Bodies, right? We all have them, it turns out. Yeah I know, that surprised me too.
I think if we've been hanging around on this planet for more than a couple of years we're all aware that they're all unique; different shapes and sizes, blah blah, come on, you know this.
What's always vaguely bothered me, and in the past year or so more than ever as I've started to actually read and think properly think about it from all kinds of angles, is, well actually almost everything about the attitudes that society forces us to have about our own bodies and, possibly worse, other peoples' bodies.
This is obviously a huge topic which can be and has been written about in almost endless depth from any number of specific perspectives, but please allow me, as a total non-expert, to write very briefly and a bit more generally about bodies in society, just in case I say something that hasn't occurred to you before. Some things that hadn't occurred to me at all a year or two back have since become the basis for some of the strongest beliefs I have!
So to start with, well, none of you can have failed to notice how according to our society thinner = better. I'm starting with this, even though it hardly needs to be said, because one of those things I mentioned a minute ago, things that never even occurred to me for many, many years of living as a human, and it seems unbelievable now, is that that might not actually be the case. I was tempted to say that it seems unbelievably stupid to me now, that I never questioned whether being thin actually had any merit whatsoever, but I won't say it, because we are all trained from a ridiculously young age to believe that it does; stupidity and cleverness don't come into it.
Do you want to be thin? Or thinner? Why? Actually think about it; why? What inherent, objective value does thinness have? (Pro-tip: it's none. I promise you, it's none.) "Thin" is just a factual description of a person's physical body. In the same way, "fat" tells you nothing about a person except what they look like size-wise. The only thing that makes the word thin a compliment and the word fat an insult is the truckload of connotations that come attached to each. Somehow we feel that from how a person looks alone we can draw all kinds of conclusions, about that person's lifestyle, morals, personality, even hygiene - if that sounds familiar, it'll be because that's what they call prejudice. Of course it happens all the time, based on all kinds of physical aspects that a person can have. It's always wrong. The difference is that when it's based on anything else, society knows it's wrong. When it's based on someone being fat, it's somehow socially acceptable. Tell me where the logic is in that.
Unfortunately, making a few inaccurate assumptions based on what they look like is the very least of the things that society deems acceptable to do to fat people. They are treated in ways that you wouldn't believe, by people you wouldn't believe would do it. (Yes, there are going to be links at the end of this post.) Fat bodies are considered public property, a feeling that will be well known to any women reading this, fat or thin or not really either - it's okay to judge them, to criticize them, to offer them unsolicited advice and patronise them, to bully them with the aim of forcing them to become something more to your taste.
Are you thinking that it's healthier to be thinner? Or are you thinking "Well it's okay to be fat, as long as you're healthy..."
Well firstly, NOPE, the correlation between being fat and being unhealthy is WAY WEAKER than you think. (Once again, links are going to be provided.) Unfortunately it's so incredibly ingrained in us, we are so well trained, that people will believe "common sense" (when it says fat = unhealthy) even in the face of actual, scientific evidence proving otherwise.
And secondly, NOPE, you don't get to say what's okay and what's not okay. If this is the one thing you read on my whole stupid blog that you actually take away in the form of a little thought in your brain, I will be supremely happy. You don't get to judge other people. Not even fat people, and not even REALLY UNHEALTHY fat people. Get on with your own fucking life, and if you can't interact with people like they're all equal, don't interact with them at all. Seriously.
Anyway.
The thing is, there are so very many ways in which peoples', especially womens', obsessing over their bodies, and primarily over making them thinner, hating their bodies, primarily the fat bits, benefits other people. For example the diet industry; it's worldwide and it's insanely lucrative! It is in the interest of every single person involved in it for you to keep hating your body, and keep hating other peoples'. (Incidentally, 95% of dieters don't keep off any weight they manage to lose.) I'm not going to start listing here, because I'll go on forever, and there will come a point where I sound like a conspiracy theorist. But let me just say this; people want fat people to believe their fatness makes them worth less as a person so that they can have power over them. It's basically bullying, whether on an individual level where the person doing the bullying wants it to be true too, just to feel superior, or a corporate level where the power in question is financial, or a political level where the power in the equation is literal power, and the ability to keep others down.
You know, sometimes I think we're too bound to our bodies, mentally and psychologically I mean (obviously we're all, you know, bound to our bodies) and other times I think we consider ourselves too far removed. I mean, on the one hand, the way we judge ourselves and each other for our bodies reminds me, by making me angry and sad day after day after day, that our bodies, our physical selves, are the absolute least important aspect of us as people, and it's not only heartbreakingly sad and infuriating, but also plain illogical and wrong, that it's what we are judged on, in fact what we are seen to be, rather than the things we do, the way we are, the things we say.... Rather, in fact, than literally anything else, like, you know, the things that actually make us who we are. But then on the other hand, perhaps considering yourself as a "self" that is separate from, though inextricably joined to, your body is no better. Our bodies aren't things that we should be seeking to alter and change; they aren't that part of us that, if only we could change that, we would be better, "oh she's so nice...shame she's fat!" We certainly shouldn't be torturing and harming and denying them for completely arbitrary reasons, and yet that's what we do, and what we encourage each other and our children to do... They are us, at least in this world, and as much as we like to thing we're beyond that kind of animal existence, body and mind and soul, if you believe in such a thing, as one - you know, being the cleverest species on the planet and all. And they're actually so fucking awesome! They allow us to know the world around us, and interact with it. Everything you experience that makes you feel exhilarated, moved, overwhelmed... Your body is doing that for you. We should be celebrating bodies! Especially those of us lucky enough to have properly working ones. Seriously. Big fat ones, little short ones, kind of medium ones... They're all so amazing! Not "once they've lost a few pounds" or "if I could only have slightly smaller hips", but just as they are, and however they got the way they are.
If you think at all like I do, I really recommend you to read about these things. It will change your life, and if you're anything like me, make you really angry. Are you wondering why this is so important to me? You might be, since I'm not fat. Oh yeah, by the way, for those of you who have seen me, I'm not fat. I'm not thin either, I'm pretty much right in the middle. Anyway, it would be a fair question to wonder why this matters to me so much. The answer is, I guess, that it just does! I can't decide what I feel strongly about any more than I can decide what foods I like (bread) and hate (prawns). The more I read about these and other related issues (and my god, there's so much more than I could ever write about, ignorant and under-educated in the subject as I absolutely don't deny I am, especially in a late night blog post when I'm desperately in need of sleep) the more terrible I realised the injustice, not to mention the oppression and the outright insanity, of it all is. Bear in mind that these issues don't just affect us fairly capable adults - the effect of pressure to be thin and beautiful on teenagers and young people is a whole other subject. Then there's the fact that the idea that we should all try and be attractive in the first place, the sheer importance we place on beauty and looks, is completely ludicrous and patently designed to keep women down. To make sure I don't go on for pages and pages, or stay up writing all night when I should definitely be sleeping, I'll just say that this is a fight I want to fight. If you say something horribly fat-phobic, I'm going to call you on it. If you beat yourself up for being so fat, I won't join in. Why? Because I think it matters. And come on, since, as we already established, everyone has a body, how can general body positivism and the celebration of ALL bodies possibly be a thing that anyone doesn't want to get behind?
A few links to expand on this woefully unstructured, incomplete rant:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQucWXWXp3k
http://thisisthinprivilege.tumblr.com/
http://redefiningbodyimage.tumblr.com/post/17770763679/big-fat-list-of-myth-defying-health-resources
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070404162428.htm
http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.co.uk/2008/02/how-weve-came-to-believe-that.html
http://www.nearsightedowl.com/
...okay, I'm done now. Promise.
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