The Fat Positive Lounge

[Kätzchen]

Originally Posted by Kätzchen

re: the proposition that possibly individuals who present fat are percieved as being less than they are and thus, seen as having less than desireable self esteem, etc.

I think the better way to address things of this nature is to call out that particular thinking process and let the owner of that particular perception bear the full weight of their own biases. Why do I advocate that position? I think it is necessary to challenge biases of this nature and let the owner who dares to propel that kind of ideology do the work it takes to dial back their own biases, so that particular social narrative is called to a halt.

It's important to not cave into false construction of ideas that places the burden on the person being victimized for their own beauty and, who no doubt, deserves positive strokes about who they are and not what people think they look like or thought of as having less than desireable self esteem, etc.

I say call it out. Put a stop to it. Don't cave into social processes that do nothing positive for the person who is beautiful in their own right.

I want to expand my rationale on personal accountability where it concerns calling out biases that carefully walk the line between being just a bias then as it spirals into prejudicial actions which are used to build credibility into a claim based in the opposite, counter-claim, that hopes to justify a bias - no matter where it resides on the scale of behaviors used to make the claim appear credible and/or legitimate.

I will use Spirit Dancer's latest post to illustrate the underlying logic I see in the premise set by the author of the quote: Dawn French.

French's quote provides a common context known to most people in that Renaissance art has been a place where we find female bodied models who are beautiful in thier own right and 'revered as a fabulous model' of beauty. Then, French goes on to justify her claim based on a counter-cultural issue of not being Fat (Skinny Culture) by suggesting that a reknown model in our own present culture (Kate Moss) would be 'used as a paintbrush' to make another wrong right.

I appreciate how it is that one might feel drawn to make comparisons like that. But I can't get fully behind it. Why? I have to call it out for what I see transpiring within the framed context of logic that is utilized. For, it's not okay that an opposite culture is used to oppress or suppress the real claim at stake in this particular meme. People who are skinny or their body size and range of weight is staged more toward a normed latitude are just as valuable in our society as people whose range of size or weight is found on another spectrum of the latitude - those of us who are bigger or larger or whatever descriptor that one wants to adopt as their own personal descriptor.

Let's take me (for example): I think of myself as a tank. My own identity is charged positively in that while it's not necessarily a true marker of my physical shape, what is truer is the proverbial connotation of what the term "Tank" means: I adopt Tank as an armor that aids me in repelling social stereotypes (isms) which carry a negatively charged connotation. I'm not as big as I was six months ago, but I am still a fairly big woman - because my bone density and physical makeup will only allow me to look as lean as only my body will allow. I don't think I will ever weigh less than 200, but if I ever weigh 190, will have a big party!

What I am trying to say is that to me, it's not okay to use a counter-proposition that oppresses another type of culture or identity to justify the negatively charged messages about ourselves in the world of using language as thoughtfully and carefully as one can. Sometimes I surface process, but mostly I process at a level in cognition that requires time to process and take in all the items present that I see in the environment. Those items might look like: physical cues, non-physical cues, tangible textual cues (re: the quote by French), and if we're in a face-to-face situation then no doubt other signifiers come into play. For example, speech processes, cultural cues found present in the way a person dresses or proximity (distance) between members who are sharing a channel of communication with each other.

It takes a deeper commitment in the process of calling out social stereotypes pertaining to size culture (Fat) than using a surface process to justify the hurtful messages we are bombarded with on a daily basis. I want to say that in developing this post, my intention is to not make my friend SD feel badly for the comparison she felt led to make in support of those who are larger in size as opposed to those who are less our size. I only do this with a loving heart and remaining true to my own level of social and personal accountability in illustrating a principle that I feel is important in providing a feasible remedy for combating biased, prejudicial aspects we face on a daily basis.

Maybe one way to reframe the message conveyed in French's quote could go something like this:

I'm glad Reuben Art mirrors my beauty and that Kate Moss can enjoy my beauty too: We paint a beautiful world together!

So, hopefully what I submit today is met with a willingness to carefully inspect flagged messages in our daily lives and make a commitment to counter biased and prejudicial acts of communication by reframing what we let ourselves hear, read or what we allow ourselves to think. I think the remedy begins with ourselves and my own challenge on a daily basis is to treat myself with loving kindness and dwell only upon thoughts which uplift me and those around me.