whatswithher

“Semi-related: I find it funny that we encourage everyone to be happy with their bodies despite the fact that people who are too fat/thin are highly likely to develop certain illnesses and we (taxpayers/society) end up footing the bill.”- Some Ignorant Idiot I Can’t Make Disappear From My Newsfeed via Facebook

This little gem snuck its way onto my newsfeed at the tail end of this shared article:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tony-posnanski/lululemon-plus-size_b_4235539.html

Dear Ignorant Idiot,

Your comment might be relevant to the article shared if plus sized clothing was intended for people of all sexes struggling with obesity, and if we lived in a rainbow void where gender politics weren’t a thing. Sadly, neither of these things are the case. The reality is, plus sizes only exist for women, where apparently men only ever fall into “normal” sizes of small, medium, large, x-large, occasionally tall, and rarely, big, etc. Hello there, double standard, I’ve been seeing a bit too much of you lately.

Worse than that, plus sizes are not even intended for women who are obese. They are actually intended for women of perfectly healthy shapes and sizes that do not conform to the one shape our patriarchal society has deemed acceptable for women: thin, hourglass, barely there.

This marketing strategy(along with your dumb comment) contributes to one of North America’s nastier cultural practices known as fat shaming. Fat shaming is essentially ostracizing people(predominantly women) not just because of how they look but because of how their lifestyles may seem. I can’t count the number of times I have snuck chips off to my room in the middle of the night, hoping a family member or a roommate wouldn’t see. And I can guarantee you that nothing feels more pathetic than eating chocolate alone in your room at 3 a.m. because a) you’re a university student; you’re really just waking up at 3 a.m., and b) you’re terrified of eating in front of someone who might judge you as being “unhealthy.”

Have you ever felt like you’re being pulled in two different directions when it comes to your relationship with food? I remember a point when I was fourteen when I suddenly found myself caught in a tug of war between the desire to indulge or even reward myself with food and the feelings of inadequacy that came from not having the discipline to say no to cravings. It even got to the point where having the cravings or desires for food to begin with filled me with shame. That’s actually where disordered eating starts. Contrary to popular belief, it doesn’t matter how much you weigh or how much you eat. Disordered eating is entirely about your relationship with food.

That being said, my precious little Idiot, eating disorders lead to all of those health problems you find yourself burdened with, you downtrodden tax payer, you. Not body positivity. Eating disorders lead to binge eating, sometimes followed by purging, but not always. Anorexia is an eating disorder where you almost inevitably starve yourself to malnutrition, if not death. People who have eating disorders often smoke to reduce hunger. They end up doing all kinds of things to themselves to fit into Lululemon’s yoga pants, and by extension, into society.

Body positivity is this awesome thing feminists came up with that celebrates any body shape or size, as being acceptable so everyone can eat whatever the hell they want and be happy beautiful people. Exercise so you feel good, not so you look good, because how you look matters about an eighth of a crap. It’s a long road there because companies, such as Lululemon, American Apparel, and Abercrombie and Fitch profit from a hierarchy of cool, or in this case, a hierarchy of thinness, just as they always have. It’s just that now, under the façade of being “healthy” they’re ironically causing more health problems than they’re solving. So if you’re really all that concerned about the tax payers burden, maybe you should educate yourself and start protesting what these companies are doing to young women in North America.

I suspect though, that you’re not all that concerned about your tax payer’s dollars. I shouldn’t have to explain to you why your comment is rude, insensitive, and offensive to women. I suspect your whole reason for posting it in the first place was to be rude, insensitive, and to silence women.

I wanted to comment back when it showed up, and to tell the woman who posted the article in the first place that she was doing a good thing. I’m ashamed that I didn’t. I just let it slip further down my newsfeed as I fumed silently. I’ve always been told not to seek trouble. However, your comment stuck with me until a couple of days later, a man in the mall felt the need to tell me he liked my “small tits,” and he just kept walking past me. I asked him who he thought he was, that he could say something like that to me, but he was gone.

Public harassment, your online trolling, fat shaming, and all the other sexist crap in the world is telling women to disappear. Starting up this blog again, and christening it with an article dedicated to your comment is my way of politely declining.

Before Me And Better Than Me

If you want to learn more about fat shaming, I recommend reading Portia de Rossi’s autobiography Unbearable Lightness. It’s not only an insightful portrait on what it’s actually like to experience an eating disorder but explains the connection between fat shaming in North America and the beauty industry.