There are many many things I want to react to. Rebecca Luella Miller’s posts about feminism in the church. Aunt B.’s post about some guy opining about Chris Christie being too fat to be president.
None of the reactions I have to these things are something I can do right now without stroking out. And I am honestly not rage-free enough to write anything else.
Oh, I should clarify. I’m not all rage-y at Rebecca’s posts. I’ m rage-y at the Chris Christie thing in a way that defies description. That rage is preventing a nuanced approach to Rebecca’s writings.
But man. I am rage-y.
I was already half rage-y over Melissa McCarthy’s portrayal of “the fat bridesmaid” in Bridesmaids. Did you know fat women have weird food-related sex? That fat women are butch and greedy and coarse?
And now I find out that a person who comes from several high-risk health populations (male, African-American) has decided that fat people are gross, lazy, unhealthy and need to just eat a salad and take a walk. Because they aren’t good enough to do anything else but spend all their time focusing on what they eat. It’s like a sort of debtor’s prison. Anyway, this dude thinks that Chris Christie can’t be president. So I guess this country finally escaped the bigotry of racism only to embrace the bigotry of fatism.
And next time you read someone misquoting statistics to make a point about the evils of Obesity, just remember how often statistics were warped and misquoted to defend slavery and laws against interracial marriage. Ask yourself how this talk of the Obese being a drain on a society to which they obviously greatly contribute is any less offensive.
I get kind of reactionary about this subject too . . . but going the other direction. I’ve been mocked all my life for being skinny–called all sorts of names for being both weird and underweight (a nightmare combination for a girl). And the whole modern day fat pride is about as revolting to me as the reactionary gay pride (to interject a little something for your most recent post). It’s just silliness. And people are just basically stupid and mean. Fat people aren’t necessarily any lazier than skinny people. One of my best friends is excessively obese, and he isn’t lazy–just suffering in the opposite way others do to crap childhood diets (his genetic reaction to tater tots and hot dog gravy was to become fat–others to become skinny and undernourished). He has a broken metabolism. So do I. Both he and I work hard. Both of us are intelligent. I would vote for an overweight person if I believed in that person’s ideologies. BUT the whole pride a la “real women have curves” nonsense just makes me angry. Skinny women aren’t real, nowadays? Plus, it’s so defeatist. Bigotry goes any which way people want it to go because they have no discernment.