I am a very skinny person. I know that I am a skinny person because complete strangers will walk up to me and announce that I am, in fact, quite thin. Sometimes they think they’re being nice. I was with some friends walking through a Walmart parking lot. This woman shouts at me “Daaaamn Girl! You skinny! But you’re working it.” I have no idea what that means, but I’m pretty sure she was trying to tell me that my body is acceptable because of how I carry myself. Thanks anonymous lady.
But sometimes, people are just awful. I was 16, maybe 17, years old and working in a grocery store. I was on my lunch break, in the break room (weird, right?) and eating a gigantic cuban sub. This girl, Candace, comes in and sits down. She looks at me and says “Why are you so skinny. You must be anorexic.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement. I held up my sandwich that I had been consuming before her very stupid eyeballs. So, Candace TELLS ME that I, then, must be bulimic. I couldn’t say anything. I was so stunned that I physically could not speak. (And there may have been a sandwich in my face.) She spoke to me like she was entitled to pass judgment on me. Not just my weight. Me.
You may have seen or heard about a particularly hateful video on YouTube recently. There was a time when I would have agreed, at least a little, with that video. I have been told my entire life that my body is just wrong. Other people see it or hear it happen and do nothing, or worse, they join in. (Remember that “Real Women Have Curves” meme? I assure you, I am a real woman.) And it’s not just the tactless imbeciles that have decided that I’m fair game. The Oxygen Network once ran a promo that was just a pink screen with the words “Skinny girls are mean.” I don’t think it was even for anything, just spontaneous hate mongering.
So yeah, I might have been a little bitter and hateful myself. Except… that doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t make sense for me to turn around and fat shame someone (or lots of someones). That doesn’t punish the people that have been mean to me. It’s not justice. It’s just hate speech, targeting (mostly) people that have never done anything to me. What’s the point of insulting someone who is just like me? Someone who is minding their own business, just trying to get through the day?
Margaret Cho tweeted “Fat is not an insult. It’s a fact. Stop using fat as a slur.” She’s right. Fat doesn’t equal unhealthy or unattractive or spawn of satan. Yet, the word fat has been weaponized. We use “fat” to tell people they aren’t good enough. Your BMI is not an indicator of your intelligence, humor, industriousness or worth as a human being. Your body is none of my business.
Connieology 