Fat Body Politics

By Anonymous

I want to talk about the politics of being fat. I want everybody to have a serious self-reflexive conversation about what we’ve come to know about the nuances of self love and desirability and body positivity in a world that tells size non-conforming folks such as myself that we’d be better off taking up as little space as possible to be more palatable for mass
consumption.

We size non-conforming folks are significantly affected by pervasive social hierarchies that dictate whose existences are of inherently more value. We are taught to believe that our thoughts and feelings and motivations and individuality come second to those of thin folks. We have come to recognize that size conformity holds great social power. Furthermore, we have become all too familiar with the implication that thinness is synonymous with morality and somehow inherently deserving of adoration, attention and respect. In existing the way that we do, our bodies become nothing more than means to an end. Our bodies are not allowed to exist without constant maintenance and surveillance. If our bodies do not exist solely for the purpose of eventually becoming a “before” picture then we are not allowed to exist at all. Our bodies turn into crude joke punch lines and public symbols for all that is wrong with the world. These prevailing social attitudes attempt to teach us a lesson on how to exist properly. They attempt to punish us for failing to uphold a social doctrine of thin obsession, because a fat person who doesn’t want to actively lose weight must be punished by all means necessary. Society has convinced us that our bodies become a universal representation of all that which is ugly, lazy, undesirable, and grotesque. Our bodies become the ultimate insult to injury, the ultimate character flaw, the ultimate moral failing, and the ultimate symbol of all that is objectionable. Our bodies are therefore publicly mocked, criticized, and hyper-examined under the exploitative lens of capitalism and the vital beauty imperative.

The negative social implications of being fat and conversations about body politics cannot be understated. These conversations become vital for the survival of non conforming folks in a world that actively tries to demonize us for existing in a way that defies social conventions of size conformity and western beauty ideologies. They become crucial in our understandings of how we see the world the way we do, how we’re treated the way we are, and what we’ve come to know about how people’s bodies fall within a social hierarchy of acceptability that is commanded by the forces of white supremacy, patriarchy, and capitalism.