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No apologies needed
Jan. 25th, 2014 07:18 pmI don't like apologist-themed things that are supposed to make us hate fate people (or queer people) any less. I mention queer here as I have seen a lot of similarity in how fatness and queerness are apologized for (the most common, and one of the most obnoxious to me, is the "born this way/it's genetic" argument). It does us no favors as it still implies that fat (or queer) is something bad to be. I am speaking currently of that J.K. Rowling quote floating around FB again. It reads, "Is 'fat' really the worst thing a human being can be? Is 'fat' worse than 'vindictive', 'jealous', 'shallow', 'vain', 'boring' or 'cruel'? Not to me.”
Let me deconstruct that for a minute. First, this is NOT a fat-positive quote. It is *barely* not fat-negative. It frames fat as something bad and is simply stating that it is "not the worst" thing we can be. No thanks.
Second, it compares fat, a physical attribute, to undesirable personality traits. This inherently implies that fat has something to do with our moral character, which is does not. Comparing being fat to being cruel and saying being fat is better is like comparing curly hair to being cruel and saying having curly hair is better. See, it makes no sense in that context, does it? Then why does it make sense to compare fatness to cruelty? We accept the comparison because fatness as a measure of our moral character is so ingrained in our thought processes that we cannot even see how ridiculous that is so much of the time.
Third, why are we so happy when someone, especially a celebrity, says something vaguely not-fat-hating? I mean, this quote is no beacon of fat-positivity. There is no celebration of our fierce fat selves here. When I see this quote posted in fat-positive places as something positive it makes me sad. We can do better. We ARE doing better. I don't care what J.K. Rowling as to say about fatness, honestly, unless she is actually doing something to promote body liberation (hint: this quote is not doing that).
I would like a quote like this to read: "Is being fat worse than being thin? No, it is not. It is only different. There is nothing wrong, bad, amoral, etc. about being fat. There are social structures, beliefs, and infrastructures that make it more difficult to navigate the world as a fat person than as as a thin person, but being fat is not inherently worse than being thin and no one needs to apologize or justify their fatness. The End."
Or something like that.
Let me deconstruct that for a minute. First, this is NOT a fat-positive quote. It is *barely* not fat-negative. It frames fat as something bad and is simply stating that it is "not the worst" thing we can be. No thanks.
Second, it compares fat, a physical attribute, to undesirable personality traits. This inherently implies that fat has something to do with our moral character, which is does not. Comparing being fat to being cruel and saying being fat is better is like comparing curly hair to being cruel and saying having curly hair is better. See, it makes no sense in that context, does it? Then why does it make sense to compare fatness to cruelty? We accept the comparison because fatness as a measure of our moral character is so ingrained in our thought processes that we cannot even see how ridiculous that is so much of the time.
Third, why are we so happy when someone, especially a celebrity, says something vaguely not-fat-hating? I mean, this quote is no beacon of fat-positivity. There is no celebration of our fierce fat selves here. When I see this quote posted in fat-positive places as something positive it makes me sad. We can do better. We ARE doing better. I don't care what J.K. Rowling as to say about fatness, honestly, unless she is actually doing something to promote body liberation (hint: this quote is not doing that).
I would like a quote like this to read: "Is being fat worse than being thin? No, it is not. It is only different. There is nothing wrong, bad, amoral, etc. about being fat. There are social structures, beliefs, and infrastructures that make it more difficult to navigate the world as a fat person than as as a thin person, but being fat is not inherently worse than being thin and no one needs to apologize or justify their fatness. The End."
Or something like that.