You Have the Right to Remain Fat

You Have the Right to Remain Fat | Virgie Tovar

Weaponxgirl @GingerAntics this made me think about a conversation we had in the past 5y

GingerAntics I‘m slow. What‘s the difference? I don‘t see body positivity as assimilating. I know the arsehole at the train station isn‘t going to ever “approve” of or “accept” my body. He can kiss my pale pink arse because I‘m fine with me. 5y

Weaponxgirl @GingerAntics it makes more sense within the chapter sorry. So the body positivity movement is about getting assimilated into the system as is rather than trying to change the system and the problems underlying it. So it‘s the we want pretty clothes and to be accepted as pretty rather than the fighting hard against the misogyny that says how a woman‘s body should be and define what pretty is. 5y

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Weaponxgirl @GingerAntics she calls it white feminism of the body movement and I would have to agree with her. It‘s a part of the same movement that fights hard for women to lean in and get high powered jobs rather than questions a system that puts traditionally female coded jobs as unskilled and in the underpaid category. Not that these things aren‘t important but when isolated moves they don‘t lead to lasting change. 5y

BibliOphelia 👆👆 ❤️ this conversation. Body positivity says that all shapes of body can be “pretty”. Why tf does a woman‘s body have to be pleasing to everybody? Why?! My body carries me around. I need it to be strong & functional. I need it to make ME happy. Full stop. (Disclaimer: I have a conventionally accepted body shape & a genetic disorder that causes my joints to not function correctly. I don‘t care about pretty. I want to be able to play with my kid) 5y

Weaponxgirl @BibliOphelia it‘s a movement that I understand looked more inclusive at first rather than fat activism as some people might feel like they had to be fat to be included but my huge problem with the body positivity movement has been the quick and happy assimilation into selling us shit that does the exact opposite of making us feel good about ourselves. I‘ve seen selling diet pills with the message to feel body positive 5y

Weaponxgirl @BibliOphelia She talks about how just looking at a body doesn‘t actually tell you anything about health. I have a friend who has what sounds like a similar condition to yourself alongside digestion problems that can flare everything up. She doesn‘t care like yourself and just wants her body to be able to do what she needs it to do. And like you I hate the idea of always being pretty! Sometimes what feels good within my body is not “pretty” 5y

BibliOphelia Yes, yes, yes!! I relate so much more to the fat-activist movement than anything ‘body positivity‘. To me, it says “stop putting your assumptions and expectations” on my body, which, I think, is the message that needs to be sent. 5y

Weaponxgirl @BibliOphelia yes! The worst thing is that focusing on being pretty can have completely the opposite effect of helping people be healthy. Some research has shown that girls stop doing exercise as much when they hit their teens due to feeling self conscious. The onus should be on doing activity you like and enjoying how it makes you feel in itself. Never this will make you look good and here‘s some cute workout clothes to do it in. 5y

GingerAntics I guess that‘s not my understanding of the body positivity movement. 🤷🏼‍♀️ 5y

Weaponxgirl @GingerAntics you‘ve probably found the good shit. 😁 5y

BibliOphelia Exactly. I wish I (or we all) could do more to fill girls up with confidence and healthy messages. Any chance your friend has a connective tissue disorder? 5y

Weaponxgirl @BibliOphelia I‘m honestly not sure. I know it‘s often to do with her nerves and affects her joints also. 5y

GingerAntics @Weaponxgirl actually, at first I found the bad stuff. All this, it‘s okay to be fat if you‘re trying not to be, and calling it body positive. Then the backlash of its okay to be fat and if you work out at all or care about your body at all or care about the clothes you can wear or anything else that‘s considered “skinny culture” you‘re just faking body positivity. The Jes Baker book was all about redefining “heath” and redefining “acceptable”... 5y

GingerAntics @Weaponxgirl because every body is different, every body has its issues, there is no such thing as the perfect body (so we need to just stop that shite right there) and we need to stop restricting and excluding people because of size, ability, race, etc. She brought in ablism and racism as part of the problem as well. 5y

Weaponxgirl @GingerAntics I think I saw her as more of a fat activist rather than body positivity for some reason. I was interested as this author has been working in both camps. 5y

GingerAntics @Weaponxgirl I have to agree with Jes Baker and Naomi Wolf on this one. Society doesn‘t want women to band together, because it keeps us complacent. This body positive vs fat activism is just one more way we are playing along, dividing ourselves, and therefore helping them maintain the status quo. Just my opinion. 5y

Weaponxgirl @GingerAntics I‘m sure there are still the pockets of awesome body positivity around, I‘ve just seen so much of the toxic stuff around recently that I‘ve kinda washed my hands of it. But this is the fate of any movement that gets co-opted by the mainstream. 5y

GingerAntics @Weaponxgirl 🤷🏼‍♀️ I don‘t know. I think we all need to stop with the “you‘re doing it wrong” mentality. If someone‘s motivation is wanting to feel pretty, if that‘s important to them, who are we to judge? If someone wants it to be more about something else, who are we to judge? We need to stop dividing ourselves and start coming together and say, “our motivations are different, but the end result can work for all of us.” 5y

GingerAntics @Weaponxgirl this is actually why I‘ve stayed out of the body image world since I was a teenager. No matter what you do, you‘re doing it wrong according to some group somewhere and they‘re going to make sure you know about it. 🤷🏼‍♀️ Might as well just stay by myself and stay out of it all. Which is actually exactly what society at large wants, especially male society. 5y

Weaponxgirl @GingerAntics ah sorry. I never meant to imply that I thought it was wrong for people to want to feel pretty. More that my main problem has been the fact it has been diluted in certain areas to the point that anything can be sold to us to be more body positive. To me there is a huge difference in someone doing something for themselves to feel awesome and when it is take. And packaged back to us as this is how you get there. I‘ve seen the 5y

Weaponxgirl @GingerAntics opposite end of the spectrum where people have been shamed for exercising for example as being a kind of traitor to the self acceptance movement and that is just as toxic and not on and should not be going on either. I completely agree that we should come together as women. 5y

GingerAntics @Weaponxgirl exactly!!! I wish we could get these self righteous women to open their freakin eyes and stop all the us and them mentality about everything. Anything that takes that stand just really turns me off. I just don‘t like to play that BS. Women are really good at shaming each other because that‘s what we‘re told to do. Men don‘t have to do much to police our bodies, women do it for them. It‘s how the system was set up. 5y

GingerAntics I‘ve followed body positive accounts or read books in the past, and as soon as the “we‘re really doing it right and they‘re screwing it up” comes out, I‘m done. We even need to go and rename the movement so you can tell the difference between the “right” way and the “wrong” way. 🙄 That‘s the point where I don‘t want to be part of it, because it‘s all a judgement. Do you use this term or that term? Are you right or wrong? 5y

GingerAntics @Weaponxgirl companies, especially, have taking body positivity and used it to sell crap that isn‘t body positive at all. The reality is, no matter what it‘s called, that will be next. You just have to push on with what‘s important to you personally. As soon as fat activism gets big enough, companies will high Jack that too. Then what will it be? How are we supposed to keep up with an ever changing name? 🤷🏼‍♀️ 5y

Weaponxgirl @GingerAntics this is a problem that hits all movements and I‘m honestly not sure what the answer is tbh. Such as the fact that now we have feminist t shirts being sold that apparently give some money to women‘s centred charities whilst being made in factories that employ predominantly women that are paid poverty wages in Bangladesh. That obviously isn‘t right or feminist but how do we evolve movements without them being taken over and then 5y

Weaponxgirl @GingerAntics the message being lost? 5y

GingerAntics @Weaponxgirl exactly? I just feel like if you‘re writing a book on it, but then adding to the problem, I don‘t need to read your book. Just like I don‘t need to buy that T-shirt. I think it‘s just up to people to be diligent and make decisions for their own participation that fit with their own ethics. (edited) 5y

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