A Feminist / Womanist Network
“Feminism means not judging women’s choices”
“Body positivity means celebrating people loving their bodies”
These are positive, uplifting quotes. Based on celebrating and raising up others, emphasising individuals happiness, because don’t we all want to live in a happier society?
Of course we do.. so why are they sometimes controversial?
Read more Individuality vs Societal change, by @MogPlus
Eww!. I mean, really, FFS, eww! Everything about the ‘love letter‘ that’s recently gone viral makes my stomach turn. And no, that’s not because it’s wrong to adore your partner and want to tell everyone that you do: that can be quite cute (if sometimes an overshare).
First of all, it’s because this smug git clearly thinks he deserves a medal for being ‘feminist’ enough to find non-skinny women attractive. His wife is an attractive woman who works as a ‘plus size’ model – which actually means that she is an average size by most people’s standards, and that her attractiveness has already been confirmed by the model agency that hired her: she’s not some self-hating you-don’t-know-you’re-beautiful wallflower – but he writes as though she’s immensely overweight only, brave, selfless manfeminist that he is, he loves her anyway.
Then, there’s the usual ‘real women are not thin’ nonsense included, just to remind everyone that women’s body shapes and sizes are all subject to some arbitrary standards imposed by men, whether the woman in question likes it or not.
This isn’t to say it’s a bad thing to be drawn to, or express your appreciation of, aspects of a lover’s body which are not the ones usually cited as most appealing. An honest and affectionate compliment on your cute toes, the dimples in your knees, your one crooked tooth or your hairy back can be delightful. But if you follow that compliment up with a whole load of self-praise about how perceptive, special and super-sensitive you are to have noticed this ‘fault’ in your beloved and yet find it adorable, your partner is likely to feel self-conscious rather than flattered.
It’s something to be aware of when writing erotica, as well: there are enough lame, derivative stories about the heroine who ‘thinks’ she’s ugly while describing herself in a way that makes it clear she’s nothing of the sort, therefore setting the scene for the hero to come along and convince her of her wonderfulness. This stuff is even more irritating when it comes with subtle-as-a-flying-brick misogynistic moralising about the heroine’s ‘natural’ beauty as opposed to her rivals’ slutty use of makeup, hair dye or expensive clothes. Sure, make a character curvy rather than the thinnest woman in the world who can still eat whatever she wants, but don’t make body shape or size an indication of personality, and please, no more stories where the main character’s non-mainstream body type is the whole fucking plot. Don’t be that guy…
Dose of Decadence : Promotion for my assorted works and views on sex, sex industry, feminism, atheism, flogging weird stuff and anything else I happen to fancy having a rant about. Twitter @decadentmadamez
She was an ugly duckling at school, teased for being bigger than the others. She wasn’t huge, but kids are cruel. She wanted to model but agencies told her she was too fat, pressured her to lose weight, but one day she had a revelation – she was beautiful! It didn’t matter what anyone else said, she knew her body was a thing of beauty, and now look at her, modelling for high street brands.. welcome our guest today.. differently objectified girl! <applause>
I’m sure you recognise the main gist of that, even if not the last sentence. It’s a story we hear over and over. A girl grows up feeling worthless because she doesn’t fit into a narrow definition of beauty, life is hard, she hates herself, then one day she (or others) redefine beauty to include her body type. And now she’s happy and confident, and an inspiration to all other women.
Or is she?
Read more All Bodies are Beautiful by @MurderofGoths
What is the typical fat wear in a public swim area? Especially for women? Long T-shirt over the swim suit to spare beach going eyes, a swim dress with a dragging sloppy hem…. Yards and yards of spandexy fabric in dark matronly colors and patterns to hide the lumps…. This summer these options were unacceptable.
I’m a 24 year old fat woman with curves for weeks and my bathing suit options have been so fucking frustrating! Ive wanted to feel sexy and like a Baywatch Boo coming out of the water …..but I’ve been terrified of public swim areas after a picture was taken of me without my consent at a lake. I felt ridiculed and shamed for wanting a fun Saturday with friends. Id been wearing a one piece without a swim skirt or cover up and that was revolutionary for me at the time. I was discouraged… But i saw Gabi Freshs blog and her fatkini and i knew i had to risk everything to celebrate my voluptuousness. I also realized that the people who don’t like seeing fat bodies do not have the right to run public spaces by creating a hostile social setting.
I’m loving the size acceptance approach and it’s new catch phrase is : how do you get a beach body? You take your body to the beach. And i did…. I hope other fat gals do too! It shouldn’t be revolutionary to wear what you want to the beach/pool…. But it is…but the more of us that do… The less revolutionary it will be and that’s the point.
We aren’t promoting anything but self love and advocating for everyone’s right to access public space without fear! Buy or make a swimsuit that makes you feel like a bombshell and leave the T-shirt at home!
Fat Fem Pin Up – I am a fat activist, child rights advocate, womanist/feminist, poet with an affinity for selfies. I have a bachelor’s degree in social work and I work for a children protection agency. I plan to obtain a masters before I become a mother. I’m single but quite taken by good books, fancy living and chicken wings. @FatFemPinUp
I’ve written before about how important the term “plus size” is, and why dropping it isn’t actually helpful. In fact I last wrote about it March 2015, it was one of the first posts I wrote on a plus size activism theme, and it was specifically about the #DropThePlus campaign by Ajay Rochester and plus size model Stefania Ferrario. I didn’t just write about it once either, I revisited it again to talk about the Diet Industry, and again to talk about it in relation to eating disorders, and again to refute some bizarre ideas being thrown around about those of us who want to keep the plus.
Obviously you are more than welcome to read back through all of those, but as this conversation keeps coming back up I wanted to try and draw together some of the biggest issues as I see them in to one post.
Let’s start with who is saying it.
I have noticed there is a consistency to who wants to lose the label of “plus size”.
Read more “Curvy sexylicious” vs Plus Size
If anyone reads this blog …it’s going to cause a little upset….I predict.
I’m tired of the two communities that talk about fatness the most…and the EXTREMES that they go to in order to protect their “safe” spaces or their status quos. Those communities are the fat shamers vs. the extreme size acceptance/HAES believers.
Read more Everybody’s Talkin’ Bout FAT FOLK- Fat Shame Vs. SA/HAES by @FatFemPinUp
As a fat woman who will never be thin, a fat woman with no desire to be thin, I often come across people who hate me for nothing but my size. To be a fat woman in America means to be invisible in many ways because of the social construction of beauty. When you carry extra weight on your body people expect you to make yourself scarce, they expect you to be humble at all times and in a constant state of apology for the way you look; and when you aren’t you are subject to ridicule and shame. And when you are, you get taken advantage of and are STILL subject to ridicule and shame. Lose-Lose, in a lot of ways. I, like many other women have learned that a woman is judged first by her desirability in this society and that desirability is measured by how close that woman comes to the ideal norm. Thinness, along with alot of other traits both physical & personality wise, is one of the things used to measure desirability or beauty. Some women are born automatically missing this mark (women of color for instance) and some women develop into missing that mark (full figured women). However you arrive outside of this beauty ideal, the consequences are upsetting and wreak havoc on a woman’s perception of herself which in turn can set her up for all manner of ill use and shaming by other people. So what happens when a woman who is outside of this norm, or even when a woman matches this norm PERFECTLY, comes to love herself? It is a beautiful thing to defy the world you live in by daring to love yourself the way you are but for alot of people, loving yourself comes with hating someone else. This is where that negative dichotomy comes into play. This is what I mean: I have known aloooot of fat women who have struggled with the way that they look and the only way they could get on top of their poor self image was to make what they couldnt be, thin, a negative thing. So one question for today’s blog is, why does thin have to be ugly for fat to be beautiful?
Read more The Thin Vs. Fat Negative Dichotomy by @FatFemPinUp
“I don’t usually buy magazines”. Déjà vu. I’ve started a blog with those words before. But, to be pedantic, I didn’t buy this one. It was free, so I picked it up.
Well, why not? A magazine called ‘Health & beauty’ sounds lovely, doesn’t it?
I want to be healthy! I want to be beautiful! It’s great to be healthy and beautiful. Only, well, the thing is, I didn’t realise that they meant you have to pick one. Sure, the magazine is called Health and Beauty, but you didn’t think you could have both, did you? Boots, the brand behind the magazine, clearly doesn’t think so.
We’re off to a great start with the front cover. The model hasn’t even been re-touched, which is refreshing.
Then again, as they say, ‘She’s totally gorgeous!’
You, on the other hand. Oh dear. You need: a light, mousse-like base; an illuminating concealer; to rock a ‘wob’ (don’t ask); filler renew hyaluronic replumping serum (I’m not joking); and to lose the ‘bacne’, to name just a few of the thousands of unnecessary beauty treatments covered in this brochure.
In case I haven’t got around to making my point: you’re ugly and require a multitude of products. She’s totally gorgeous and, don’t forget, totally untouched.
Self-confidence down a couple of notches? Excellent, let’s move on from that. Woah, woah, woah. No, I think we need to make you feel a bit worse about yourself first, before we move on. Don’t have a perfect body? ‘Can’t bear the sight of’ yourself? Well then you deserve to feel terrible about yourself. Go on, beat yourself up about it.
Health & Beauty? Certainly not mental or spiritual health they’re talking about.
But, wait! Were you feeling bad about yourself? That’s MAD! To quote: ‘We say: enough with beating yourself up!’ ‘Sadly’, not all women love their bodies. How odd.
It’s just incomprehensible, isn’t it? Why on earth would you be beating yourself up about letting your healthy eating habits slip? It wouldn’t be anything to do with that image on your fridge would it?
Or maybe it’s something to do with an inanimate piece of paper calling you POT BELLY.
Maybe. Who knows? Certainly not me.
Living the Dream: I write under the name ‘The Writing Half’ on feminist issues, from campaigns like No More Page 3, to topical events, to things I’m affected by personally as a feminist. Previously my blog covered a variety of topics, but I’m now focusing just on feminist subjects. Twitter @thewritinghalf