Short post this week and next, as I'm about to go on vacation, but I wanted to share this awesome article.
No one is free while others are oppressed -- Unknown.
Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves. ~Abraham Lincoln
I can across the first quote when I was in a feminist group in college. At the time for me, it meant women's rights and freedoms, but now it expands to even more, I don't feel happy or free while people get treated like second class citizens.
Marilyn Wann has a great article in the San Francisco Weekly about intersectionality which is about people who come from different social oppessed groups. (i.e. female and African-American) and how instead of having separate causes, we have one big fat one.
Instead of making long lists of outsider groups who deserve long-overdue welcome and then debating who's deserving and who isn't, what if we were all welcome all the time?
I'm all with Marilyn on this one. Oppression is oppression, even if some have it worse than others.
Sometimes I think society at large doesn't consider fat prejudice oppression. After all weight is fluid, it changed artificially or through illness. If they just lose weight it will no longer be a problem. But this has nothing to do with whether weight loss works or not (for the most part, it does not work in the long run) but it has to do with the right of a person to not be discriminated against because they go against the "norm." It's not fair that a fat person goes to the doctor, job interview, applies for health insurance, life insurance, etc and they are immediately labelled unhealthy and lazy. If you removes rights from a person, for being who they are, then you are denying their freedom.
Everyone needs to join one big parade to accept that people are different and that should be valued not shunned.
Goood post!!!
Posted by: Scary Miss Cherry | July 12, 2011 at 12:43 AM
A-freaking-men!
Posted by: Twistie | July 12, 2011 at 03:38 PM
"it has to do with the right of a person to not be discriminated against because they go against the 'norm.'"
I like that formulation a lot. When some bodies are normalized by society, and on the other hand, some bodies are "abnormalized," that treats human variation as if it's pathological, which is just absurd to me.
Posted by: RachelB | July 12, 2011 at 04:45 PM
I agree as a fat guy I am tired of having my lifw experiences prejudged by the story-lines of TV shows like "The King of Queens" or the lives of men who are little more than chubby
Posted by: William | July 17, 2011 at 11:31 AM
AMEN!
I can't stand the way people justify discrimination by saying the person should simply change if they don't like being treated badly. If a person could change their race would that make racism ok? Of course not!!!
Personally, I find skinny people very unattractive. Bones and skin. YUCK. I don't really like how very muscular people look either, like someone got carried away with a bicycle pump. Does that make me treat said people badly? ABSOLUTELY NOT.
Wanting everyone in the world to be what you find attractive is like killing all the orchids in the world just because you like roses. RIDICULOUS.
I have a dream that one day all people will be judged by the content of their character and NOT by their containers.
Posted by: Mari | August 05, 2011 at 09:33 PM
Thank you for this blog. This recently happened to me for a job interview for a receptionist. I was contacted over the phone and I thought I had this job. It seemed like I was the perfect candidate! When I got there I saw my interviewee was a very petite and slender woman--90 pounds soaking wet. I wasn't worried, though, because I knew I would ace the interview with my personality.
I never got the chance. I was asked maybe 2 or 3 questions, and was shuffled out in less than 3 minutes of leaving my car! The interview was literally 3 minutes long. I thought about it all day and night and could not come up with a logical explanation.
But I will not give up! Perhaps this is a blessing in disguise. Maybe I'll snag a good job that offers even more money! Or maybe not. But we'll see! I mean, I live in the South, and it's not like fat people are a rarity down here, LOL.
Thanks for posting.
Posted by: Rita Sue | August 12, 2011 at 03:05 PM