Advice for Parents

thisisthinprivilege:

What advice do you and your readers have for a (thin, if it makes a difference) mom raising a fat daughter? I want to her be happy with her body, but I know that growing up in our fatphobic culture, she will hear so many times that she needs to lose weight to be acceptable. Obviously some things (never tell her she needs to lose weight, affirm that her body is fine the way it is) should go without saying. But I’d really appreciate any more specific advice that you may have. Was there anything your parents said/did that you found hurtful even if it wasn’t intended to be? Was there anything they said/did that you found to be especially helpful or affirming? How best can I help her to deal with bullies and fat-shaming from outside our family?

I have learned a lot from this site; I really appreciate what you do.

(Sorry for not using the ask box, but as I am talking about my daughter without getting her permission first, I feel obliged to make sure I’m really anonymous.)

Mod response:

I think none of the mods are parents, so our experience is a little limited there, but I’ll give it my best shot, and I’m sure the others will chime in if they have anything to add.

First, of course, don’t pressure her to lose weight. Don’t criticize her body or speak negatively about it. But also, don’t speak negatively of your own or other people’s bodies; anyone’s, not just fat bodies. Discourage or forbid other people to talk about weight loss in front of her. Don’t stand for people talking shit about fat people in front of her or you; challenge it as often as you can, or just walk away. Don’t watch shows that talk extensively about weight loss or promote fat hate (like The Biggest Loser). Talk to your daughter about weight, about how weight loss doesn’t work, and how it’s ok to be the size you are. I don’t know how old your daughter is, so I can’t help you with specific language, but I have a couple of conversations with an 8yo friend of mine up here, to give you an idea of what I would say to a relatively young child. Remember, kids, especially girls, pick these ideas up early, and it’s good to talk to them about it as soon as they start talking about it. (Her mom says she doesn’t call herself fat — she isn’t — at home anymore, either, so I guess that helped.) When and if she’s bullied about it, tell her that it’s not her fault, her bullies are jerks, and they would find something else to bully her about if it wasn’t her size (very true; they used to tease me about having curly hair). If a teacher or administrator at her school tells her she needs to lose weight, or especially tells her that the correct response to being bullied about her size is to lose weight, throw a fit. March down there with a stack of articles about eating disorders in kids, teens, and young women; articles about how high the death toll from eating disorders is; articles about how weight loss doesn’t work, anything you can find, and tell them that they are never to speak to your daughter that way again. You’ll have to find your own way of doing this, of course, but I promise you, there are ways of doing it politely. My mom, who is very much a Nice Southern Lady, politely pitched fits at my schools many times, although, alas, never about this.

Tell her that her body is good, that it is hers, and more, that it is her. If she hates her body, she hates herself, and she doesn’t deserve to be hated. Tell her her body is good no matter what size she is (remember, she may lose weight on her own as she grows up). Tell her you love her. Not, “We love you no matter what size you are.” Tell her you love her, period, and you will never stop.

Make your home a place free from fat hate. Make it safe for her to be fat in. Make yourself and the rest of your family safe for her to be fat with. Because the rest of the world isn’t.

Asking the question, wanting to do this for her, is a good start. Be aware that you’ll slip up or botch it completely sometimes, and don’t be hard on yourself, but just resolve to be better. You’ve been marinating in fat hate your entire life, it’s hard not to repeat some of it, especially when you don’t even know that it’s a problem.

There. That’s what I’ve got. I hope that helps.

-MG

working for thin privileges

thisisthinprivilege:

I know this is a twisted thought, but don’t some thin people (not all of them, as most are naturally thin, but some) kind of “earn” their privilege?

My sister gains weight incredibly fast and she has to work out every day to stay in shape, while I can lie around and stuff myself with sweets and still weigh less than her.
I know I didn’t earn my privilege but she definitely did. If she hadn’t started working out she’d be heavily overweight, now she works out and maintains her figure.

I guess my question is, as a privilege is something you should earn and deserve, what about those who worked hard to be privileged? Don’t they kind of deserve the privileges being thin has to offer, other than some overweight people who (not all of them, but some) are too lazy to work out and then complain about privileges they could obtain if they worked hard?

I hope you understand my point. Best wishes

Mod response: Your “point” is bullshit. Privilege in the sense we’re talking about cannot be earned. One group of people does not deserve to be treated better than another. Period. Why is this so fucking difficult to understand? You do not deserve to be treated better than I am, your sister does not deserve to be treated better than I am. I deserve to be treated as well as either of you.

You’re thinking of the kind of privileges you can get in school by following the rules, like leaving campus for lunch or whatever the fuck. We are talking about fat people not being treated with basic fucking human respect. Have you read this blog at all? Have you payed any fucking attention to how fat people are treated? Why the fuck would you ever think fat people deserve to be treated that way, while you don’t? How the fuck can you think that be treated like a human being is something anyone ever has to earn?

-MG

feministdisney:

theyearsiwasashipwreck:

casketscratcher:

wyrdwulf:

casketscratcher:

amazingatheist:

Feminist Frequency AKA Anita Sarkeesian, has finally uploaded the first part of her series on “Tropes vs. Women in Video Games” and it predictably has both the ratings and the comments disabled. 

What are you afraid of, Anita? Why can’t people have a discourse about your material? Why can’t people make their opinions towards your content known? I understand that some comments will be abusive in nature—probably most will—but so what? 

You are putting forth a particular ideological stance. Your unwillingness to allow that stance to be challenged undermines the legitimacy of your claims because it sends the signal to everyone who lands on your page that your ideas cannot hold up under scrutiny. 

I encourage you to enable comments and ratings, Anita, so that both your supporters and your detractors can have their fair say. Trying to censor the dissenting point of view does not make it go away. 

That’s just a bit of friendly advice from me to you.  

For those wishing to check out Anita’s video, it can be seen here: 

http://youtu.be/X6p5AZp7r_Q 

Oh, I don’t know. Maybe she’s sick of getting constant death/rape threats and wants to put her work out there without the predictable triggery-as-fuck backlash from misogynistic fuckstains appearing underneath?

Or maybe it’s a simple “fuck you, it’s my work and I do what I want with it.”

And lol @ you for describing youtube comments as “discourse.”

lol. @. you.

Fuck yes, Anita. You keep doing what you do and don’t let the shitheads get you down.

Look at this nast-ass dickweed. Imagine, someone just being, you know, tired of being bothered by someone as inane as the amazing atheist. This fucker needs to defenstrate, and quick.

Apparently us LAYDEEZ need to be open to rape threats or else say nothing at all. Because discourse!!!! or something

“I understand that some comments will be abusive in nature—probably most will—but so what?”

men.txt

amazingatheist is one of the few bloggers/vloggers that actually are a worse experience to see on my dash than eating my own puke.

Like I know he’ll just continue saying a bunch of shit because it reels in his youtube cash whatever but still disgusted forever by his own approach to “people having a discourse on your material.” Read more about that here.  

TW RAPE THREATS

*

*

 quotes from the AmazingAtheist, to someone (a rape victim) who disagreed with him on something:

“I will make you a rape victim if you don’t fuck off” 

“I think we should give the guy who raped you a medal.”  

“I hope you fucking drown in rape semen, you ugly, mean-spirited cow.” 

This individual has NO business ever, ever, in telling a feminist how to approach dialogue.  

thisisthinprivilege:

You can definitely see the difference in shame level in weight loss vs. smoking cessation commercials. Weight loss commercials often have this whole “before” life of burden and breaking chairs and not being able to dance in Paris or play with your kids or whatever, then show the “after” doing all the things the “before” supposedly couldn’t do (which sometimes is merely modeling jeans or a swimsuit). 

Smoking cessation commercials are rarely shame-y. They’re mostly of the tone, “We know it’s hard to stop smoking, and we’re going to help you discreetly! Good for you, stopping smoking. Because we know it’s hard and it’s not your fault that you’re addicted.” 

And yes, the difference in shamey-ness takes on a much more macabre quality when you remember that fat isn’t a behavior, and smoking is.

(note that I don’t believe smokers should be shamed any more than I think fat people should be shamed)

-ArteToLife

(made rebloggable by request)

Let’s look at the twitter thing from the beginning

fandomsandfeminism:

stfu-moffat:

These are the tweets from Moffat that started the whole debacle surrounding sexualities. If you just look quickly, and isn’t very familiar with LGBTQ rights, this looks like a pretty cool thing. Because the Doctor doesn’t care about sexualities, and that’s… good. But this isn’t what this implies. He claims that The Doctor doesn’t see sexuality, and doesn’t understand it, and needs to have it explained to him. This is problematic because The Doctor has encountered a pretty decent number of non straight characters over the years. He was the one who explained Jack’s sexuality to Rose, he was aware of when Shakespeare  was hitting on him and he knew and was aware of that present day academics are discussing Shakespeare’s sexuality.

The Doctor: Come on! We can have a good flirt later! 
William Shakespeare: Is that a promise, Doctor? 
The Doctor: Oh, fifty-seven academics just punched the air. Come on. 

He knows of Human sexuality, knows how it works, and knows about the discussions surrounding it. If anything, my guess would be that he has a better grasp of it than we do, since he’s been following humanity for such a long time he ought to have a good understanding of the history of oppression and the problems that present day queer people still are faced with. Why doesn’t he already have a universal marriage setting on that screwdriver of his? 

Read More

Moffat is insufferable. 

thisisthinprivilege:

Thin privilege is not breaking down crying in a changing room because you’ve spent an hour trying on clothes and nothing fits (and if it does fit, it’s ugly), while you can hear the girl in the next room complaining to her friend that she has too many choices, and how’s she supposed to only choose 5 pairs of pants?

marchoftigers:

drunken-rambling:

wretchedoftheearth:

I wonder what the world is like when virtually everywhere is a safe space for you

and you don’t have to block people and leave websites and sever friendships and avoid certain activities and drop classes and switch deans and ignore comment sections

just to go through the day without too many people trying to plant the idea in your head that you are less than human

I wonder what life is like when your ego is so fragile that you have to revolve every activity around avoiding people who disagree with you 24/7

hey there. If you think having to avoid feeling less than human is about “ego” then please see yourself outta this convo because clearly this is not your table.

And straight on until morning....: The next person who tells me body shaming isn’t about hate it’s about...

onuntillmorning:

The next person who tells me body shaming isn’t about hate it’s about health is going to be choked the fuck out, by me. It’s such an ignorant bullshit comment that gets thrown around. Make the fatties ashamed of themselves and they’ll change. I think some people actually believe that’s what they’re doing and that’s actually worse.

Yesterday when I was walking to work (which I do, every day, five days a week, ha, I know right, fatties walking, sometimes it happens when we have to go places) and I came across all these women running shuttle runs up and down the street from the local gym. No biggie, they’re usually out and about talking and running and running and talking.

But there was one woman at the head of the pack, quite literally running rings around the others and with ease. She was easily a size 20 and while she had a sweat going, running was no more difficult for her than the other women running behind her. So as I walked past I start to hear it, it’s that murmur every fat person knows. The mocking laughing kind we have heard our whole lives. I picked up a few choice words like ‘disgusting’ and ‘repulsive’ and ‘she should keep it at home’ and my favourite ‘I don’t want to see that!’

Now here’s a woman doing her thing, doing what people say they want fat people to do. She’s working out. But she’s not safe from the mockery of her body? How is that about health? It isn’t, that’s how. It’s about hate. Hate and shame and a stigma so great most people don’t even know how deep it really runs.

I’ve never received more verbal abuse from strangers than when I’m being active. So seriously, instead of saying ‘I just want people to be healthy! They’re a drain on health resources! OBESITY EPIDEMIC!!!!!!!111!!one!!!’ How about you just say what we all know you’re thinking?

‘I hate fat people.’

It’s okay, we hate you, too.

are you a good straight ally?

justjasper:

disclaimer: other queer people can and do disagree with me, blah blah blah

• do you identify as an ally? do you claim that as a title?
• do you support SBNN?
• are you adamant the A in longer LGBTA+ initialisms stands for ‘ally’? 
• do you feel excluded when the A is not used or said not to be for ‘ally’?
• have you ever referenced your lgbt friends as a defence when someone calls you out on something?
• do you think dan savage is a positive role model?
• do you think heterophobia is almost as bad or equal to homophobia?
• do you get angry when queer people are “mean” to straight allies?
• do you hate being called “cis”?
• have you ever “come out” as an ally?
• do you think queer people being mean to straight allies about their allyship is bullying?
• have you ever ignored criticisms levelled at straight people so you don’t have to deal with them?
• do you think straight people have a right to be present in queer spaces?
• do you think “cishet” is an insult?
• do you use slurs like “dyke” or “f*g or t****y”, even affectionately?
• do you think it’s ever appropriate to offer an unsolicited opinion into a discussion of queer issues?
• have you ever used things you learned in your college queer theory course to counter the lived experience of queer people?
• do you ever use your fandom ships to argue for lgbtq rights?
• do you dodge confirming/making it obvious that you’re straight when talking about queer issues?
• do you think it’s appropriate for straight people to lead queer organisations?
• have you ever purposefully misgendered someone?
• do you believe blogs ‘calling out’ queer people created in response to blogs calling out allies appropriate/fair response?
• do you claim not to “see gender” or “see sexuality”?
• do you routinely start posts/sentences with: “as a straight ally…”
• do you expect to be rewarded for being an ally?
• do you get personally offended at posts addressing straight people in general, or feel those are personal attacks?
• do you expect not to have to deal with criticism while engaging in “ally activism”?
• do you claim to be queer by merit of your allyship?

if you answered ‘yes’ to any of these, you need to try harder

• do you check the post on lgbtq issues is written by a queer person before reblogging?
• do you go out of your way to reblog commentary from queer people rather than straight people?
• if you engage in tumblr activity around oppression, do you state clearly somewhere on your blog that you’re straight and cis?
• do you research charities before donating/spreading information about them?
• do you support queer-only spaces?

if you answered ‘no’ to any of these, you need to try harder

femmefrustration:

theoneandonlynka:

blonde-swanson:

femmefrustration:

femmefrustration:

I really don’t put much stock into ‘professional’ psychological assessments.

Anyone can get a degree in psychology. I’ve studied under multiple professors with psychology degrees, and I’ve been to dozens of psychologists and psychiatrists. Just like everyone else, they have their biases. Getting a totally objective assessment is impossible. 

I’ve had psychologists who pinned all of my ‘problems’ on my fatness, said that I was NT, and simply self-conscious (in spite of me telling her that I am comfortable with my size). I’ve had psychologists diagnose me as borderline right off the bat because I’m AFAB, have an abusive background, and react in a way that would get a man diagnosed with PTSD. I’ve had psychologists who were made fun of when they were little by kids who called him ‘autistic’ (he isn’t, and I’m not even going to begin to get into why autism isn’t an insult, because that’s an entirely different rant). Because of that, he refuses to diagnose people with autism.

If these people are experts, then I am too. I will be the one to spend the most time on my ‘case’, and know all of its details. I trust my self dx more than what is likely to be their misdiagnosis.

guess I gotta put this out there again

why :’(

I want to punch this thing in the face. I cannot believe the arrogance in that post. YOU CANNOT DIAGNOSE YOURSELF

Do you know how many psychologists and psychiatrists I’ve been to? I had no idea I was autistic even after being diagnosed. I knew something was wrong and that was it they were helping me with behavior therapy before I even knew why. This thing is making psychiatry out to be a joke and its not its part science and part art.

You can absolutely diagnose yourself.

Psychiatry is fallible, just like everything else. It’s a soft science at best, seeing as it leaves most everything (like symptoms) up to interpretation.

And if you put that power into the hands of racists, sexists, and people with their own personal hang-ups, guess what? You’re going to get unfair diagnoses for PoC, women, and anyone who may represent what the psychiatrist was affected by.

And by ‘thing’, you better be talking about the post and not me, because otherwise I’m going to gouge your fucking eyes out.