 'busy' and needed 'convenient options', despite being thin and active in years prior. The world did not discriminate against me when I was fat anymore than it did was I was thin. All of the motivators for my lifestyle changes were from my own personal desire to be more fit.

When I made the choice to get into better physical shape and started putting action behind my intentions, I started to lose weight. This includes managing my dietary lifestyle and exercising. Nobody blamed or shamed me, and I have otherwise high self esteem and confidence. (Some would say bordering on arrogance.) By stating that society is 'victim-blaming' denotes that you believe yourself to be a victim. Who is the perpetrator? What crime has befallen you?

If you're happy where you are in life, that's perfectly fine. Stay that way, be happy. If you want to be thin, or live the 'thin privileged' lifestyle, you must choose to engage in that lifestyle. Physical fitness is a choice (or rather a series of continuous choices) and I know this because I have been over 300lbs, and under 200lbs in my adult life.

Society did not put the double-quarter pounders from the drive-thru into my mouth and force me to swallow them. Society didn't stop me from tweaking my schedule to allow 30 minutes of exercise to creep into my TV watching habits. Society didn't write excuses for me to recite about why I wasn't going to do something today because 'insert excuse here'. I did all of those things with free will. If you accept life as a 'victim', you will remain a victim. Own your habits, your lifestyle and your consequences, and become what you want; not what you have labelled yourself to be.

Mari

7/11/2014 02:43:34 am

I have told a fellow fat friend that their confidence is an issue when they spoke about their dating troubles. I didn't do it to argue that fat stigma does not exist, but because they were sharing their experience along with a claim that they are not as attractive when they are fat as they are when they are thin, but that doesn't change how I may have made them feel without realizing it. I am thankful that this article pointed that out to me. I don't want to come off as discrediting a fellow fat person's experience of fat stigma and be seen as someone who would take part in victim blaming. In the future I will be more careful about that in conversations.

I have to admit, I do tend to become defensive when people talk about their troubles in dating as a fat person, because I tend to take it as an attack on my beautiful fat body and beautiful fat bodies everywhere. I am fat (5 foot 6 size 20-22) and I have a fantastic love life and I fear that they are supporting the claims of fat haters who claim that my love life is a lie and I can't possibly be happy fat. (the only thing that makes me unhappy about my fat is the way people treat me because of it!) but as I said before, I thank you for showing me that I need to be more careful with how I deal with my feelings about this in future conversations so as not to discredit the experience of others or victim blame.

@Sean
If a thin sedentary person who ate nothing but junk food came here and said, "Hey. I'm thin. You should eat and behave the way I do and you will be thin." I doubt you would agree with that.

(I have an aunt by marriage who is such a person. In her late fifties. The only exercise she gets is when she goes shopping at the grocery store or occasional trips to the mall or Walmart. She eats fast food daily. Everything she cooks and consumes is southern fried with either bacon, butter, or crisco. She has always been thin as a rail and always will be.)

The issue I have with your comment is that I feel like you are implying that because you personally ate an unhealthy diet and didn't exercise, that must mean that all fat people take part in that behavior. It is a stereotype, a perfect example of the bigotry fat people experience every day, even from fellow fat people. My aunt is living proof that different bodies process food differently and we can't look at someone and assume anything about their behavior from their appearance. Yes, fitness is a choice, however that fitness does not always equate with being thin. Sorry, but, NO. Just NO.

THIS is precisely one of the ways in which as a fat person you can be a victim of prejudice and negative treatment because of that prejudice. The fact is that there are numerous fat people in this world that eat healthy and exercise regularly but remain fat and we are constantly told we are liars and we don't exist by thin and fat people alike.

Also, I would like to point out that even if someone DOES eat garbage and sit on their rear all day, how does that make them any less worthy of common decency from fellow human beings? How does that justify treating them badly? Seriously? I would NEVER treat my aunt badly if she were ill because of her bad behaviors and I wouldn't want anyone else to treat her badly either. Thankfully that isn't likely to happen because she is so thin that nobody would assume that her health problems might be a result of her lifestyle.

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The Self-Esteem Myth (or "why it's the fatphobia not my outlook on life, asshole")

Virgie Tovar

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