So, in many ways, gaining weight put things into perspective for me. The men who continued to want to have lunch with me or strike up a conversation were interested in me as a human being, the others—the overwhelming majority—ignored me completely. It reminds me of the argument that men and women can’t be platonic friends. The thought that this is an accepted fact of life pains me. Are we suggesting that men don’t want anything to do with women who don’t serve them sexually, either by giving up their bodies or by serving as objects to chase? Sadly, it has been this exact realization that I’ve encountered far too often in my new body.
Meanwhile, flocks of men are over here complaining about being “friend-zoned,” but I’m here to assure you that the “friend zone” is as mythical as Narnia. Really. It doesn’t exist. Women are not obligated to show affection to a guy who does her a certain number of favors, or buys dinner, or gives her compliments. Spending time and money is not an investment for which the only return is sex. Women have this funny little thing called free will, where they are actually—believe it or not—allowed to choose who they are sexually attracted to and what they want to do about that attraction. Expecting anything otherwise is straight-up entitlement and reeks of misogyny.
So did being fat make me more of a feminist? Absolutely.
I wholeheartedly believe that how attractive I am to a particular person, or society at large, does not dictate how smart I am, how capable I am, how talented I am, how well I can serve others, or how happy and fulfilled as a human being I can be. I know that my life and my purpose are so much bigger than being attractive to someone. I am actually able to look back at my weight gain and be grateful for it because it weeded out so many idiots. Now I am sure, without question, that the people in my life, and specifically the men, are here because they want to be and because they love me unconditionally.
Whenever someone tells me she’s not a feminist, I feel disheartened, though not completely surprised. After all, 44 percent of women say that the choices women make themselves are a bigger factor in keeping women from achieving full equality with men, rather than discrimination against women (44 percent).*5 Scores of female celebrities have spoken out about how they do not consider themselves feminists, including Kelly Clarkson, Katy Perry, and even Madonna. Take a look at these quotes:
Kelly Clarkson: I wouldn’t say feminist—that’s too strong. I think when people hear feminist, it’s just like, “Get out of my way, I don’t need anyone.”…I love that I’m being taken care of, and I have a man that’s an actual leader….I’m not a feminist in that sense.
Katy Perry: I am not a feminist, but I do believe in the strength of women.
Madonna: I’m not a feminist; I’m a humanist.
However, in the years following, they’ve offered more clarity regarding their responses.
Kelly Clarkson: I was saying that in the past decade, I feel people have associated the word “feminist” with “bitch” and “man-hater” and all these things. And I’m definitely not that girl. That’s what I meant by that. Obviously I believe in female equal rights. I’m not an idiot. I’m a female. I believe in equal rights across the board.
Katy Perry: A feminist? Uh, yeah, actually. I used to not really understand what that word meant, and now that I do, it just means that I love myself as a female and I also love men.
Madonna: So, we live in a very ageist society, which means we live in a sexist society because nobody ever gives men shit for how they behave, however old they are. There is no rulebook. As a man, you can date whoever you want. You can dress however you want. You can do whatever you want in any area that you want. But, if you’re a woman, there are rules, and there are boundaries.
In an effort to distance themselves from owning a word that has a negative connotation, these women renounced feminism, even though their later words confirmed that they are, in fact, feminists (and thank God, because if Madonna, in all her eighties-armpit-hair and in-your-face sexuality didn’t consider herself a feminist, I’m not sure I’d want to live on this planet anymore). As women, I don’t think we should be afraid to claim what we are, whether that means being a feminist or being fat. Or both.
I wish we didn’t need feminism anymore, but I am a hundred percent certain that we do. Internalized misogyny runs deep and it hurts everyone, including men. Every time we tell a little boy that he can’t cry, or that he is gay if he wants to take a dance class (and what’s wrong with being gay anyway?), or that he needs to man up and that he’s a pussy if he resorts to nonviolence, we are hurting men. Championing toxic masculinity is harmful to men, especially in the areas of sexual assault (even though men account for up to 38 percent of sexual assault victims,*6 they are much less likely than women to report it) and domestic violence, which is typically accepted as a male-on-female problem. It’s also important to point out that just because you happen to subscribe to typical gender roles, it doesn’t make you a sexist pig or a weak woman. It’s perfectly fine for a man to want to provide for his family, and it’s perfectly fine for a woman to want to be a stay-at-home mom. However, the reverse is just as okay. Feminism is about choices that every woman has the right to make for herself. When we try to police women’s autonomy, sexual or otherwise, that is misogyny.
But this kind of overt policing of women’s behavior isn’t the only evidence of misogyny—the world is full of microaggressions, too, seemingly small things that add up to a big problem. I was floored recently when a Facebook post of mine went viral. Why? Because it was about a pack of gum…kinda.
Because I had a headache, I went into a gas station around nine P.M. in search of Tylenol. As soon as I walked in, the clerk called out, “Hey, sweetheart.” I offered him nonverbal acknowledgment and picked up my medicine. When I set it down on the counter, he rang it up, and then I also set a pack of gum on the counter. When he saw the gum, he picked it up, held it to his chest, and said, “You’ve gotta give me a smile if you want this.” But I didn’t want to pay for my gum with a smile; I wanted to pay for it with money, so I politely refused, saying, “No thanks, I’ll just take the gum.” My refusal to play his silly game by smiling on command for him, in exchange for gum that I was willing and eager to pay for, angered him and he immediately started berating me, grumbling about my bad attitude and saying things like, “Man, you can’t act like that.” He never did ring up my gum, so I put some cash down for the Tylenol and left. When I got home, I was so irritated that I took to Facebook to describe the situation. If I wasn’t sure the actual incident is evidence of why we need feminism, the comment section surely was.
Thousands of people weighed in. The overwhelming majority were women who blasted me, calling me a bitch for not smiling at this man.
It’s only a smile.
He was trying to cheer you up.
Couldn’t you have just humored him?
I’m sorry, what? How could anyone defend someone who refused to do his job until I gave in to his demands (no matter WHAT they were). I’m sure the same people reassuring me that he was only trying to brighten my day would have felt differently if he’d said, “You’ve gotta go out with me if you want this,” or “You’ve gotta show your tits if you want this.” But he didn’t—those two scenarios we can recognize as much worse, but really, is a smile THAT big of a deal?
Yes, it is. It is a big deal because it’s a microaggression executed by a man who was in a position of power (he had access to what I wanted and the ability to provide or deny it), and he manipulated that power to get something he wanted from me before he would do his job and sell me gum. The BBC filmed an interview with me for their trending segment, and people.com wrote an article about it. All over some gum. (Hot take: it wasn’t really about the gum at all.)
A lot of positives came out of this little slice-of-life story, but the worst part was, hands-down, the women tearing me apart at the seams, completely unaware that they don’t have to put up with the kind of treatment I received in the gas station, no matter how innocuous it s
eems. Thousands of women asked why I couldn’t just “take a compliment” from this sweet old Southern man. Interestingly enough, two out of three of those assumptions were wrong: the man was neither sweet nor old. In fact, he was younger than me, but I didn’t include that detail for the same reason I didn’t include the color of his skin—it’s irrelevant. I didn’t even find it necessary to point out that he spoke in a threatening tone; I thought his actual words were bad enough. People also didn’t understand why I viewed this interaction as rife with sexism. The explanation is simple. The clerk would not have required a man to smile before selling him gum, and I feel certain he also would not have required me to smile for him if my boyfriend or another man were present with me. Then there were the “victim blamers” (no, I don’t really feel victimized over this situation, just pissed) who demanded to know the clerk’s side of the story, what I said to him before he asked me to smile, what I was wearing, why I had a headache, etc. They rallied for this anonymous man as though I’d published his first and last name and his mother’s address on the Internet. No one seemed to be able to trust that I, as a thirty-two-year-old woman, could possibly have been validated in feeling creeped out, because surely this man was just trying to cheer me up by demanding a smile in exchange for service, even though he never once smiled at me. Do you see any parallels between this and, say, how people react when a woman claims she is raped?
This kind of compliance with microaggressive behaviors is the same reason so many women experience catcalling, and verbal and physical harassment, and accept it as just part of being a woman.
Body-positivity for women without feminism is a futile effort. You cannot truly appreciate your body in the most genuine way until you detach other people’s sexual expectations from it. Without feminism, body-positivity is a car without an engine; it loses its (em)power(ment). Do yourselves a favor, ladies: don’t be afraid to be a feminist. Feminism is my favorite F-word. Followed by “fat,” of course. Can you guess what my third one is? (Hint: it’s not “food.”)
* * *
*1 www.huffingtonpost.com/ariel-smilowitz/for-us-women-inequality-takes-many-forms_b_7064348.html
*2 rainn.org/get-information/statistics/sexual-assault-victims
*3 www.aauw.org/research/the-simple-truth-about-the-gender-pay-gap
*4 Liz Stimpson and Margaret C. Best, Courage Above All: Sexual Assault Against Women with Disabilities (Toronto: Disabled Women’s Network, 1991).
*5 www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/feminism-project/poll
*6 National Crime Victimization Survey (www.bjs.gov)
11
BODY-POSITIVITY DOESN’T PROMOTE OBESITY
There’s a whole lot of buzz surrounding body-positivity. It’s a frequent flicker in our media these days; the New York Times reports on it, celebrities talk about it, and there are entire online communities devoted to it. But what is body-positivity?
That’s a question I ventured to answer with a YouTube video I made titled No Body Shame, after my campaign. Having secured a space and a production company, I set off to find a diverse group of people who could deliver a touching illustration of body-positivity in fewer than three minutes. The only catch? I didn’t have any money to pay participants, so I scoured my pool of friends (who would do it for free), looking for people who had experienced the harmful effects of body-shaming and could therefore benefit from body-positivity.
Body-shaming is so pervasive that it took me only fifteen minutes of texting and drawing up a scheduling matrix on a Starbucks napkin to lock down eight volunteers to be part of my video.
My best friend Donna was an obvious recruit. She deals with stereotypes and fetishization daily, but she even encounters body-shaming from other Koreans because she is an Asian anomaly—she is tall, big-boned, and not skinny. Then there was my old soccer teammate Cristy, who had battled cancer (and won!), but felt self-conscious about the mullet (as she called it) she was left with following treatment. I called my friend Jeff, an amputee who’d lost his leg in a car accident, and he even suggested bringing along his boyfriend, Jason, who enjoys wearing eyeliner and nail polish. My friend Briayna, an overweight, black college student who rocks her natural hair, said she’d be on board, and so did my do-it-with-the-lights-on guy, Peter. Amanda, one of my dancers from the Big Girl Dance Class I teach locally, wanted to join as well, as her tattoos and skinny figure are often the topic of ridicule. And then there was Harley, a burn survivor, who I met during my radio years.
What I ended up with was a remarkable group of human beings whom I love dearly and were easily relatable to viewers. Then the camera panned to me, and a barrage of outrage followed.
Are you really comparing yourself to a burn survivor? You’re sick.
Please don’t tell me you think your life as a fat woman is anything like the injustices gay people face. Give me a break. You’ve always had your rights.
Are you kidding me? Black and Asian people deserve to feel beautiful because they were born that way, but you weren’t BORN fat. Lose weight, you fucking whale.
These are just a few of the reactions the video generated, and in response, I have something earth-shattering to say:
Body-positivity is for every body, full stop.
It doesn’t matter why we are the way we are. It’s irrelevant whether genetics, accidents, diseases, choices, or a combination of all of the above culminated in the body you have right now. Body-positivity maintains that you have every right—hell, an obligation, even—to love the body that you have right now. Really. That’s it. Period.
So why is it, as body-positivity is making its way into mainstream American conversation, that the willingness to accept the message depends so heavily (no pun intended) on the person who is delivering it?
A new diversified line of Barbie dolls? It’s about time little girls played with dolls who look like them, no matter race, height, or size! Ashley Graham on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition? Go ahead and show ’em what an average woman’s body looks like! Women’s Health dropping the words “bikini body” from future covers? Ha! Deuces! Carrie Fisher tweeting a smackdown against those who claimed she hasn’t “aged well”? PREACH. These are just a few examples of body-positivity making headlines in 2016, and the public is responding in an overwhelmingly positive fashion. Things are finally changing, it seems, and we are truly recognizing the importance of body-positivity in our diet-obsessed, appearance-driven culture.
Until a woman as fat as me talks about it. Then we’re just promoting obesity.
I legitimately do not even understand what “promoting obesity” means, but I am accused of it at every turn, no matter what I do. I live my life and someone wags an index finger at me. I wear a two-piece bathing suit on the beach: I’m promoting obesity. I have a television show that focuses on my life: I’m promoting obesity. I smile: I’m promoting obesity. I dance on the Internet: I’m promoting obesity. I’m happy: you guessed it—promoting obesity. When the season two finale of My Big Fat Fabulous Life was airing in the States, I was in South Africa doing press for the show there, so Lennie went to a local bar to watch the episode with some friends. As soon as it started, some other male patrons audibly groaned. “What the fuck is this shit? Some bitch on TV because she’s fat?” This wasn’t the first time he’d come across this, either. When we first started dating, he was telling his good friend about me and mentioned the title of my show. The friend’s mood instantly changed. “Well,” he’d sighed, “I guess the good thing about fat women is that you don’t have to worry about them cheating on you.” Lennie then, of course, had to “explain” me, promising his friend that I was awesome, that he would “love me,” and that I wasn’t “promoting obesity.” But for as much as I am questioned about “promoting obesity” by journalists, talk-show hosts, trolls, and even people in my own personal life, I am never given a solution for it. I mean, seriously, if someone believes that living my life is equivalent to spearheading a ca
mpaign to encourage people to massively gain weight and become obese, what can I do to change that? What’s the alternative?
I could cover up in a one-piece with a swim skirt. Really, I don’t have to go to the beach at all; my basement has pretty decent views. I could dedicate myself to feeling like shit all the time (I’m a pro at that!) so no one would ever catch me smiling. I could cancel all my dance classes and quit exercising. Now, we’re getting somewhere. If I could manage all these things, there’d be no life to film and put on TV anyway. I did it! I found the solution!
It sounds ridiculous when I put it that way, right? But that’s exactly what people are implying I do when they criticize me for asserting that, despite weighing close to 400 pounds, I am happy and I have a life worth living. (And, for the record, I once asked an auditorium of seven hundred college students if they watched My Big Fat Fabulous Life and supported body-positivity. Nearly all of them raised their hands. Then I asked how many of them had considered purposefully gaining weight to look like me. Can you guess how many kept their hands raised? Zero.) Far from promoting obesity, being body-positive means you have committed yourself to loving and appreciating your body, whatever its current state may be. The advantages of adopting this attitude are not only substantial, but go hand in hand with (if you can believe it) improving your health. Lack of critical thinking may make it easy to dismiss body-positivity as promoting obesity, so let me make clear exactly how I aim to approach my own body-positive lifestyle.
I want to appreciate my body by recognizing its strengths, capabilities, power, and potential. I want to befriend my body by absolving it of perceived flaws—like cellulite, wrinkles, and spider veins—and acknowledge that imperfections are natural and normal. This allows me to embrace my own unique physical beauty. I want to use my body in any way that inspires me, whether it be through art, athletics, or lovemaking. I want to wear whatever I think makes me look good and feel confident—“unflattering” things like midriff shirts and horizontal stripes included. I want to experience everything that life has to offer now, in this body, without feeling apologetic about how much space it takes up in public or how aesthetically pleasing other people deem it to be. I never want to hold my body to a fixed set of beauty standards.
I Do It with the Lights On Page 20