Resources! Get Your Resources Here!

Well hello!  Welcome to all of the new readers, thanks to my being listed on WordPress’ Freshly Pressed feature overnight.  It’s an honour to be featured on Freshly Pressed and I hope that by being featured there, some new fellow fatties have found me and perhaps the fatosphere in general.

Because of the influx of new readers, both from Freshly Pressed and those who came along from the UQ Women’s Collective event I did last week, I think it’s time to do a refresher course on Fat Activism 101.  Because it will save us ALL a big headache in the long run.

Now, one of the things about being an activist is that people expect you to educate them all the time.  But it doesn’t work like that.  You have to go educate yourself.  If you’re reading this, you have an internet connection, and I think it’s pretty safe to assume that you can use Google.  If you don’t understand a term or a word, please take the time to Google it, and do a bit of reading.  Not because I’m too lazy to educate you, but because if I have used a term or word or even talked about an issue, it is undoubtedly the gajillionth time I have had to do so.  None of the questions that anyone presents me as a fat person about fat rights, fat stigma or even fat health are new ones for me, nor for most fat people you will meet.  We get this shit every day of our lives.  And we keep talking about it publicly, but again and again and again we’re still asked the same questions.

In fact, you can use the search engine on the top of this page to search just my blog and I’m sure you can plenty of information and instances where I’ve already answered your questions.  There are almost 400 posts here just on Fat Heffalump, I’m sure I’ve answered a lot of your questions already.

But!  I’m feeling generous today.  I’m going to help you with some resources, because as well as being tools for people to educate themselves, they are also fantastic resources for those of you who are fat and are looking for help with everything from clothing to health care to simply just standing up for your rights.

Some of these posts will be older ones, but they’re so good they’re worth keeping in an archive of resources.

Before we get into all subjects fat, it’s best that you understand privilege.

Let’s start with the piece that blew my world open, by Kate Harding for Shapely Prose:

The Fantasy of Being Thin

Then there is this brilliant post by Michelle aka The Fat Nutritionist:

Eat food. Stuff you like.  As much as you want.

In fact, while you’re at it, go read the entire back catalogue of The Fat Nutritionist.  Michelle’s work is amazing and she has helped SO many people get started on the road to healing a whole host of disordered behaviours around food.

Now, for those of you who have questions about health and fatness and all that malarkey, I cannot tell you how valuable Dr Linda Bacon’s book “Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight” is.  Here, have some free excepts:

Excerpts and Downloads: Health at Every Size

Don’t understand what fat activism is exactly?  Well, Dr Charlotte Cooper has you hooked up for that one:

What is a fat activist?

Another great place to get a whole lot of  101 on a whole host of fat topics is Melissa McEwen of Shakesville’s Fatsronauts 101 collection.  Pretty much everything Melissa has to say about fat is a valuable read.

The moralisation of health is a big issue for fat people, and Shannon over at Nudemuse has a recent post that sums it up beautifully.

Other useful links:

Brian at Red No. 3 is very good at getting right down to the nuts and bolts of fat hate.

Need an Australian Health Care Provider who is fat friendly?  Try the All Bodies Directory.

Marilyn Wann is like the first lady of fat.  Her book Fat! So? is a bit of a bible to many of us.

If you don’t understand thin privilege, this checklist is a good starting point.  Then move on to the This is Thin Privilege Tumblr.

There you have it.  A nice pile of resources to get you started on understanding fat activism, fat rights and fat stigma.  If anyone else has others, please feel free to drop them in the comments.

Why I Take No Shit From Anyone in My Online Spaces

• Angry fat bitch!
• You’re so bitter!
• You don’t care about the CAUSE, it’s all about YOU!
• OMG you’re so rude!  It’s no wonder you’re hated when you’re so RUDE!  I was just giving my OPINION!!
• You’ve got such a foul mouth!
• Why are you so sensitive?  God, get over it!  What are you, paranoid?!
• Well, you’re not getting MY support any more!  Not if you can’t be nice.
• If you weren’t such a rude bitch, you wouldn’t have these troubles.  You catch more flies with honey than vinegar you know.

If I had a dollar for every time I heard something along the lines of the above statements, I would have a LOT of dollars.  It happens a lot.  I get people turning up here, and in my other spaces online, lecturing me on how I’m supposed to behave and react and address them… in my space online.

I feel like a broken record half the time, telling people to fuck off.

But I think people need to be told to fuck off once in a while.  It does us all good.  Actually, if being told to fuck off on a blog or a facebook page or somewhere else online is the worst of your troubles in a day, you’re doing well I reckon!  I wish the worst that happened to me in life was being told to fuck off!  In fact, at any given time that I comment on someone else’s blog or other online space, I do so knowing that they have the full right to tell me to fuck off.  After all, I’m in THEIR space.

There’s a reason I’m so vehement about telling people to fuck off.  Two reasons really.  The first is because most of the time, in everyday life, we can’t just tell people to fuck off.  Because people are so threatened by two words “fuck off” they’re likely to resort to violence, or ACTUAL bullying tactics.

Incidentally don’t let anyone convince you that telling someone to fuck off is bullying.  It’s clear, it gets the message across, it’s not hidden away from witnesses like actual bullying is.  It doesn’t denigrate someone or cause them any harm.  It is simply a succinct, profane instruction.  Fuck off out of my life.  As much as so many people want to clutch their pearls and carry on like they’ve been slandered or wounded or some other great harm, fuck off does nobody any actual harm.

The second is that unless we stand up and stand solid in our own little corners of the internet, then we just get silenced again.  And again and again and again.  We fat folk are constantly told that we have to play by society’s rules.  We have to put up with so much shit in this world.  From hearing that we’re sub-human, worthless and inferior, through to being the subject of hate, derision and scorn, and right through to physical harm – be it passive (diets, weight loss surgery, dismissal of our health needs, an environment that we have to painfully squeeze our bodies in to) or aggressive (actual physical assault and harassment).  Every day we are subjected to being policed for every aspect of our behaviour – from the mere space we take up through to what we eat and what we wear and what we do with our bodies.

So when we do carve out a little space, a tiny corner of the vast universe of the internet, then we have EVERY right to set up boundaries in that space and not tolerate anyone who tries to police us within those boundaries.  I have to sit through people telling me I don’t have the right to agency over my own life and body every single day, I’ll be damned I’m going to sit quietly while people do it in my tiny spaces online.

Actually I just thought of a third reason.  So that I can hopefully give you folk, even if it’s only one of you, the strength to tell someone to fuck off when they’re behaving in a manner that is unacceptable to you.  If I give just one of you some strength when you’re feeling like the whole world is just pushing you down at every opportunity, then it is worth it.

You bet I’m angry.  You bet I’m going to get hot headed and loud about it.  It’s WRONG and unless those of us who can speak up DO speak up, it’s never going to change.

I’m under no illusion that I’m “nice” or “sweet” or even “popular”.  I don’t want to be nice, or sweet or popular.  There are no “true colours” waiting to be exposed – I’m angry, I swear a lot and I have little tolerance for bullshit.   I want to be the thorn in people’s side when they’re behaving in a way that is unacceptable.  I want to be that painful bit of sand that irritates the oyster of the world and creates change.  So what if people hate me for it – people hate me already just for living in a fat body, they hated me even when I was a brown mouse fatty too scared to say anything to anyone.  I’m used to being hated.

I’m tired of playing nice with people.  Nobody plays nice with we fat folk.  We are forced to justify our existence time and time again, we are dismissed, dehumanised, derided and denied.  We are treated as though we are inferior, and we are vilified as monsters at every turn.  So I feel no obligation to be “polite” with people who turn up in my online spaces under the guise of “disagreeing” or “freedom of opinion” with our rights to live our lives on equal footing with any other human being.  Nobody gets to debate fat people’s right to fair treatment in the world.  NOBODY.

I’m not here to convince fat haters, not-fat people looking for superiority and “skeptics” of fat activism that fat people deserve to be treated as human beings.  They’re never truly going to be convinced anyway, and they waste all of our time putting caveats on that, on the condition that we “play nice”.  The minute they disagree with us or we stand up to them, they turn that hate back on to us all over again.  Don’t be afraid that you’ll “lose their support”… if they’re that easily turned away, we never had their support to start with.  And NOBODY is that important that their withdrawing their support is going to end the fat activism movement.  And I believe if you connect with ONE person properly that it’s worth far more than suppressing your voice to make a thousand people happy.

I’m here for my own sanity, my own voice but most importantly my fellow fatties, who are told everywhere else in the world that they are inferior.  I’m here for you my beloved fat community.  I’m here to show you that you don’t have to stand for shitty treatment and that you are valuable, that you are worthy, that you are equal human beings to anyone else.

I have no interest in catching flies with honey or vinegar.  We all know flies eat shit anyway – I’m here with a can of Fuck Off, to repel those flies from this one little corner of the internet.

Notes From the Fatosphere – Admin Help Needed

So how many of you use the Notes From the Fatosphere rss feed to keep up with all the fatty awesomeness out there?  I know I do, and I know it draws me a lot of readers who stumble across my blog while reading others out there.  If you’ve never noticed Notes From the Fatosphere before, you can see it on this page, it’s the list of links and opening lines on the left there at the bottom of the info I have here on my blog.

Now for the past four years it has been administered by the lovely Bri of Fat Lot of Good, and she has done a great job of doing so, but is ready to hang up her NFtF hat for awhile so that someone else can have a go of driving the mother-ship!  So she has asked me to post the piece below calling for a new administrator for the service.

So if you think you can help, please contact Bri via the email address below – it would be a shame to see this fantastic tool disappear.

Hi All!

I have been the administrator of the Notes From The Fatosphere rss feed for around 4 years now and while continuing as a Fat Activist I feel it is time to pass the feed on to someone else.

At the moment the feed is administered via a Google account and a public Google Reader feed. However Google Reader will no longer be available after July 1 so another way of administrating the feed will need to be used.

The task of administrating the feed is fairly simple. You add blogs you believe fit with the ideology of the Notes feed (ie fat oriented) and you remove any blogs you think no longer fit the ideology. Occasionally a blog will “fall off” the feed and you need to re-add it -generally the blog’s author will email you and let you know their posts aren’t showing up in the feed.

Moving the Feed to another reader site (or the like) will involve finding a suitable place to host the feed and then subscribing to each of the blogs currently on the Google Reader feed. This will take a while but once it is done you only have to add new blogs or remove existing ones.

If anyone is interested in taking on the admin of the Notes feed please email me at scarlettheartt @ gmail.com  (without the spaces) and we can chat.

Yours in Fat,

Bri King

Fat Lot of Good blog

Fat Stigma, Healthism and Eating Disorders

A little housekeeping first – the zine is still trucking along nicely, thank you to those of you who have already submitted contributions, (I’ll be in touch soon if I haven’t already) and to those of you thinking of submitting something, please do!  I particularly need artwork, even just small pieces to fill in around articles and break up the text.

Trigger warning on what follows: discussion of eating disorders, prejudice against fat eating disorder sufferers and rampant healthism.

Photo by Isaac Brown for Stocky Bodies.

Now, on to the actual topic of this post!  As you know, on Tuesday night I was proud to present at the UQ Women’s Collective Diversity Week event.  One of my fellow speakers was a representative from the Eating Disorders Association Inc (EDA) and she spoke on what eating disorders are, who is most likely to be affected by them, and what methods of treatments there are.  We had some robust discussion during the Q&A portion of the event in response to audience questions.  I only wish we could have answered more audience questions, but alas, we ran out of time.

Since then, I have had a LOT of thoughts swirling around my head around eating disorders and how they relate to fat people.  As you would have seen in my last post, I have been an eating disorder sufferer for most of my life, however I was in my 30′s before I was finally officially diagnosed with EDNOS (eating disorder not otherwise specified), which technically means an eating disorder that for some reason does not fit under Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa or Binge Eating Disorder (which has only this week been classified officially as an eating disorder).  In personal terms, for me it means that I have an eating disorder… but I’m fat, so I am excluded from being diagnosed with anorexia or bulimia, despite meeting almost all of the other criteria.  Yes, just being fat disqualifies you from having anorexia or bulimia regardless of your meeting all or most of the other criteria.

So it’s probably no surprise to any of you that I have issues with how the health care industry, most eating disorder support organisations and the general community of eating disorder sufferers treat fat people.  Particularly as it is mostly assumed that fat = binge eating disorder, which is nothing short of bullshit.  Can I put that in any plainer terms for anyone?  BULLSHIT.  Fat people are assumed to just be overeaters or binge eaters by way of being fat.  It is often believed that it is impossible for a fat person to have a restrictive or purging eating disorder, or to be involved in disordered exercise behaviours.  Even as much research (and anecdotal evidence/lived experience) there is out there showing how many fat people have engaged in these forms of disordered eating/activity, the medical profession and most eating disorder organisations still do not recognise it in fat people, and instead suggest that “denial” is one of our symptoms of what must be binge eating disorder.

What regularly happens to fat people who present with all of the markers of restrictive/purging/exercise mania is that we are told to “keep up the good work” instead of having our illnesses recognised.  Behaviours which are widely recognised as destructive, disordered behaviour in thin people, are considered a “positive lifestyle change” in fat people and actively encouraged.  It certainly was for many, many years through my suffering.

And it seems that hasn’t changed much.

So fat people are being failed by most eating disorder support organisations, the medical/health care industry and the general eating disorder community still.

The first question to the panel on Tuesday night was asking how we respond to the “But what about your health?!” demands.  As the fattest person in the room, it meant a lot to me to make it clear that my health, and in fact anyone’s individual health, is nobody’s business but their own.  That it’s not a subject up for discussion unless the person themselves wish it to be so.  You know, the “If it’s not your body, it’s not your business.” mantra.

The representative from EDA then added that she saw the situation differently, and while she started positively with stating that the same health messages should be given to all people, regardless of their body shape or size (which I agree with), it soon devolved into a lot of deeply healthist and fat stigmatising rhetoric about bell curves of mortality rates in body sizes, BMI, “obesity epidemic” and “weight risk factors”.  I was at pains to point out that as someone at one end of that “bell curve”, most of this rhetoric is deeply problematic as it has a risk of demonising and othering those of us who fall at either end of that bell curve.  It also implies that we require intervention into our health, and ignores the fact that “risk” in no way equals “certainty”.  It perpetuates an assumption that people at the ends of the bell curve are by default defective, rather than just the natural extremes of a diverse spectrum of body types.  It also perpetuates the assumption that very fat people or very thin people by default are inevitably going to suffer health issues and/or shorter lifespans that they are only statistically “at risk” for.  This is not an accurate assumption nor is it a helpful one.

I was grateful that it was also raised by someone in the audience (kudos to Amy if you’re reading this) that BMI is both an inaccurate and ineffectual measure of anything (other than ratio of weight to height) and that it is deeply triggering to not just fat people but also to eating disorder sufferers in general (which was many of the audience – since it was an eating disorders event).  BMI is often the stick that people with poor self esteem and body image, and eating disorders beat themselves over the head with.

Unfortunately, I have found healthist rhetoric like this is alarmingly common from eating disorder support organisations, and while they may be well intentioned, are causing the exclusion of many people based on body shape and size, as well as level of health.  The reality is, many eating disorder sufferers have other health issues or may be people with disabilities as well as those caused by or part of their eating disorders, and these already vulnerable people are often made to feel that they do not deserve compassionate treatment and support because they’re hearing the message that health is the most important factor in treatment and support.

We need to keep repeating the message that not only is health completely and utterly arbitrary, but it is not a moral obligation either.  Moralising health is a deeply ableist attitude.  We need to keep fighting for our personal agency in health care as well.  Yes, occasionally there are people who are genuinely unable to advocate for themselves, these are in the vast minority and most importantly, that cannot be determined by either their weight or their actual physical health.  I believe the ONLY way to assess the inability to self advocate is through thorough and compassionate psychological assessment.

As long as we as a culture continue to define wellbeing and human worth by weight and/or arbitrary health measures, we are engaging in both ableism and fat stigma, neither of which actually help people build better wellbeing.  And it’s not just fat people/people with disabilities who are affected by this.   The fear of fat and stigmatising, ableist messages about health trigger damaging behaviours in people of all sizes and levels of physical health/ability.  As long as people are afraid of being fat or place moral obligation on health, they will be engaging in damaging and indeed unhealthy behaviours to avoid being fat or unhealthy.  It is a vicious cycle of direct cause and effect that we have to break for any progress to be made, and that needs to start with the very organisations who are in place to help break disordered behaviours.

What we need an entire cultural change around health and weight and I believe that eating disorder support organisations and groups need to be at the front of this cultural change, not being dragged along by those of us on the margins.  They have a responsibility to make effort to include and support those of us who are most vulnerable to stigma and bigotry, not marginalise us further.

Public Fat Shaming is not Good Marketing

Well hello!  I haven’t forgotten or abandoned you all, I promise.  Life has been intensely busy and I made a promise to myself at the beginning of this year that I would pace myself better and not work myself into the ground with both my activism and my day job.  So you will be getting less posts from me but I’m sure they’ll be better quality in the long term.

I actually had another post written and ready to publish, but something else has cropped up that I would like to talk about.  On Thursday night, as part of the local Bluewater festival here on the bay, there was an event at Shorncliffe called Bayfire.  I decided to take myself along to it to have a look at the markets, get some dinner and watch the fireworks.  I wandered up there and had a look around, bought some very cute hair accessories from a small business called Princess Perfect Clips, tried Transylvanian cheese pie for dinner (verdict – rather tasty) and then watched the fireworks.

When the fireworks were finished, I decided to go and have a look at the rest of the markets.  As I was walking along the waterfront where the stalls all were, minding my own business, someone shoved something in my hands.  I looked down and it was a flyer for some ridiculous weight loss product, which was basically wrapping bits of your body in cling film.  I turned towards the woman who had stuffed it in my hand without asking me if I wanted it, and there they were, a bunch of seriously miserable looking women, all with their arms or middles wrapped in cling film.

I couldn’t believe anyone would be so rude to shove weight loss propaganda into the hands of someone who was not in any way inviting them to do so.  So I tore up the flyer very deliberately right in front of them, making sure they were all watching me, and tossed it into a bin, and walked away.  I was so pissed off.

A bit later I decided to get some dessert, and I decided to share this picture of my dessert on my social media sites (Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook) with the following caption:

Om nom nom, right?

Well, I didn’t imagine the shitstorm it would create on Tumblr.  Mostly because some people seemed to take personal offense that I wasn’t “allowing anyone to be encouraged on their weight loss goals”.

Now how my protesting some company forcing their material on to fat women (they were not shoving the flyers in the hands of men or thin people) to shame them equals “not allowing anyone to be encouraged on their weight loss goals”, I’m fucked if I know.  After all, I don’t give two fucks what other people do to their own bodies.  This has got nothing at all to do with other people’s bodily choices.  What this has to do with is the public shaming of fat women to make money.  What this has to do with is some woman wrapped in cling foil selling a phony diet product deciding that the fat woman walking past her has a body that is “unacceptable” and she can make a buck off that fat woman by flogging her snake oil product.  This is about someone selling a product assuming that as a fat woman that I must be unhappy with my body and want to spend my money on cling film to reduce it.

The other argument that people kept making is that it is “legitimate advertising” to single out fat women (again, they did not hand the flyers to men or thin people) in public and give them weight loss propaganda.

I am not sure what planet some people are living on.

To equate handing unsolicited weight loss flyers to fat people (and only fat people) to an ad on TV, in a magazine, on the radio or on the side of the street etc is fucked up.

Advertising in general is shitty, and needs to be spoken up against, but it’s not picking out an individual in a public place and physically handing them a flyer that says “Hey fat person, here’s a product you should buy to stop being a fat person because fat is gross.”  It’s not singling out someone who is minding their own business in public, to pass commentary on their body by recommending a product to reduce their body.

Imagine if I wasn’t the confident, self aware woman I am now.  To be singled out like this and handed such propaganda would have DEVASTATED me years ago.  I would have felt so upset that someone had pointed out my fatness in public and made commentary via their actions that my body was unacceptable.  How many other fat women had their night ruined on Thursday by being handed this shitty flyer while enjoying an evening out with their friends and/or family?  I don’t know about you, but most fat women I know don’t go out to a fair to find a weight loss solution, they go out to have fun and enjoy the shopping, dining and fireworks.

For some reason, it is believed by many people that weight loss peddlers actually care about us.  That they care about our happiness, our health and/or our bodies.  They don’t.  They care about obtaining our money.  They tell us our bodies are not acceptable, sell us a product that does not work, then blame us for failing, and sell us the product again, or a new product that does not work.   In Australia alone they make almost $800 million per year.  In the US, it’s $66 billion per year.  They are taking your money and laughing at you as they watch you blame yourself for their product or service failure.

Don’t stand for that shit.  Don’t let anyone dismiss what a horrible act it is to single out a fat person and try to shame them into buying a product.  Don’t let the weight loss industry brainwash you into believing that they care about you, or that they are doing anyone a public service by pushing their product on to people who never asked for it in the first place.

No More Hoops

Over the past few days there have been loads of pieces from awesome fat activists on fat and health, mostly in response to a couple of studies that reports that fat and fit are not mutually exclusive and that fat is not an instant death sentence.  It has been really heartening to see so many responses from fat activists that highlight how important access to health care is for fat people and the prejudice that fat people face both in the health care industry and because of the myth that fat automatically equals unhealthy.

However, I think we need to stop and reassess what we are doing here.  Yes, conflating weight with health has been a very pervasive myth that many people have used to justify fat hatred and addressing that is important.  But I don’t think that it is going to help fat people in the long run as much as we need it to.  Because no matter how many myths and stereotypes you bust, those who hate fat people are ALWAYS going to find a way to justify their disgusting attitudes.  Be it health, fitness, appearance, the cost of mittens in America… there will always be something used to justify fat hatred.

We need to let go of constantly trying to meet the bar set by fat haters.  If they say it’s because poor health, we spend our time proving that fat does not equal poor health.  If they say it is because we’re lazy, we spend all our time proving that we are not.  If they say it is because we are gluttonous, we spend our time policing and justifying our own choices for eating.  The list goes on and on.  No matter what myth or stereotype we respond to, there will always be another.

It is time we stopped looking to ourselves to be the ones to change to fight fat hatred.  It is time we started demanding that those who hate fat people are named and shamed for what they are – ignorant bigots who sincerely believe that some people are sub-human and do not deserve to live their lives in peace and dignity.  We, as fat people who are the victims of fat hatred have absolutely no obligation at all to modify our lives or our behaviours to suit those who hate us and to justify our existence.

You know who else believed that some people were not human?  Heard of untermensch?  How is it any different that some people believe that fat people are sub-human or inferior because of how they look and their bodies than it was believed that some people were sub-human/inferior because of their skin, hair or eye colour?  Is not the belief that thin people are superior evidence of the belief of a “master race”?  No decent, ethical human being would ever hold this belief.  Honestly, what kind of person would sincerely believe that they or others are somehow superior to other human beings?

That’s what bigotry is, the belief that there is some kind of hierarchy of human value based on those with power and privilege being higher up than those without.  It’s bullshit and we really need to stop buying into it – both externally AND internally.

Not to mention that every time we engage in the health argument, we are not only setting ourselves up to have to meet some kind of arbitrary requirement of health (which we owe NOBODY) but it’s also incredibly ableist.  What about fat people with disabilities or chronic illness?  What about anyone with disabilities or chronic illness?  How about someone in a coma or other incapacitated state?  Do they not get treated with respect and dignity simply because they’re “not healthy”?  How about those thin people when they inevitably get sick or injured?  Do they forfeit their right to dignity and respect at that moment?

Even if we buy into the whole thing that fat people “choose” to be fat (yeah right, like anyone would choose a life full of discrimination and hatred), that still does not justify the mentality that we are sub-human or somehow inferior to thin people.  Lots of people choose to do things that lower their life expectancy – for fuck’s sake merely driving a car statistically drops YEARS off your life, let alone all of the wild and extreme things human beings do to their bodies.  Just because someone smokes or skateboards or jumps out of perfectly good planes doesn’t mark them as lesser human beings, so why should it apply that way to fatness?  Because again, it’s not at all about health.  It’s not at all about life expectancy.  Fat hatred is simply about a fairly young (only about a hundred years) cultural stigmatisation of people based solely on their appearance, because someone, somewhere decided that money could be made by frightening people into trying to control their appearance.  All because someone saw money (and power, let’s not forget the intersectionality of the control of women in fat hatred) in getting people to buy products, diets, gadgets, pills and schemes to change their bodies, we now have a culture that marks fat people as sub-human.

No, this is about creating hoops for fat people to jump through so that we are not allowed to EVER live our lives with the freedom and dignity that is our right as is every human’s right.  And we must stop engaging with it.  We must stop believing that we have an obligation to prove our health, to prove our lives meet some kind of arbitrary standard placed on us to prevent us being marked as inferior.  Instead of arguing that fat people are not unhealthy/lazy/gluttonous/etc, we need to be repeating over and over and over that to label any human being as inferior based on their health, their appearance, their size, their choices in food or physical activity or any other arbitrary measure that is nobody’s business but their own is bigotry.  We need to be naming and shaming people who honestly believe that they have the right to label us as sub-human/inferior.  We need to be reclaiming our right to live our lives in our own bodies without interference or intervention from anyone.

But most of all we need to believe that of ourselves.  We need to be able to walk through this world that is rife with prejudice against us with our heads held high in the knowledge that we are not sub-human, we are not inferior, that we are as valuable and worthy as any other human being on the planet.

YOU are as valuable and worthy as any other human being on this planet.  Your life is yours.  Live it for you, not to prove that you’re not a stereotype.

2013: The Year of Fat Creativity

You may have noticed of late that I’m not blogging as often as I used to.  That’s because life has been taking me places that aren’t really conducive to much real activism thinking or time to write.  I don’t like this at all, it’s not a place I really want to be.  Usually for me, my activism is like a second, unpaid, full-time job – one that has my passion and my commitment.  Sadly over the past months I have found every day life to be far too stressful to be able to devote the time and energy to my activism that I would like to.

That said, it is a new year – Happy New Year everyone – and it’s time for me to reassess what is important to me and where I want my life to be going.  When I look back on 2012, it is mostly with fondness.  Many good things happened – from my involvement with the Stocky Bodies project, some really positive media participation, an amazing trip to New Zealand complete with Fat Studies conference, and some great personal happenings too.  But the end of the year has left me physically and emotionally exhausted and with my stress levels far higher than I believe is healthy for me.  I find myself dwelling too much on my day job and not enough on my actual life.  So I thought it was time for me to sit down and put together a bit of a wish list for the new year, to help me focus on what is really important to me.  Since I haven’t blogged much of late, I thought I could share it with all of you and invite you to share your wish list for 2013 too, plus it’s then here for us to look back on later.

At the beginning of 2012, I declared it to be the “Year of Living Fatly“.  I think I pretty much met the goals I listed on that post.  Looking back at them now I am sure I did them all.  So there’s a tick in that box.  This year, I think I want to make it the Year of Fat Creativity”.  I don’t do resolutions but I like to aim for things from time to time, to redirect my life into the channels I want it to go, not those that I sort of drift into.  With so much work stress on my shoulders of late, I feel like I’ve let go of all of the creativity that I have always had burbling away in me.  I really feel the need to get back to doing the things that make me feel good, keep my stress levels at bay and matter to me.

What does that include?  Let’s see…

1.       I  will try to concentrate on fat positivity.  I will highlight people who are doing awesome things in fat activism, and talk about places, events, etc where fatness is celebrated and valued.  Fat hate, fat shaming and fat stigma are not worthy of my attention other than to speak up and state clearly that it’s not acceptable.  It’s time that the celebrations of our fat lives were placed front and centre.

2.       Work needs to stay at work.  When I walk out of the door of an afternoon, I do not want to be dwelling on the stresses of my work day.  I don’t get paid for the hours I am not at work, so work does not get to encroach into that time.

3.       It’s time I pursued my love of photography.  This year I would like to get myself a decent SLR camera and perhaps take some photography classes.  I’d like to start photographing fat women (and men sometimes) in a positive light, plus documenting the beautiful area that I live.

4.       I will spend at least one hour per day, on at least 5 days per week, outside.  I live in fucking paradise.  I need to be outside, even if it’s just going for a walk, or taking a book out under a tree, or a bike ride, as many days per week as I can.

Paradise I tells ya!

5.       I will try to support as many independent businesses and artists as I can.  I find the current state of commercial retail especially horrible at the moment.  I need to stop giving those big companies my money as much as possible.  Besides, as a very fat woman, so few mainstream businesses give a shit about me, it is stressful shopping in brick and mortar stores.  I will shop online or at small businesses and markets as much as I can.

6.       I will try to devote more time to writing.  Not let work get in the way.  Not just blogging but writing in general.  And I need to write that book that I’ve been picking away at for the past couple of years.

7.       I will continue to live my life fatly.  No apologising for my body, my weight, my appearance, the space I take up.  And I will encourage others to do so as well.

OK loves, what about you?  What are your aims for 2013?

Outside the Margins – Fatshion and Fashion

Hasn’t this week been a big one for the discussion of what has happened to fatshion?  This discussion is a very good thing, and mostly it has actually been discussion, rather than drama.

That said, there are two assumptions/perceptions that I really want to address today in this post:

1) That fatshion has been consumed by the corporate, that it has been branded and marketed out of all power.

2) That fatshion is inaccessible to people who do not have things like a fancy camera, access to designer brands, high profile status, the ability to travel, or influential contacts.

Before I address these two things, I want to acknowledge that high profile plus-size fashion visibility is most definitely white, smaller fat (14-18), young, cis-gender, heterosexual, able bodied and affluent.  Hell yes, the freebies, the plum gigs in the industry, the advertising money, and the popularity go to those with privilege.  We need more diversity in plus-size fashion.  We need more women of colour, we need more variety in size and shape of fat women in plus-size fashion, we need older women, we need variance of gender and sexuality, we need visibility of people with disabilities and indeed, most plus-size fashion is expensive and inaccessible to those without ready disposable income.  Absolutely.

But answer me this… isn’t ALL fashion guilty of these things?  Isn’t the entire fashion industry, regardless of size, guilty of these things at a base level?  Plus-size fashion companies are mirroring the EXACT thing that happens in straight-size fashion.  The entire industry needs revolutionising, for no other reason that like all of society, it favours the privileged.  A young, white size 16 woman in fashion may not be radical anymore, but it is radical that we have shifted the boundaries to the point that they are no longer considered radical.

What I believe, is that fatshion is not the same thing as the plus-size fashion industry.  They intersect of course, but the reality is that the plus-size fashion industry is not fully serving the fatshion community (or just the general fat community) to meet it’s need.  That brings me to my first point above:

1) That fatshion has been consumed by the corporate, that it has been branded and marketed out of all power.

We are seeing a slight shift in the world of plus-size fashion.  It’s not a radical one at all, but it is a shift.  Young, attractive women bloggers over a size 14 are starting to get noticed by the plus-size fashion industry.  In fact they’re starting to get noticed by the fashion industry in general.  Names like Gabi Gregg and Nicolette Mason are turning up in mainstream fashion arenas.  Models like Teer Wayde, Fulvia Lacerda and Lizzie Miller are being featured in mainstream magazines.  We are seeing an interest in women with bodies outside of the traditional modelling and fashion size range (which is obscenely narrow – pun not intended) across the board.

But that’s not the reality of fatshion for the vast majority.  Gabi, Nicolette, Teer, Fulvia, Lizzie and others like them are making amazing careers for themselves in an industry that until now has otherwise excluded them.  They are doing something that very few people get to do, and I believe should be celebrated for doing so.  But they are working in the fashion industry.  Fatshion is not about working in the fashion industry, it is about every day fat women engaging in dressing themselves with care and pride, despite a world that tells them they are not entitled to do so.  Yes, these women definitely do that, it is possible to engage in fatshion while working in the fashion industry.  But we should not be holding them as a standard that all fat women should aim for by engaging in fatshion.  Realistically, there is only ever going to be a tiny, elite few who get to do that.

Fatshion is not the same thing as the fashion industry.

What is amazing about these women is that they are pushing the boundaries of what the fashion industry means.  A mere two years ago, these women were struggling to be seen, to progress in their careers.  They’ve worked hard to get where they are and they have been propelled by fatshion, both directly and indirectly.  By engaging in fatshion themselves, they have become visible in an industry that almost always renders women over a very small size range invisible.  It has made them stand out in an industry that is pretty bland really.  However, fatshion in general has also had it’s role in propelling these women into an industry.  The snowball effect of more and more people engaging in fatshion and visibly interested in style, clothes, accessories and expressing ourselves through those things has meant that it empowers others to do so as well.  This then rolls on to the money spent in the fashion industry.  The fashion industry notices this change, and then responds by trying to make more money by cashing in on this expanding marketing.  It’s the nature of the beast.  The more visible those of us on the fringes are the more the boundaries are pushed.  The more we make it clear that we care about where we spend our money, and that we will spread word of mouth, both positive and negative, the more the fashion industry tries to cash in on us.

Fatshion has not been consumed, nor is it powerless.  The boundaries of the fashion industry have simply shifted slightly to include a tiny few more.  Fatshion’s job is not over, nor will it ever be.  Someone is always going to be marginalised, and it’s our power to use fatshion to constantly push, stretch and pull those margins to include more and more people.  Fatshion is powerful and valuable.  I wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for fatshion, and my engaging in fatshion is often what opens the doors for people to come and investigate my activism.

This brings me nicely to the second point above:

2) That fatshion is inaccessible to people who do not have things like a fancy camera, access to designer brands, high profile status, the ability to travel, or influential contacts.

There seems to be this perception that the only people engaging in fatshion are those like the aforementioned high-profile women.  That fatshion is somehow closed to everyday people.  If you think that’s what fatshion is about, I say you’re not looking hard enough.  The vast majority of fatshion bloggers are people with everyday lives.  Jobs, families, commitments and restrictions are all present in most fatshion blogger’s lives.  Again, fatshion is not about being directly involved in the fashion industry.  Fatshion is about participating in something otherwise denied to fat women. It is about visibility, celebration and creativity.

The assumption that engaging in fatshion requires the best of everything, or the most privileged of people, is erroneous.  Otherwise I wouldn’t engage in it myself, at 40 years old and size 26AU and beyond, using my phone to take photos in the bathroom mirror at work, and shopping on a $25 per week clothing budget (sometimes less).  I’m not even a fatshion blogger, one doesn’t have to be to engage in fatshion.  I use my fatshion as one of the aspects of my activism, to change how people think about how fat women present themselves and how we should look.

When I look through my Fatshion folder in Google Reader, I see so much more than just a few high profile plus-size women in the fashion industry.  I see canny thrift shoppers, skillful re-stylers, talented crafters, and most practice a make-it-work philosophy.  I see a smattering small-time designers creating amazing things for women with bodies like their own.  I see photographs taken on smart phones, budget digital cameras, webcams and borrowed cameras.  I see single Mums, carers, women who work from home.  I see bloggers who work long hours in regular jobs, some who have several jobs.  I see some who have continued through illness, injury, unemployment and tragedy.  I see etsy hunters and eBay stalkers. I see swappers, sharers and sellers.  I see those who take fatshion to an artform, living their lives as works of art.  I see women of colour, women with disability, a rainbow of gender variations and sexualities.  I see women of all ages, from those fresh out of high school through to those with “advanced style”.  I see every size from 16 through to beyond what is available commercially in plus-sizes.  I see high fashion, high art and popular culture interspersed with alternative style, radical looks and vintage kitsch.  I seldom see high end designer pieces, but I see vintage, budget mass produced and hand-made all used with personal flair and creativity.

This is what fatshion means to me.  While I admire the few who have made it into the mainstream fashion industry and continue to push it’s boundaries, they’re not what I take my inspiration from.  They’re not why I take pleasure in fatshion myself, and not how I use fatshion as activism.

Fatshion is so much  more than mainstream fashion up-sized to fit a size 16 or 18.  Fatshion belongs to us, not to the fashion industry.  Fatshion will always be outside the margins, and will always be radical.  Fatshion belongs to here and now, not the past.  Fatshion is about finding your own style and rocking the hell out of it, flying in the face of a world that tells us we should never be seen.

Fat Stories: An Exhibition

Last night was the official launch of Fat Stories at the Brisbane Powerhouse – an exhibition of photographs by Isaac Brown, documenting the lives of six Australian fat activists, including yours truly.  These are photographs taken as part of the Stocky Bodies project, an image library of photographs of fat people going about our everyday lives.

Isaac asked me to give a bit of an introduction to the exhibition and project as one of the participants, so I thought it an excellent opportunity to frock up for the evening.  I wore a navy and white spotted dress I got from Best & Less yonks ago, my Domino Dollhouse peach crinoline, peach and white polka dot shoes from Target and a big peach statement necklace from Lovisa.  I guess you want a look right?

Always fun to get an opportunity to frock up!

I was thrilled to have my dear friend Kerri and my tattooist, the lovely Victoria R Lundberg, there as my guests.  And I was also tickled to see an old friend, Franca, come along to the exhibit too, as I hadn’t seen her in many years.

Well this time, I actually wrote down my introduction speech, so I thought I’d share it with you here.  Because this was a different audience of people than usually hear about fat activism and fat liberation, I wanted something that snuck up and hit people in the kidneys a little bit, and made them think about the systematic dehumanisation of fat people.  So here’s what I came up with:

Several years ago, I was watching the news on TV, when a story about the “obesity epidemic” came on.  It was the usual rhetoric, fat people are all lazy and gluttonous, and they’re all going to die, we’d better prevent them, cure them, eradicate them.  As I watched this news story wringing it’s hands about how fat is the scourge of society, it happened.  I saw myself, right there on the TV screen, with my head cut off.  A piece of footage that had clearly been filmed outside my office building without my knowledge or consent.  It was me – in the very outfit I was still wearing as I sat there watching the news after I’d got home from work.

I cannot tell you how devastated I was.  What was left of my self esteem was instantly crushed, and I was mortified.  I was embarrassed, ashamed and deeply hurt.  Here this news story was, calling for the eradication of of fat, and it was illustrated with a picture of me, completely dehumanised, as though I was nothing but a big belly.

This is how the media represents fat people.  This is not only how the world are shown fat, but how we fat people see ourselves represented.

But this is not the reality of our lives.  We are not amorphous blobs of fat to be eradicated.  We are people.  People who have lives, loves, families, friends, careers, hobbies and most importantly, feelings.

This project gives us back our personhood.  These photographs represent our lives as they are, not as the media and marketing like to portray us.  But most importantly, they show other fat people that they are valuable human beings, who can live their lives to the full, despite the constant suggestion that they are worth less than people who are not fat.  These photographs have already inspired people around the world to take up dancing, to buy a bicycle, to get tattoos, to go swimming, to spend time enjoying the company of their loved ones, to shop for fashion, to wear what they like… and the most important thing – believe in themselves and their own worth.

So yeah, there you have it.  For those of you in or around Brisbane, or who can get to Brisbane over the next three weeks, I do urge you to head to the Brisbane Powerhouse at New Farm to have a look at the exhibition (it’s free!)  Here’s the flyer, featuring a favourite photo of mine from the collection, of Victoria and I, proving once and for all that you can have a photograph of fat people that withholds their identity without it being a stigmatising “headless fatty” shot.

Or you can find out more information at Fat Stories – Brisbane Powerhouse.

Om Nom Nom

One of the most powerful forms of fat activism is to reclaim your right to eat and enjoy food.  Fat people have their food choices and eating policed constantly, from the constant barrage of marketing and media that labels food as either bad/sinful/unhealthy or good/virtuous/healthy, to the passing comments on what you are eating.  I could write volumes on comments that have been made to me about my food and eating from both people who I know and complete strangers.  A few of my favourites include:

• the elderly woman who didn’t bother to lower her voice as she walked past me eating a fruit salad outside a cafe and said in a disgusted tone “People like that should just not eat, ever.”
• The colleague years ago who tried to take my Slurpee off me in the elevator because he decided that it was bad for me.  He wasn’t joking.
• The colleague who used to stalk me at lunch time and stare intently at me while I ate my lunch, her eyes travelling from my plate to my mouth with each bite and then say “I couldn’t eat that, it has too many calories.”
• The two women who loudly said “Oh God, how disgusting is she?” while I sat eating a chicken and salad meal with my then boyfriend (who was very thin) who was eating a steak-burger, chips, a meat pie and a large thickshake AND was picking food off my plate.
• The woman who thought I couldn’t hear her in the supermarket because I had my earbuds in, who looked in my shopping basket (that particular day only contained yoghurt, toilet paper and toothpaste) and said to her daughter “That’s what happens when you eat too much rubbish food.”
• The old boss that said “You need to stop thinking about food” when I worriedly asked my visibly tired, stressed colleague when he was going to go take his lunch break, which he clearly needed.

I’m sure many of you can supply your own examples of the douchey, insensitive, invasive things people do and say to you as a fat person, on the topic of food and eating.

But that is not what this post is about.

Those of you who follow me on Twitter, Tumblr or Instagram (username FatHeffalump) may have noticed that I use the #freefatty hashtag a lot, when I post pictures of food.  My aim is to reclaim my freedom to eat, to enjoy food, to share and celebrate food, without allowing anyone to shame or lecture me for my choices.  Sadly, that constitutes a radical act these days, when it really shouldn’t.  I mean other than to enjoy “breaking bread” with someone, or to share food experiences, who gives a fuck what other people eat right?  But our entire culture is geared to load shame and moral value to what people eat (or don’t eat).  I refuse to buy into that.  I’m not going to justify what I eat.  I’m not going to make excuses for eating things that are considered “unhealthy” or “sinful” or “junk”.  Nor am I going to crow or brag about eating something considered “healthy” or “virtuous”.  I’m going to share my food choices either because they look good, taste amazing, are celebratory or are just interesting for whatever reason.  It might just be because it’s part of my day and I like sharing my life with my friends and fellow Tweeters/Tumblrers/Instagrammers.

So today, I’m going to dedicate this blog post to sharing some photos of food I’ve eaten over the past few months (since I got into Instagram and have the photos to share) and talk about what I was doing when I ate them.  I encourage  you to talk about this food, and food you’ve eaten recently in the comments.  Tell me about the most delicious thing  you’ve eaten recently.  Talk about one of the photos below.  Tell your own story about food.  Let’s be radical and reclaim our right to food and eating Heffalumpies!

Bike snack.

I often take snacks with me when I ride my bike, I particularly like cheese, crackers and dried fruit.  They’re easy to pack, tasty and don’t create any rubbish I have to bring home with me.

French toast

French toast is one of my easy meals when I get home from work after a hard day.  How do you have your French toast?  When I was a kid it was always a savoury thing, served with salt and vinegar.  I still eat it that way if I cook it for myself, but I do love to have it as a sweet dish with maple syrup or lemon syrup if I go out for brunch or something.

Choccies!

It was a really intense time at work so my colleague brought along a box of chocs for us to share in our team meeting.  I’m not a big fan of Favourites, but I have been known to pick out the Flake or Moro minis from them.  If I buy boxed chocolates for the team at work, I usually buy Darrell Lea soft centres.

Wednesday morning breakfast.

We have farmer’s markets outside my office building every Wednesday, and I’ve got into the habit of getting a sour cherry danish from the Italian bakery stall each Wednesday morning, which I have with my regular cup of coffee.  Yes, I drink my coffee black – at least I do when it’s instant or plunger coffee.  I don’t mind a latte (made on lactose free or skim milk – I don’t drink a lot of milk) if I am getting espresso coffee.  These danish are amazing – so tangy!

You don’t win friends with salad! You don’t win friends with salad!

This was a salad I made myself for dinner one night.  It was mixed greens, roasted capsicum, shredded carrot and beetroot and crunchy noodles with a mango dressing.  It was sooooo good.  I want one now in fact!

I went out for brunch with some friends at the Lagoon Coffee Lounge here at Sandgate, and ordered this amazing breakfast.  Brunch is one of my favourite meals.  Especially if it involves mushrooms.

Fat woman eating ice-cream – NOOOOO!!

Yes, this fatty loves ice-cream.  Particularly rum and raisin.  There is a gelateria on the waterfront here at Sandgate and I’ve only ever been there twice since I moved here.  I picked this up one Sunday afternoon on my way back from a walk along the waterfront.  It was SO GOOD!

Mjolnir macerates strawberries perfectly.

Also purchased from the Wednesday farmer’s markets are these gorgeous strawberries from Kandara farm.  They are so much better than any of the supermarket stuff.

Gina’s Pastizzi

My friend Gina makes THE most amazing pastizzi.  She worked in our office for a month and spoiled us by bringing in a huge container of these.

Tacolicious!

Decent Mexican food has been nigh on impossible to find in Australia, but now that Guzman Y Gomez stores are popping up all over the place, it has got so much better.  It’s not very often I get to go to one, but I was in the Wintergarden for something a few weeks ago, so I had to stop there for lunch.

Wow!

My friends Di, Kerri and I went to the Beaudesert show (like a carnival or fair for you non-Aussies) and the big food tradition at Beaudesert show is pavlova with strawberries and cream from the Jimboomba scout association.  They’ve been doing that stand at the Beaudesert show for as long as I can remember, and it’s always a massive hit every year.  This was a small serve!

Quack!

I don’t really need to say anything about this photo do I?  Except that you can see the magnet I got from Weta Caves in New Zealand (Frodo’s sword, Sting) and one from Colombia that my friend’s Roberto and Elena brought back for me.

Looks like kibble, I know.

I keep this rice cracker stuff in a Tupperware container at work for snacks.  It’s great for when I want something a bit crunchy.  It’s cheap too, I pick it up from the Golden Circle outlet when I can in big 2kg bags that last me forever.

The ultimate comfort food.

Bangers and mash with onion gravy.  Is there anything more comforting?  While the weather was cold I’d have this about once a week, it’s easy to cook, the leftovers are delicious and it tastes great.

Fancy dinin’!

I had a day out with some ladies I met through Bookcrossing a few weeks ago.  We went to the Mummy exhibit and the Queensland Museum, and also had a look at the Gwen Gillam (local fashion designer from the 50′s/60′s/70′s) exhibit, and then had lunch at the Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA) Bistro.  I had this AMAZING hazelnut crusted pork cutlet on roasted kumara and onions.  WOW.

Another Aussie tradition – Neenish tarts.

It’s lovely when a colleague shows appreciation.  One of the fab library folk brought in a container of these for me a couple of weeks ago.  These are Neenish tarts.  I have know idea where Neen is or how Neenish tarts came about, so let’s ask Wikipedia.

Thai prawn stirfry with cashews and jasmine rice.

Tiramisu

These two go together.  My lovely friend Vonnie and her husband Callum and their son Ewan were visiting Queensland a couple of weeks ago on holidays, and we met up for dinner.  Vonnie is one of the first friends I made on the internet – we met through a SeaChange (Australian TV show) mailing list a LONG time ago, and I visited her in Melbourne 9 years ago when she invited me to her wedding after having only met me once before when she and Callum were visiting Brisbane.  Their wedding was one of the most beautifully relaxed and truly special events I have ever been to.  As Vonnie is a vegetarian, Callum is a meat-eating truck driver and Ewan is a small boy with the usual small boy dietary requirements, I took them to Jo-Jo’s here in Brisbane because they have a really broad variety of meals, and are kid friendly.  I almost always have their Thai prawn stirfry with cashews and jasmine rice when I go there, it’s that good and has been on their menu for at least 20 years.  I had a wonderful evening with them all, I wish we lived closer together so I could see them more often.

This is yakisoba.  It is usually what I have for lunch on the day I don’t bring it in from home.  I love Japanese food, it’s so tasty and chock full of veges.

Food for the brain and the body.

At least once on a weekend I try to take my lunch and a book down to the waterfront for a couple of hours relaxed reading.  This is last Saturday’s fare – Tom Cho and peanut butter and banana sandwiches.

Team Breakfast

Every now and then my team at work take time out together to have breakfast before work.  We particularly like the Java Coast Cafe on George Street.  I cannot tell you how good that wilted spinach (under the grilled tomato) is!  The mushrooms are amazing too.  It’s good for us, we get some time to talk about something other than work, and remember that we are all people outside of work.  It keeps us a tight, strong team.

Last one!  This was my breakfast/brunch this morning.  Pancakes with bacon and maple syrup, and a latte.  A couple of times per month I take myself (and my book of course) off for brunch on a weekend.  I like the aforementioned Lagoon Coffee Lounge – you can see why by this delicious breakfast!

Ok, so over to you.  Tell me about a meal or dish you’ve had, something you’ve cooked, or a tasty snack you love.  Please remember that there will be no moralising about food, no deeming it good/bad and no judgement of what other people eat.  And most importantly NO DIET TALK!

Bon appetit!