“Diet culture, even when it doesn’t involve surgeries or starvation or physical harm (although it very often does involve these things) is violence. Even the language of diet culture is about hurt: burn those calories, zap that fat, I’ve been so bad, no pain no gain, beat the hunger, crush the cravings, fight the fat, battle the bulge, waging war on obesity. See? All about the hurt. It’s no wonder then that some people seem to perceive fat acceptance as a new kind of danger. Some assume it’s a movement that promotes harm to one’s own body or to the health of others, or even to taxpayers. It doesn’t. It simply illuminates this fact: if there is a war on obesity, there’s a war on ‘obese people’ and those people have a right to resist. So we do, often by opting out of the war altogether and making peace with bodies. I don’t want to fight my body anymore and I sure as hell don’t want to fight yours, whatever size it is. In fact, I don’t even want all that rhetoric about fighting. Why are softer words (embrace, accept, listen) less utilized? Traits commonly seen as ‘feminine’ and therefore weak — like kindness – are actually some of the most effective mechanisms we have to use against fat-hate. It’s hard to sell diet pills to someone who’d like to be gentle on themselves, accept themselves for who they are, listen to what their body needs and embrace size diversity. And it’s hard to see how creating a world without diet pills wouldn’t be a win for feminism.”
- Fat acceptance: when kindness is activism — Feministe (via saturnoregresa)
- Fat acceptance: when kindness is activism — Feministe (via saturnoregresa)