Nicole Byer and Roxane Gay on Fatphobia (and more, just a great conversation).

 Currently listening to Roxane Gay on Nicole Byer's podcast.

Oh boy this is a juicy one. Author Roxane Gay (Bad Feminist, Hunger) joins Nicole to discuss their experiences with institutional racism, dealing with fatphobia in interviews, and how she treated school like a videogame. Then, Roxane shares the story behind eloping, how quarantine is testing the strength of relationships everywhere, and how her wife woo'd her through podcasting.

What Happens When One Fat Patient Sees A Doctor.

Check out What Happens When One Fat Patient Sees A Doctor over on The Establishment. 

Written by Your Fat Friend (snap), it's pretty dead on.

I happen to be seeing a doctor right now who has had weight struggles himself, so he's understanding and kind, but he is not the norm. 

If you have someone who is shitty about your weight, and then also shitty about your mental health, it's really the most dehumanising shit to wade through. 

A common theme amongst friends of varying degrees of fatness is not being believed. There's no way we eat vegetables, or walk as much as we day we do, or don't eat junk food three times a day. We must be lying because we're ashamed of our fat-people-choices. 

Check out the essay. 

Shrill by Lindy West. (Part 2)

I should have taken the time to sit down and write about Shrill properly when it was fresh in my mind. Instead, I did other things.

If you haven’t read the Part 1 of my review, please do.

She says a lot of poignant things throughout the book:

Women matter. Women are half of us. When you raise every woman to believe that we are insignificant, that we are broken, that we are sick, that the only cure is starvation and restraint and smallness; when you pit women against one another, keep us shackled by shame and hunger, obsessing over our flaws rather than our power and potential; when you leverage all of that to sap our money and our time - that moves the rudder of the word. It steers humanity toward conservatism and walls and the narrow interests of men, and it keeps us adrift in waters where women's safety and humanity are secondary to men’s pleasure and convenience. (Page 19)

The book is great, but the part that really jived with me was her experiences with comedy and stand-up and feeling “othered” by it - feeling outward hostility. Stand-up and comedy has really helped me through some dark times, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t also had a lot of shitty experiences with it.

I feel like when I was in my teens and early 20's it was very much about being a girl that could hang. Amy Schumer had a great bit about this on her show. It's about being "cool" with the dick jokes and the sexist stuff because their sexism or objectifying you isn't the problem, your just a girl that "can't hang" with the dudes.

I remember the first time I saw stand-up that really dug at my guts. I’d always watched sitcoms and SNL, but it was the George Carlin bit on “stuff” that blew my mind. I was both laughing and thinking “man that’s so true,” while also feeling deeply existential. I was about 11 or 12 at the time, I remember it vividly.

But it’s hard to love stand-up when you’re a girl. I was the chubby girl. The girl who talks back. The girl who takes charge. I was bossy. The feminist. Then I was “the fat girl,” the “we gotta go girl” the shrew who cock-blocks. I have been all those women. The douche-bro telling the joke is not telling that joke for me, he’s talking about me. About women I'm friends with. About amazing women. I'm the chum. He isn’t talking about drunk-culture or bro problems, he’s ripping up the girls who don’t wanna sleep with him, and think he’s a joke (already). Fuck the girls who see that. Fuck women, he's saying.

It's not just being the butt of the joke, it's the anger with which this jokes are told. The really deep-seated disdain for these women.

The racist stand-up, whose jokes you don't laugh at and who then calls you out - how aggressive and misogynistic some spaces are, Lindy spoke to all of that.

And though there have definitely been nods to it from other comics, a lot of the women whose work I like are also deeply part of the culture, and have had to be the "women who can hang" in order to even be let into the space.

We're seeing some of this come to light now, through veiled stories about prominent comics being "known creeps." I'm sure there's a shit-storm of stories out there, I can't imagine.

In West's case, she’s a writer who frequents those circles, she’s friends with Hari Kondabolu (who is great, and whose new podcast is great) and she’s worked with known editors and personalities. She’s in the zeitgeist. She’s of it.

In my case, I’m just someone who appreciates the work.Could I be a comedy writer? Maybe, if I had more ambition and less crippling depression / bad life skills. Maybe I'm only a comedian for myself. I'm okay with that. But I feel tied to comedians. The process, the insight, the instinct.

I still take it personally. I still see creative spaces and comedy spaces as mine. I could be there. I do haunt them, through astral projection.

There has been a shift though. It’s been nice, being able to watch the TV shows centred around feminist (openly!), female comedians, (Inside Amy Schumer, Broad City, The Mindy Project) watch great stand-up (Again, Schumer, Sarah Silverman, Tig Notaro, Ali Wong, Chelsea Peretti) and see all of this represented in popular culture.

Tig Notaro has a show coming out (One Mississippi) as does Cameron Espisito (Take My Wife) and both shows, feature lesbian comedians and their relationships! If you know anything about television you know lesbians usually don't do so well (Tara on Buffy, Lexa on The 100, see more here) so having not one but two shows have lesbian main characters in actual relationships is a big step.

That’s not even mentioning Maria Bamford, who represents both mental illness and stand-up comedy, and just a general level of genius and originality I can barely really grasp.

SNL’s cast right now is female dominant, with Kate McKinnon, Aidy Bryant, Cecily Strong and Vanessa Bayer being my everything. I try and watch anything Paula Pell does.

I like being able to buy tickets to Jenny Slate’s Obvious Child (a comedy about stand-up and abortion!) and see Ghostbusters feature my favourite female comedians while also supporting a film that makes men’s rights activists shit/cry. Spy was brilliant. Melissa McCarthy is fantastic and game. She’s a fat, hilarious woman and I love that I can support her and her work. I can see Bridesmaids. I can see Trainwreck. I can see movies written by and starring people I like and can actually relate to. 

But that's only lately. Some of my favourite comedians have had shitty opinions or been rumoured to be fucking assholes and I can no longer enjoy their work. Sex crimes happen. Assault happens. So yes, when West discusses the way stand-up comedy has also hurt her, I get it.

The misogyny and trolling she faces is incomprehensible to me. The insanely personal attacks she’s had to endure is just batshit insane. BAT. SHIT. INSANE.

The vitriol she must get - and that she faces with charm, grace and (gasp) humour is just inspiring.

She’s got backbone. And talent. And I know it must get overwhelming and I hope she’s well surrounded and really hopes she gets good things and kind things to counteract the crap things.

Lindy West,

Thank you for Shrill.

Shrill by Lindy West. (Part 1)

Go out and get it folks! Shrill by Lindy West!

I'm about half way through and it's great. It's funny and she's great, and she's able to clearly describe and explain all sorts of realities I relate to immensely (fat joke!).

Right now I just finished a chapter entitled Why Fat Lady So Mean to Baby Men? which is just on point. She talks about her experience with trolling and she refers to how she often re-posts their hateful tweets and comments "goo goo ga ga baby man," which is now my favourite insult when dealing with ridiculous man-whining/misogyny.

So I've got a new favourite insult, "goo goo ga ga baby man." Thank you @thelindywest - thank you very much.

— krimrat (@krimrat) August 16, 2016

She faved it!

Yay me! After reading her chapter on trolling and how much vitriol she puts up with, the least I could do is publicly acknowledge her work.

I'm going to write more about the book once I've read it fully.

I also don't want to just quote her incessantly, which I feel I would do, I just really recommend reading it.



There are segments of the book that speak to pretty heavy issues, and just correlate to some of the more shitty experiences I've had, as well as to some I'd like to mirror.

I think West is more confident, and more together than I am, but it's really nice to read something so close to my own experiences when it comes to my body, fat and shame.

See Part 2, here. 

This American Life: Tell Me I'm Fat.

This episode of This American Life, Tell Me I'm Fat, has been making the rounds on my social media pages. It was an emotional listen. A lot of my buddies who have been posting it have been posting it through a lens of feminism and body-shaming. To me, it's like, more of a nod. Yes, to a lot of the episode.

I am fat. I have been fat since the major depression of my early 20's, and though my weight fluctuates, I have been plus-sized since. I had eating disorders in order to sustain a +/- 140 pound body weight, and I'm not roughly twice that.

Over the last decade I've experience fat-shaming of all kinds. I've had strangers approach me with unsolicited weight-loss tips, I've been on the receiving end of sneers from both genders, and I have a few pointed anecdotes of encounters that upset me deeply.

There is such a thing as fatphobia. It is a fear, dislike or hatred for fat people, based on their being fat. I would argue gender and race compact that hatred. So, as a woman, I've read faces from women that told me they couldn't live if they were my size. That they plan on exercising twice as much, and infinitely more careful. I've seen the horror in their faces in a flicker. I've caught the eyes of men as they stared at my big boobs, or more often, not seen me at all. The eyes scan over the women in the area, who would they fuck, who can they ignore totally. Old. Old. Pregnant. Fat. Ding-ding, hot girl.

First, I recognise myself in most of everything said in the conversations with Lindy West and Roxanne Gay. Ira's introduction starts strong too:

... complete strangers walk up to you on the street and tell you to lose weight. They shoot you dirty looks when they see ice cream in your shopping cart. They talk down to you like you're stupid about nutrition and calories, as if pretty much every fat person has not been around the block 500 times on that one already.

So many stories of this. So many examples. Lindy talks about her experiences with a boss/friend who has a shitty attitude about fat people, that he does not see as discriminatory or bigoted. I especially liked her segment on seeing the fat-activist / fat fashion representation on Tumblr. 

Lindy West - I mean, this was just my favourite one of these fat acceptance blogs ( a Tumblr called, "hey, fat chick!"). It was just that. It was just bright, happy, funny, smiling people wearing cute outfits. It's just, you're so used to seeing fat people presented as sad and apologetic. 

Ira Glass - And what did this do to you? What it do to see that?

Lindy West - I remember feeling like my brain was changing shape. It just had never occurred to me that you could just decide that you were allowed to be happy and live as a--

Ira Glass - As a fat person.

Lindy West - Yeah, exactly.

Lindy sounds like someone I would identify as body positive. She seems to accept her fatness, and gives herself permission to live life. After eventually confronting her boss publicly on her blog, she describes what it's like to be a fat woman, the odd reality of being both invisible in some regards but hyper-visible in the most obvious of ways.

Something lurched awake inside of me. A lifetime of being talked down to about nutrition, being kept secret by men I was dating, being both invisible and too visible finally foamed up and spilled over.

She calls him out on a lot of what he says, though it doesn't seem to change any of his views. She adds:

You know what's shameful? A complete lack of empathy.

Which is so often the case with bigotry. Being unable to relate at all, with whoever it is you're signalling out. With fat people, it's the assumption that being fat if their fault, in a real, active way. There's this assumption that there are no extenuating circumstances, no excuses. It's equated with gluttony and sloth, laziness and disgust. You're born black. You're born gay. The assumption is you aren't born fat. Though some are! I was chubby my entire childhood. I still played on several sports teams and ate well. What propelled me into fatness was deep psychological pain and a disconnection from my body and life. But that's nobody's business really. I shouldn't have to justify my coping methods. Not when they're the only thing keeping me alive.

Ira also has a conversation with Roxanne Gay, whose experience with being fat is very different from West's. Her being a black woman places her on a lower echelon of the fat-pyramid, as does her degree of fatness.

Ira GlassYou draw a distinction among different kinds of fatness. Can I have you talk about that? 

Roxane Gay
Yeah, I mean, I think there are different kinds of fatness. There's the person who's maybe 20 pounds overweight, who's fine as they are. But if they want to lose weight, they just need to go on Slim Fast for a couple weeks or something. 

And then you have people who are-- I like to call them Lane Bryant fat, which means they can still buy clothes at Lane Bryant, which goes up to 28 in size. And they're the ones I find that are often the strongest cheerleaders of, this is who I am, and, you have to take me as I am and respect me because of my body not despite it. And I admire that a great deal. But I think it's easier to feel that way when you have multiple places where you can buy clothes and feel pretty and move through the world.

Ira Glass
And you noted, Lindy is what you call Lane Bryant fat. She told me she was a size 22. 

Roxane Gay
Yeah, I mean, and I don't mean that in a disrespectful way. I just mean she has access to spaces that people like me do not. 

Ira Glass
Because what's your situation? 

Roxane Gay
There's another level. I mean, then there's when you're super morbidly obese, where you can't really even find stores that can accommodate you. You don't fit in any public spaces, like movie theaters, public bathrooms, so on and so forth. 

Ira Glass
Is the official name of what you are morbidly obese? That's the medical term? 

Roxane Gay
No, the medical term is super morbidly obese.

Ira Glass
It's so mean. 

Roxane Gay
Yes, it is. It's mean. It's dehumanizing. 

Ira Glass
How much weight would you have to lose to be Lane Bryant fat? 

Roxane Gay
200 pounds.

This episode does not even go into the medicalization of fat bodies. Experiences accessing care when you're fat is a landmine. Everything is blamed on your being fat. Fatphobia in doctor's offices is real. A good friend of mine has called me countless times crying because of the atrocious experiences she's had with various specialists because of her weight. She went vegan and did a juice cleanse once, trying to get as healthy as she could, and her sudden weight loss was then used to describe her as being unstable - there is no correct way to have a body. Everything we do is suspect.

I hope you take the time to listen to the episode yourself. My overview here does it a great disservice. Act Two features stories by Elna Baker that really hit close to home, especially in the raw dialogue she has with her new husband. 

I've ordered West's Shrill, and also pre-ordered Hunger by Gay.

I have stories of my own. Many. I don't know if here and now is where to divulge all of it, but I'll write on it in the future. It's worth flushing out. Expanding on.

Charged by the pound.

Last weekend I took some time and went through my closet. I got a large Tupperware bin, with the goal of putting away all my clothes that are a size to two sizes too small. I slowly made my way through my stock piles of clothes, and found tops I love, but don't fit me. I stared longingly at the jeans I fit into when I did a protein-juice-fast-diet, and the jeans I wore before I gained so much weight, and put them all away.

I'm keeping them, because my weight fluctuates. I'm also getting progressively "better." I'm in recovery, I'm feeling better than I have in years, so my physical health might improve too.

It can be difficult, clothes can be so loaded. Sometimes they're a shame-lined tool for guilt, a dress you long to fit into, a sale-item you'll get to hopefully fit into one day. Tools of flagellation. I don't want that around me.

But, clothes are also expensive. Especially plus-sized clothes. This means I should (and am) keeping the clothes that are a size or two too small. The alternative is to "go with the flow" of my weight fluctuations - but that entails purchasing new clothes as I go - which I can't do.

Plus-size stores are becoming easier to access, but prices are significantly higher than regular stores. Also, because there are less stores, there are less sales. I can't buy a pair of pants for 20$ at Forever 21 like a co-worker can. If I want something that fits and that I can move in, I'm spending at least 50$ on a pair of pants, and that's conservative. When it comes to office-appropriate clothing, my clothing budget leaves me in the red.

This pulled out the memory of reading an article on how just being mildly rounder means making significantly less a year. The article's example is of both minor weight disparity and a more significant one, which means I'm likely making significantly less than I should be:

If you are deemed to be heavy, on the other hand, you suffer, as a 2011 study made clear. Heavy women earned $9,000 less than their average-weight counterparts; very heavy women earned $19,000 less. Very thin women, on the other hand, earned $22,000 more than those who were merely average. And yes, those results are far more visible on women’s earnings than on those of men.

This is of course, on top of the regular old-hat criticism and fat-phobia you receive on a daily basis. So I'm likely making 22,000$ less a year than my thin friends. I'm assuming there's the correlation that my body size also means I'm lazy. It definitely means less people want to fuck me so I guess that makes me less quantifiable; less interesting.

So to reiterate, my clothes are way more expensive, and I make significantly less.

Since my finances are very much on my mind these days, feeling the financial prejudice (on top of the fat-phobic prejudice I see and feel often) is just kicking me right in the innards.

Right in the innards.

There's also a short piece on Jezebel about how having living with disordered eating is also correlated to lower income. Though, the assumption here is that the wage disparity isn't based on external judgement/bias but on an internalized low self-esteem and decreased opportunity due to the struggle.

So, for someone like me, who lived for years with an eating disorder in my late-teens and early twenties, it's assumed I "lost" a lot of time to that struggle. And in my case, I did. That ED was coupled with a severe depressive episode though. The ED lead to severe weight gain through eating-recovery and prolonged depression. So now, I'm like, double-fucked double-poor.

What a time to be alive.

Taking care of a body I've been killing in my mind.

I had shitty experience this morning. While walking to work I got told I was tub of lard who looked pregnant. It's been a while since I've been harassed on the street. I'll get snide looks every once in a while, but being actually yelled at is rare. I think the last time that happened it was a car-full of teenage boys who yelled at me to get liposuction.

Granted when I was thinner and more traditionally attractive I'd get cat called, but it wasn't so aggressive and angry. It was a different kind of harassment. I didn't feel the hatred in their tone. I felt their disrespect and misogyny, but not their hatred of me.

 

I'm already in a bit of a depressive pass these days. It's been 2-3 days already. His comments didn't push me further along, they can of just absorbed into me. I mean, my mind goes off in all sorts of direction.

It's clearly gendered, it's always males who feel they have the right, and the need to tell me I'm fat and it bothers them. I guess, if I were thin, and more appropriately attractive, they'd then yell at me to smile, or say something crude and sexually suggestive. That happens too.

I'm just at such a weird fork in the road these days. I feel stuck about my physical health. I go through spurts of having energy and wanting to properly take care of myself, but then I go through hard times and all I wanna do is die.

How can I commit to clean eating and exercise when I struggle daily with feelings of detachment and hopelessness?

The friends I have who are physically healthy work out a lot, and eat really well, and are super excited about life! I am not super excited about life!

And because I have a history rooted in an eating disorder, I have trouble approaching health and weight-loss from a moderate place. I end up wanting to go "all in" or being overly hard on myself.

For me to be a size 7-8 I was bulimic and exercising nearly daily!

Now, as things are, if I eat well, and exercise lightly, I feel better and less bloated, but I don't lose weight.

So, if I change my diet to be stricter, and exercise more, I might loose a bit of weight, or I might not at all. My mind then has this desire to become more militant, and my internal monologue tells myself that well, "you're just going to have to eat really little."

I'm sure my natural weight is still chubby. But I also have no idea. I haven't had a healthy body for over a decade.

I feel like there's a layer of stubbornness built into my fat. It's not being rounder. I think I could live being chubby and not thin. It's not about being thin.

I can be happy and round.

But, I would like to be able to fit into standard clothing sizes. I would like to be able to exercise regularly to curb my anxiety and depression, and to feel better about myself. Right now I avoid exercise classes because I'm so out of shape, and I'm embarrassed and uncomfortable. I would like to be able to be physically more comfortable (going up stairs, movie theatre seating, certain restaurant or bar benches or stools).

I'd like to know that when I go to the doctor, the first thing out of their mouth won't be about my weight. Studies have shown that fat women are often discriminated against in the medical community. But the same thing goes for the academic community and the job market. On average we make 10,000$ less than a thin counterpart. We're assumed to be lazy. I'm not fun to look at.

I'd like to put fat shaming and fat phobia out of my mind. I mean, in the case of fat phobia and homophobia, any time I've encountered it personally or seen it, it's never phobic like arachnophobia, where folks are scared, it's aggressive, hostile, mean spirited and sometimes just vitriol. I've not encountered violence personally yet, but I've been afraid countless times.

I also believe that fat-activism is important, and that the research regarding fat health is increasingly present and positive. My relationship with fat-activism is strained. I do 100% support the cause, but personally I have a lot of shame and self-hatred regarding my body. I'm trying to remedy that, but it's a process. It's not coming naturally to me.

The commitment needed to lose a significant amount of weight takes commitment to yourself and to your future. Things I'm struggling with. I have so much trouble looking forward to my life.

.