I'm going to do that thing where you write, acknowledging that you haven't written, to say that you are going to write.
I was really inspired by the Crunk Feminist Collective's session on digital literacies at the National Women's Studies Association conference. I often eschew blogging because I feel it distracts from the "things I should be doing" aka publishing, dissertation, job applications, teaching, etc. And while those are all worthy and prioritized endeavors, the idea that one set of activities is "productive" and the other is not is, well, a false dichotomy.
So here I am, announcing my game plan. From now on, I will try to post on Mondays. Having set posting days is another tip I got from the fab CFCers. This also gives me set parameters, and thus thinking about blogging might start to feel less overwhelming. Not to mention you the reader will know when to look for posts. I also hope to do some guest blogging other places, and I'll let you know if that works out.
So, what will it be?
Should I muse about my dissertation?
Should I do a link-unloading post?
Should I write about the fact that my use of the phrase 'my feminist ethics' has skyrocketed since the NWSA CFC session?
Should I write about the folks who went to jail for starving their baby because they were afraid it would get too fat?
Should I write about how some people characterize me as a cartoon character and others have pointed out my obsession with footnotes, such that I make 'verbal footnotes' as a matter of course?
Should I write about the fab fat folks I met at NWSA, including lovelies Hanne Blank and TheSugarMonster?
Anything in particular you would like to see here?
Monday, November 28, 2011
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Obesity Contagion? Debunked Again.
Another critique recently came out of the now-famous (and infamously irritating) obesity-is-contagious study, which was all the rage in the media a few years ago. This research was published despite the common sense notion that homophily or the tendency for people to associate with people like themselves, was both a more obvious and rational explanation for why people in the social networks of fat people might also be fat. (For example, I share 90 friends with Marilyn Wann on Facebook--fat people and fat activist folks are literally my largest social network.)
The first critique, in 2008, used the homophily argument. And there have been others. It seems there is a mass of work building which debunks the obesity-is-contagious silliness. The latest critique looks at the statistics and statistical models used by the the researchers. According to Indiana University Math Professor Russel Lyons':
Second, Lyons' experience makes it clear that--although it's sometimes easy to publish crap research like the obesity-is-contagious study--publishing critiques of popular and widely celebrated research, if that research supports the status quo and the fat panic paradigm, can be quite difficult to publish. According to the article,
I'll leave you with a quote, which I think is apt:
The first critique, in 2008, used the homophily argument. And there have been others. It seems there is a mass of work building which debunks the obesity-is-contagious silliness. The latest critique looks at the statistics and statistical models used by the the researchers. According to Indiana University Math Professor Russel Lyons':
"The problem is that their methods were deeply flawed from bottom to top: The models used to analyze the sparse data contradict the data and the conclusions, and the method used to estimate the dubious models does not apply," he said. "The statistical significance tests that were applied to the questionable estimates do not show the differences they have proposed."There are a couple notable items in the article I link to above, which speak to the state of science and health research in particular. First, one of the obesity-is-contagious researchers had a profit motive:
"Christakis built on his research to form a company, MedNetworks, which proposes to help pharmaceutical companies get doctors to prescribe more of their drugs"As if doctors didn't already have enough pressure from pharmaceutical companies on prescribing medicine. Maybe they should do a study on that sort of contagion.
Second, Lyons' experience makes it clear that--although it's sometimes easy to publish crap research like the obesity-is-contagious study--publishing critiques of popular and widely celebrated research, if that research supports the status quo and the fat panic paradigm, can be quite difficult to publish. According to the article,
"Both of the leading, prestigious journals that published research by Christakis and Fowler -- the New England Journal of Medicine and BMJ (formerly British Medical Journal) -- rejected Lyons' critique, the first declining to give a reason and the second saying the work would be better placed in a specialist journal. Rejections then came from three other leading journals on the grounds that they had not published the original research. A statistics review journal rejected Lyons' paper on the basis that the original research of Christakis and Fowler was itself not sufficiently important."What does Christakis have to say about it all? According to the New York Times article, he doesn't say he was wrong but skirts the issue by chalking it all up to the scientific process.
"“This is how science proceeds,” he said. “We came up with a fact that no one ever thought about before. We published our methods. We published our data. We said, ‘Look, we think this is important. You should help us figure out how to do this better.’ ”He's not wrong, exactly. The point is to do science, duplicate it, test it, critique it, make it better and do it better. Though he kind of leaves out the critique part, and his words leave me with the sense that he thinks people should be helping him better prove obesity contagion rather than proving him wrong.
I'll leave you with a quote, which I think is apt:
"I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives." -Tolstoy
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Charles Horton Cooley on the Self, Oppression, and Inhumanity
Upon reviewing some fantastic Charles Horton Cooley this morning, I came across this gem:
Cooley goes on, noting other groups of people treated as less than human:
Again, the relevance of this passage is striking, despite social progress of the last 100 years. Charles Horton Cooley, keeping it real since (at least) 1902.
*I must note, of course, Cooley's androcentric language. Using "he" and "man" as universal serves to render women (including the married women he mentions) invisible, outside of the universal, other. Though, of course, this was common in Cooley's time.
**Since I often have to remind my students of this, I'll leave a note here as well. Words like "negro" and "colored" used to be acceptable and common terminology. When used in a quote, it is appropriate, but that does not mean it is appropriate for use outside of a quoted context. Similarly the term "people of color"--a currently acceptable and self-determined phrase--is not interchangeable with the phrase "colored people," nor does it signify that the term "colored people" is a currently appropriate term.
The immigrant has for the most part been treated purely as a source of labor, with little or no regard to the fact that he* is a human being, with a self like the rest of us. There is nothing less to our credit than our neglect of the foreigner and his children, unless it be the arrogance most of us betray when we set out to "americanize" him.--Cooley, Human Nature and the Social Order, pg 262I find it jarring that this is still so relevant and significant in 2011. I don't know if hatred of immigrants is at an all-time high as compared to earlier periods in our history, but it's certainly at a peak right now in the U.S. In a country that looks down other countries for human rights abuses, we often offer citizens of other countries no better treatment, if not worse. Somehow being an immigrant (or being perceived as one) means your human rights are stripped. Immigrant folks who aren't "americanized" enough stand out and are at risk for the greatest abuse.
Cooley goes on, noting other groups of people treated as less than human:
The negro** question includes a similar situation. There is no understanding it without realizing the kind of self-feeling a race must have who, in a land where men* are supposed to be equal, find themselves marked with indelible inferiority. And so with many other classes; with offenders against the law, for example, whom we often turn into hardened criminals by a treatment which destroys their self-respect--or rather convinces them that their only chance of self-respect is in defiance of authority. The treatment of children, in and out of school, involves similar questions, and so of domestic workers, married women, and other sorts of people more or less subject to the arbitrary will of others.
Again, the relevance of this passage is striking, despite social progress of the last 100 years. Charles Horton Cooley, keeping it real since (at least) 1902.
*I must note, of course, Cooley's androcentric language. Using "he" and "man" as universal serves to render women (including the married women he mentions) invisible, outside of the universal, other. Though, of course, this was common in Cooley's time.
**Since I often have to remind my students of this, I'll leave a note here as well. Words like "negro" and "colored" used to be acceptable and common terminology. When used in a quote, it is appropriate, but that does not mean it is appropriate for use outside of a quoted context. Similarly the term "people of color"--a currently acceptable and self-determined phrase--is not interchangeable with the phrase "colored people," nor does it signify that the term "colored people" is a currently appropriate term.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
How to Catch Yourself Before Enacting Privileged, Ignorant Assholery*
Just now I was thinking of how unappreciated our university janitorial and cleaning staff is, at least in my building. They are largely invisible--they come in in the middle of the night, clean the place, replenish goods, and leave before most students, faculty or staff get here. And the state of our building is something, then, we just take for granted.**
I'd imagine as cleaning jobs go, a job cleaning at a university pays more and offers more benefits than most, though I only imagine that--I don't know. Still, we are very fucking privileged to have people who clean up after us, who sweep our floors and dispose of our trash, who buffer the floors so that they are shiny at the beginning of the semester. Since the workers come at night, though, we find that things are magically clean and disposed of, and we are so used to it we barely think of it unless some anomalous uncleanliness presents itself.
"We should all appreciate and be cognizant of the work of our janitorial staff," I thought. "I could put fliers up in this building," I thought, "telling everyone to appreciate the janitorial staff they take for granted, to be mindful that the work they do in the middle of the night gives our lives ease." "Maybe just for a day, or a few minutes, people would remember to think about the people behind their tidy campus lives."
Now, let me say that those are not bad thoughts. All the intention there is good. But this is precisely why I try to get my students to separate intention from effect.
In a moment of clarity, I then thought, "Hmn. I wonder if the janitors would want that? What would it be like for them if I did that? Would they want me to do it? Would they want that attention? Would people think my signs represented their unhappiness or resentment? Would that attention result in harassment or foster negative attitudes toward them? Would it create a hostile work environment?" Heightened visibility can be a powerful and good thing, but it can also create harm, particularly if it's not chosen visibility.
Now, maybe it wouldn't do harm. Maybe my signs would bring about a joyous appreciation of janitorial staff and people would value the work that they do and the way in which it improves their every day lives and that would catch on throughout the whole campus and the whole nation and the whole world and janitors would be respected and paid more and given more benefits.
Probably not.
But that's also not the point. First of all, my idea for janitorial appreciation signs assumes that in their lives, it's lack of appreciation and recognition that needs improvement. Some happy-go-lucky sign-hanging recognition day is a nice gesture, but would it be what they most needed? Would it create change that would most improve their lives? It's not that easy things to do (like hanging signs) never make a difference or are unimportant, but it's about whether it can make a difference and is that difference the difference that's needed?
Second of all is an important reminder for me that I cannot speak for other groups of people. Not having experience as a janitor--here or anywhere else--I don't know what the work life is like...and therefore, I can't really predict whether appreciation signs would be meaningful or whether they would do much more harm in the lives of the janitorial staff than they would good. Separation from the janitorial staff, which allows myself and others to take them for granted, is exactly why I shouldn't "help" them, at least not without getting well-acquainted with their needs by talking with them or by having them state their needs and suggested solutions. I don't have their lived experience, therefore I can't speak for them OR do for them. It also assumes they need help. Maybe they have recognized a problem and are organizing to fix it. Either way, I am not savior of the janitors.
While it's fine to have good intentions, if you don't consider the lived experience of others, you are bound to harm them. So before you go about saving anyone or helping anyone...before you think you have some brilliant idea:
1) Think about yourself in relation to the people you want to help.
2) Question whether your actions have the potential to do more harm than good.
3) Importantly, question whether your actions would address the self-determined needs of the group of people and whether, really, they need your "help" at all.
4) Humble your damn self.
*Alternative Title: On How I Checked My Own Savior Complex--How You Can too!
**Now, in my old building, on my old floor, we have a daytime janitor. The fact that we see him heightens our awareness and, perhaps, appreciation of him. He becomes a person, a visible part of our lives. He also regularly interacts with other staff, and sometimes faculty and students. However, in his experience--for all I know--his co-existence with faculty, staff, and students might make his life more stressful...might highlight the class differences that exist between janitorial staff, administrative staff, students, and faculty. Again, I am not him, so I simply don't know.
I'd imagine as cleaning jobs go, a job cleaning at a university pays more and offers more benefits than most, though I only imagine that--I don't know. Still, we are very fucking privileged to have people who clean up after us, who sweep our floors and dispose of our trash, who buffer the floors so that they are shiny at the beginning of the semester. Since the workers come at night, though, we find that things are magically clean and disposed of, and we are so used to it we barely think of it unless some anomalous uncleanliness presents itself.
"We should all appreciate and be cognizant of the work of our janitorial staff," I thought. "I could put fliers up in this building," I thought, "telling everyone to appreciate the janitorial staff they take for granted, to be mindful that the work they do in the middle of the night gives our lives ease." "Maybe just for a day, or a few minutes, people would remember to think about the people behind their tidy campus lives."
Now, let me say that those are not bad thoughts. All the intention there is good. But this is precisely why I try to get my students to separate intention from effect.
In a moment of clarity, I then thought, "Hmn. I wonder if the janitors would want that? What would it be like for them if I did that? Would they want me to do it? Would they want that attention? Would people think my signs represented their unhappiness or resentment? Would that attention result in harassment or foster negative attitudes toward them? Would it create a hostile work environment?" Heightened visibility can be a powerful and good thing, but it can also create harm, particularly if it's not chosen visibility.
Now, maybe it wouldn't do harm. Maybe my signs would bring about a joyous appreciation of janitorial staff and people would value the work that they do and the way in which it improves their every day lives and that would catch on throughout the whole campus and the whole nation and the whole world and janitors would be respected and paid more and given more benefits.
Probably not.
But that's also not the point. First of all, my idea for janitorial appreciation signs assumes that in their lives, it's lack of appreciation and recognition that needs improvement. Some happy-go-lucky sign-hanging recognition day is a nice gesture, but would it be what they most needed? Would it create change that would most improve their lives? It's not that easy things to do (like hanging signs) never make a difference or are unimportant, but it's about whether it can make a difference and is that difference the difference that's needed?
Second of all is an important reminder for me that I cannot speak for other groups of people. Not having experience as a janitor--here or anywhere else--I don't know what the work life is like...and therefore, I can't really predict whether appreciation signs would be meaningful or whether they would do much more harm in the lives of the janitorial staff than they would good. Separation from the janitorial staff, which allows myself and others to take them for granted, is exactly why I shouldn't "help" them, at least not without getting well-acquainted with their needs by talking with them or by having them state their needs and suggested solutions. I don't have their lived experience, therefore I can't speak for them OR do for them. It also assumes they need help. Maybe they have recognized a problem and are organizing to fix it. Either way, I am not savior of the janitors.
While it's fine to have good intentions, if you don't consider the lived experience of others, you are bound to harm them. So before you go about saving anyone or helping anyone...before you think you have some brilliant idea:
1) Think about yourself in relation to the people you want to help.
2) Question whether your actions have the potential to do more harm than good.
3) Importantly, question whether your actions would address the self-determined needs of the group of people and whether, really, they need your "help" at all.
4) Humble your damn self.
*Alternative Title: On How I Checked My Own Savior Complex--How You Can too!
**Now, in my old building, on my old floor, we have a daytime janitor. The fact that we see him heightens our awareness and, perhaps, appreciation of him. He becomes a person, a visible part of our lives. He also regularly interacts with other staff, and sometimes faculty and students. However, in his experience--for all I know--his co-existence with faculty, staff, and students might make his life more stressful...might highlight the class differences that exist between janitorial staff, administrative staff, students, and faculty. Again, I am not him, so I simply don't know.
Friday, July 22, 2011
On never getting thin... or More Fat: Still Awesome
Tomorrow I go to my 10 year high school reunion. I have little doubt that I will be the fattest person there.
I spent a lot of energy as a teen thinking about how I'd be thin by the time I graduated high school....no? well, I'd be thin at our high school reunion and I'd show them all! Then they would recognize how awesome I am.
But I never got thin. I got a lot fatter. And then I got a lot less afraid of that.
At some point in recent years, I began encountering a critical mass of people who think I am awesome, and that has made a huge difference in my life. It's a big change from my life as a teenage girl who simultaneously didn't want to be seen (for fear of judgment) and was desperate to be seen (recognized as worthwhile)...to a 28 yr old who has the privilege of knowing many people who see her and even seek her out.
I don't know if people will be assholes or if I will have a good time. I am not going for anyone else. I am going for that teenage girl I was, the one who couldn't imagine a world in which anyone could see her as anything unless she became thin. And then I'm going to write a letter to a young girl I know, who is that girl I was, and really and truly make it worth my time.
I spent a lot of energy as a teen thinking about how I'd be thin by the time I graduated high school....no? well, I'd be thin at our high school reunion and I'd show them all! Then they would recognize how awesome I am.
But I never got thin. I got a lot fatter. And then I got a lot less afraid of that.
At some point in recent years, I began encountering a critical mass of people who think I am awesome, and that has made a huge difference in my life. It's a big change from my life as a teenage girl who simultaneously didn't want to be seen (for fear of judgment) and was desperate to be seen (recognized as worthwhile)...to a 28 yr old who has the privilege of knowing many people who see her and even seek her out.
I don't know if people will be assholes or if I will have a good time. I am not going for anyone else. I am going for that teenage girl I was, the one who couldn't imagine a world in which anyone could see her as anything unless she became thin. And then I'm going to write a letter to a young girl I know, who is that girl I was, and really and truly make it worth my time.
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Reflections on My Complicated Relationships with Other Fat Women
For awhile now I've been meaning to post about my reflections on the fat women who have affected me in my lifetime. I even began writing about it in a notebook--which is somewhere around here--before ever starting this blog. This is a new start and will probably come out in multiple rambling posts.
The way I related to other fat women and girls (and men/boys, but that's perhaps for another reflection another time) over time says something about my fat identity.
Fat women have always been in my life. Although my mom was thin when I was little, family on both my mother's and father's sides were on the hefty side more often than not. I remember the first time I saw a picture of my mother from high school. My body made so much more sense to me. In her childhood pictures she is an average sized girl with short blond hair, but as she aged her hair grew and darkened and she became heavier. Her high school picture was very different from the thin mother I knew as a child, or even the size 12 mother I knew as a teen. At age ten I was wearing my mother's clothes--in fact, I raided her closet often for the clothes I thought were funky and 'vintage,' which mostly meant I looked like a bit of a weirdo to my classmates, but I took a lot of pleasure in it and remember feeling a loss when her clothes no longer fit me. I hadn't quite found thrift shopping at that point.
I think middle school was the point at which I started to feel actively antagonistic toward other fat women and girls. One day in homeroom I was sitting with a table of boys. Assigned table, probably. Our homeroom teacher was fat. She had also, oddly enough, been my fourth grade teacher. I didn't like her very much then. Perhaps I already had some antagonism going on. She seemed nicer in middle school homeroom, though. In middle school she mostly taught kids who were lagging behind and kids who were differently abled.
In homeroom I sat next to a boy I had once had a crush on in grade school, who at that time had picked on me in art class and then gotten me called to the principal's office after I apparently reacted by smashing clay into his clothing (which angered his mother), though I didn't remember doing it even at the time I was called to the principal; what I do remember was that going to the principal was a BFD for a kid like me. Anyway, said boy, skinny and short with sandy hair in a bowl cut commented about our teacher being so fat. I agreed! She was sooooooooo fat. I'll never be that fat, I thought or said, I'm not sure. I couldn't imagine being that fat. My plan was to get skinny! I had already internalized the dream of showing up my classmates by getting skinny and (thus) beautiful (desirable, lovable). This conversation, in fact, is documented in my 8th grade yearbook where he wrote:
And I meant it. I couldn't imagine being as fat as our teacher. I trembled at the thought of becoming that fat. Looking back, perhaps my classmate didn't think I was fat (and maybe I wasn't, really), but I already thought I was. I remember having an identity as the fat girl because I also remember feeling like I had to take sides. Someone talked about the fat teacher, I had to also denounce her. And to cast off fatness even further, since the possibility of real fatness was borne on my body, I had to swear it off myself. I wanted nothing more than to disassociate myself with a fat teacher; I already felt enough stigma because of my body.
My relationship with fat girls was more complicated. I had fat friends (at least 'fat' friends), but a few 'fat' girls--often, I'm ashamed to say, poorer and less physically attractive 'fat' girls--I didn't associate with. To be fair, several of these girls were seriously lacking in social skills and I found them to be mean, though I'm sure those things are partially attributable to the fact that they were heavily ostracized; it was hard to know which came first. It felt good to know I wasn't dead last on the middle school/high school totem pool...but honestly, not that good.
Other 'fat' girls who were my friends sometimes simultaneously held this weird antagonistic place in my mental space. They were the sassier, bolder fat girls. Fat girls with attitude, striking and opinionated, and it felt like perhaps there was only room for so many of us. I never became very close with these girls. It was as if there was an unspoken competition--we were all about equal in status, so perhaps that made things more tenuous between us.
In fact, there's only one sassy fat girl I can think of from that period of my life with whom I did bond with. I met her in drama club, and she was a grade older than me. She'd scoff at me calling her sassy--she was the driest wit and had the most sarcasm in our whole high school--but it was a kind of sass. To this day she is one of my best friends. Our sass-es must have meshed well, harmonized. There was another 'fat' girl in drama club who was also a grade ahead of me, and she did hold that antagonistic position in my mind...though she did get the part I wanted in the play and was kind of a dick about it since her head inflated considerably. I told myself I would not have gotten such an ego about it, though I had wished the part would give me an ego boost.
Growing up I had a couple of good friends who were thin, but by middle school many of them were 'fat.' Less sassy fat girls I could bond well with. They were not void of sass--that simply would not do--just a milder sassy. Usually I was the sassiest. I felt a bond with my 'fat' friends based on the mere fact of our size. I thought there was a certain understanding, a certain point of view we shared. I didn't feel judged by them or in competition for my sassy fat girl identity. And I wasn't afraid to be associated with them, for some reason wasn't afraid that they'd bring me more stigma. I suppose as long as they didn't drag down my social status in other ways, that solidarity meant something to me socially. And none of them were "that fat"--as fat as our teacher--nor could I imagine that they ever would be.
Perhaps another reason was because, in a typical contradictory fashion, I started to identify more with other fat girls, though not fat teachers. There was a delicate balance of feeling and not feeling solidarity, but I certainly could not identify with the fat teacher.
In high school, though, even that started to change. Our Spanish teacher was a very fat woman with very thin curly long brown hair and a striking redness to her face which I now know to be rosacea. She often wore knee-length, long-sleeved dresses made out of sweatshirt material. I could not understand, at the time, why she would wear such hideous, unflattering clothing. I'm sure I understood, to some extent, that she didn't have many options, but I still couldn't fathom wearing what she wore.
Needless to say, high school kids were horrible to her. Terrible names for her playing on her last name. No respect whatsoever. She could not control the class, and I slept a lot because I was either very bored or annoyed. She stopped calling on me once she realized I could lift my head from my desk, open my eyes, and answer her questions correctly. I believe it was in her class that I realized I had to get the fuck out of that town...of the high school.
For one of group projects, we were to bring in food. Was it supposed to be food from Spanish speaking countries? I don't know, but my group brought in chocolate covered strawberries. Maybe she also taught an English class. At some point a student was going to put a tack on her seat, which I protested against and thought it was better not to cause a teacher physical harm. I thought they had given up on pranking her when suddenly I see the ass of her white sweatshirt dress is smeared with chocolate. Someone had put one of our chocolate covered strawberries on her seat or at least wiped chocolate on it.
I was horrified for her. I prodded friends to tell her, to no avail. Finally, at the risk of others thinking I was on the side of the fat, poorly-dressed, red-faced teacher, I told her about the stain. How could anyone in good conscience let her go around like that all day? In addition, I was furious at my classmates because above all, I knew that the reason they behaved this way was because she was a fat woman, a fat woman who didn't even have what most would consider a pretty face, nor a flattering outfit, to compensate for her size.
Something in me changed that day, just a little. I started to identify more with the way she was treated and less with my classmates who taunted her. I knew what it was like to face that stigma and disdain...and there was some emotional connection there that could not be mitigated by fear of that same stigma.
I could tell she was embarrassed, but I was almost concerned when she didn't seem nearly as mortified as I had expected. Perhaps she was used to these kinds of things. Maybe she didn't care so much about what people thought. But in her reaction I discovered a new respect for her. She wasn't the coolest fat lady, but it was clear to me that she was a stronger person than I had known.
The way I related to other fat women and girls (and men/boys, but that's perhaps for another reflection another time) over time says something about my fat identity.
Fat women have always been in my life. Although my mom was thin when I was little, family on both my mother's and father's sides were on the hefty side more often than not. I remember the first time I saw a picture of my mother from high school. My body made so much more sense to me. In her childhood pictures she is an average sized girl with short blond hair, but as she aged her hair grew and darkened and she became heavier. Her high school picture was very different from the thin mother I knew as a child, or even the size 12 mother I knew as a teen. At age ten I was wearing my mother's clothes--in fact, I raided her closet often for the clothes I thought were funky and 'vintage,' which mostly meant I looked like a bit of a weirdo to my classmates, but I took a lot of pleasure in it and remember feeling a loss when her clothes no longer fit me. I hadn't quite found thrift shopping at that point.
I think middle school was the point at which I started to feel actively antagonistic toward other fat women and girls. One day in homeroom I was sitting with a table of boys. Assigned table, probably. Our homeroom teacher was fat. She had also, oddly enough, been my fourth grade teacher. I didn't like her very much then. Perhaps I already had some antagonism going on. She seemed nicer in middle school homeroom, though. In middle school she mostly taught kids who were lagging behind and kids who were differently abled.
In homeroom I sat next to a boy I had once had a crush on in grade school, who at that time had picked on me in art class and then gotten me called to the principal's office after I apparently reacted by smashing clay into his clothing (which angered his mother), though I didn't remember doing it even at the time I was called to the principal; what I do remember was that going to the principal was a BFD for a kid like me. Anyway, said boy, skinny and short with sandy hair in a bowl cut commented about our teacher being so fat. I agreed! She was sooooooooo fat. I'll never be that fat, I thought or said, I'm not sure. I couldn't imagine being that fat. My plan was to get skinny! I had already internalized the dream of showing up my classmates by getting skinny and (thus) beautiful (desirable, lovable). This conversation, in fact, is documented in my 8th grade yearbook where he wrote:
"Good luck in high school. cheerup and don't be a crump like usual. Surly don't end up like Mrs. _________. (fat)"Next to it, for good measure or for posterity or as a reminder to myself, since it was my own yearbook, I wrote. "I won't. I PROMISE."
And I meant it. I couldn't imagine being as fat as our teacher. I trembled at the thought of becoming that fat. Looking back, perhaps my classmate didn't think I was fat (and maybe I wasn't, really), but I already thought I was. I remember having an identity as the fat girl because I also remember feeling like I had to take sides. Someone talked about the fat teacher, I had to also denounce her. And to cast off fatness even further, since the possibility of real fatness was borne on my body, I had to swear it off myself. I wanted nothing more than to disassociate myself with a fat teacher; I already felt enough stigma because of my body.
My relationship with fat girls was more complicated. I had fat friends (at least 'fat' friends), but a few 'fat' girls--often, I'm ashamed to say, poorer and less physically attractive 'fat' girls--I didn't associate with. To be fair, several of these girls were seriously lacking in social skills and I found them to be mean, though I'm sure those things are partially attributable to the fact that they were heavily ostracized; it was hard to know which came first. It felt good to know I wasn't dead last on the middle school/high school totem pool...but honestly, not that good.
Other 'fat' girls who were my friends sometimes simultaneously held this weird antagonistic place in my mental space. They were the sassier, bolder fat girls. Fat girls with attitude, striking and opinionated, and it felt like perhaps there was only room for so many of us. I never became very close with these girls. It was as if there was an unspoken competition--we were all about equal in status, so perhaps that made things more tenuous between us.
In fact, there's only one sassy fat girl I can think of from that period of my life with whom I did bond with. I met her in drama club, and she was a grade older than me. She'd scoff at me calling her sassy--she was the driest wit and had the most sarcasm in our whole high school--but it was a kind of sass. To this day she is one of my best friends. Our sass-es must have meshed well, harmonized. There was another 'fat' girl in drama club who was also a grade ahead of me, and she did hold that antagonistic position in my mind...though she did get the part I wanted in the play and was kind of a dick about it since her head inflated considerably. I told myself I would not have gotten such an ego about it, though I had wished the part would give me an ego boost.
Growing up I had a couple of good friends who were thin, but by middle school many of them were 'fat.' Less sassy fat girls I could bond well with. They were not void of sass--that simply would not do--just a milder sassy. Usually I was the sassiest. I felt a bond with my 'fat' friends based on the mere fact of our size. I thought there was a certain understanding, a certain point of view we shared. I didn't feel judged by them or in competition for my sassy fat girl identity. And I wasn't afraid to be associated with them, for some reason wasn't afraid that they'd bring me more stigma. I suppose as long as they didn't drag down my social status in other ways, that solidarity meant something to me socially. And none of them were "that fat"--as fat as our teacher--nor could I imagine that they ever would be.
Perhaps another reason was because, in a typical contradictory fashion, I started to identify more with other fat girls, though not fat teachers. There was a delicate balance of feeling and not feeling solidarity, but I certainly could not identify with the fat teacher.
In high school, though, even that started to change. Our Spanish teacher was a very fat woman with very thin curly long brown hair and a striking redness to her face which I now know to be rosacea. She often wore knee-length, long-sleeved dresses made out of sweatshirt material. I could not understand, at the time, why she would wear such hideous, unflattering clothing. I'm sure I understood, to some extent, that she didn't have many options, but I still couldn't fathom wearing what she wore.
Needless to say, high school kids were horrible to her. Terrible names for her playing on her last name. No respect whatsoever. She could not control the class, and I slept a lot because I was either very bored or annoyed. She stopped calling on me once she realized I could lift my head from my desk, open my eyes, and answer her questions correctly. I believe it was in her class that I realized I had to get the fuck out of that town...of the high school.
For one of group projects, we were to bring in food. Was it supposed to be food from Spanish speaking countries? I don't know, but my group brought in chocolate covered strawberries. Maybe she also taught an English class. At some point a student was going to put a tack on her seat, which I protested against and thought it was better not to cause a teacher physical harm. I thought they had given up on pranking her when suddenly I see the ass of her white sweatshirt dress is smeared with chocolate. Someone had put one of our chocolate covered strawberries on her seat or at least wiped chocolate on it.
I was horrified for her. I prodded friends to tell her, to no avail. Finally, at the risk of others thinking I was on the side of the fat, poorly-dressed, red-faced teacher, I told her about the stain. How could anyone in good conscience let her go around like that all day? In addition, I was furious at my classmates because above all, I knew that the reason they behaved this way was because she was a fat woman, a fat woman who didn't even have what most would consider a pretty face, nor a flattering outfit, to compensate for her size.
Something in me changed that day, just a little. I started to identify more with the way she was treated and less with my classmates who taunted her. I knew what it was like to face that stigma and disdain...and there was some emotional connection there that could not be mitigated by fear of that same stigma.
I could tell she was embarrassed, but I was almost concerned when she didn't seem nearly as mortified as I had expected. Perhaps she was used to these kinds of things. Maybe she didn't care so much about what people thought. But in her reaction I discovered a new respect for her. She wasn't the coolest fat lady, but it was clear to me that she was a stronger person than I had known.
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Feminism, Anti-Feminism, and All The Cakes
I started reading Amy Farrell's Fat Shame: Stigma and the Fat Body in American Culture recently, and I am really enjoying it so far.
Amy was supposed to be in one of my NWSA panels last fall, but couldn't make it, and so instead I read her paper for her...a fantastic essay on how antifat sentiment was used by both those for and against women's suffrage, which was part of a chapter in her (then upcoming) book. I was so impressed with her work and fascinated by the topic, especially because I think it shows the way in which antifat attitudes have been woven into the historical fabric of feminism.
The white, Western mainstream feminist movement took off the same time that Western attitudes about fat began to change. Fatness became a serious character flaw, a symbol of failed citizenship. As Amy says in her book, fatness was a sign the middle class folk couldn't handle modern society, couldn't regulate themselves in amidst the new potential for excess. And as Amy points out, the body was increasingly understood to be an important marker...indeed, it was also the height of the Eugenics movement.
And sadly, these discourses about bodies were utilized by claimsmakers (or people trying to persuade) because those arguments were found to be compelling.
As such, some feminists of the time used Eugenicist language/arguments to make claims about their (white) right to "women's" suffrage and "women's" rights. They used ideas that already compelled people, that already panicked them, that already tugged at their (a)moral compass.
Which is why feminists use of anti-fat sentiment didn't come as a big surprise for me...though I find it tremendously interesting. In fact, before I had even read Amy's piece, someone showed me this link to an old book from that time period, archived in Bryn Mawr's "Women's Suffrage Ephemera Collection," called "Ten Little Suffergets."
"Ten Little Suffergets" is a sad piece of anti-women's suffrage propaganda; it's hilarious in it's ridiculousness until you think about the fact that feminists still face these kinds of ridiculous arguments. The "suffergets" (pictured as little girls in dresses, maryjanes with socks, and bows in their hair) hold signs like "Votes for Women" and "Equal Rights" (innocuous enough), "No More Home Rule," "Down with Teachers," "Down with the Men," "Let the Man be the Housemaid," "Protection for Infant Industries" (not sure exactly what that refers to), "Every Day a Holiday," "No More Bedtimes," and........."Cake Every Day."
That's right. Cake. Every. Day. I think it's clear to us all now that suffragists are the architects of the obesity epidemic. Feminism really is the downfall of society!
The storyline of the book is merely that each of the "suffergets" encounters an issue--either she throws off her ideals (the "sufferget" who held the "Down with Teachers" sign ends up bringing flowers to her teacher, thus the end of her feminism) or she is injured in some way (the story starts out with the first "sufferget" getting a whipping--get this, cuz "suffergets" are naughty. Infantilization + sexualization + physical domination = sexism win!). Essentially, if she doesn't learn her lesson on her own...harm shall come to her, as it should be.
Guess what happens to the "sufferget" who was fighting for "Cake Every Day"?
Her gluttony and cakelust is her own undoing and she can no longer protest on behalf of cakefreedom. Twowholecakes is one thing, this gal "gobbles" ALL TEH CAKES. If only feminists had an allthecakes shout-out back then to turn this on its head.
In her chapter on "Feminism, Citizenship, and Fat Stigma," Amy talks both about this kind of anti-suffragist attack and about how the suffragists tried to depict themselves a slim, young, and beautiful...and anti-suffragists as fat cats or fat and aging (behind the times).
Rather than saying something radical, like, "We're fat, so what, give us our fucking votes!" it seems early feminists used the antifat sentiment and lookism of the day to argue for their cause. Although it's lazy (and often despicable), it's much easier to utilize narratives that people already accept or find persuasive, symbols that jive with their (often fucked up) cultural logic (Eugenics, antifat denigration, etc.) than to vie for your cause AND challenge systems of privilege and oppression that are in place...or at least refrain from perpetuating them. Fatness is a place marker people can use to rile people up and win them over with the sensationalism, fear, and panic (not so dissimilar from the functions and dynamics of panic about racial purity) when otherwise they fear their argument is not compelling or persuasive enough. When in doubt, rely on fear and hate, right? It's a surefire plan.
As fat activists, we should do our best to avoid falling into the trap of relying on or reinforcing systems of privilege and oppression and/or cultural tropes to vie for our cause. Our cause stands on it's own.
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