whenever someone tries to make you feel bad about being fat, acting like being fat is some unnatural modern corruption of our Naturally Thin Ideal Human State, just remember your neolithic ancestor çatalhöyük skeleton 2058, a possibly disabled "obese" woman who carried heavy loads and stayed active till she died OVER FIFTY!!!! which was a good long life for the time!
would skeleton 2058 want you to waste your life and ruin your health chasing thinness??? NO!!!!!!!!!! she wants you vaccinated and active and eating a glorious amount of delicious food in your home with your loved ones. and also collecting auroch skulls
[ID: text: "In conclusion, 2058 was a woman over fifty, obese, who had been in the habit of carrying heavy loads slung over her shoulder. She had sustained an injury to her right foot at some time and possibly limped slightly. This disuse may have brought on the osteoporosis of the calcaneus. The degenerative changes in the neck vertebrae may be the result of neck strain during carrying; otherwise there are virtually no degenerative changes to any of the joints and she remained mobile to the end of her days." /end ID]
A thing I find extra exciting about this is that çatalhöyük also shattered the assumption that the abundant figurines of fat women in ancient archeological sites all show pregnant women and were items meant to worship or stimulate fertility. An item recovered at çatalhöyük looks like this:
That's not what pregnancy looks like. That is what being fat looks like. That is a lovingly crafted, accurate depiction of the way gravity pulls on the fat body, which would be hard to make without seeing a fat person. Screw 'mother goddess figurines', that is just a fat person.
Which calls into question the assumption made about other 'mother goddess' statues. Are they all depictions of pregnancy? or did archeologists just assume that pregnancy would be what people valued enough to depict? People were always fat. Ancient people valued their fat friends and/or themselves enough to depict fat people. Move over fatphobic 'this statue must be pregnant' assumptions.
This is actually described in literature as the "Three B's" (breasts, belly, buttocks) & it's generally accepted now that, at least at çatalhöyük, the primary focus of this sort of art was to depict 1. fatness, often associated with 2. old age (as we know that age was far more socially relevant as a category than gender). most figurines found at the site aren't anthropomorphic (most are of animals), and many of those that are can't be easily gendered. in fact there's really not a lot of depictions of the vulva at çatalhöyük either. it makes FAR more sense as a representation of idealized fatness than idealized pregnancy, & possibly because fatness is also a trait that brings together people across gender. in that figurine, the belly fat obscures the genital area; seeing the genitals isn't nearly as important as seeing the curve and the weight of a fat body. modern work on çatalhöyük has been much moved away from the outdated "mother goddess" framework and into something much richer, accurate, and frankly queerer than James "Got Banned From Turkey For Antiquities Smuggling and Forgery" Mellaart could've ever dreamed (like, for example, there are a number of figurines that seem to be "visual puns"; they look like penises one way, and breasts/buttocks another way!)
another interesting wrinkle of this i actually brought up in this post, an interesting example of a figurine that could possibly be depicting a pregnant person—on the front. the back half depicts an anatomical skeletal spine, and the article uses this to theorize about pregnancy at çatalhöyük being a spiritually potent liminal space where both death and life were significant and meaningful outcomes, rather than birth being seen as purely generative. its also another example of the attention to detail taken by these artists:
some quotes below the cut for anyone interested on more about this
Figurines, plastered bucrania, and animal remains, as well as plastered skulls all underwrite the tension between fleshed and skeletal bodies, which are mediated by practices such as plastering bucrania, human skulls, and figurine production. An evocative example of this tension is apparent in a headless figurine that depicts an articulated skeleton on the back and a corpulent female with large breasts and stomach on the front. This figurine can be interpreted as representing that tension between flesh and bone and their attendant, complex associations with life, survival, and vitality, and emphasizing that these figural bodies are indeed made, modified, and unmade. Figurine makers sought to reconstitute the living body through plastering and painting, thus improving upon the bony scaffolding of bodies after death. This view is further bolstered by evidence for the use of red paint, particularly with human skulls and their circulation after death. Red paint was also noted on the headless figurine described above.
Taken together, these practices may be the testament to a material concern for co-producing and rendering permanent ancestors by again improving upon the frailties of flesh. Flesh may serve as a material sign of longevity, good health, food security, sedentary lifestyles, and the ability to give. The explicit roundness of numerous figurines may have tangibly rendered an ideal visual metaphor for abundance and accumulation. Given the particular character of the representational and figural data from Çatalhöyük, we suggest that examination of the anthropomorphic figurines provides another avenue to explore the cultural significance of corporeality. Prior analysis of a subset of 455 figurines, specifically the anthropomorphic examples and their attendant bodily characteristics, has revealed how Neolithic people themselves marked their own preoccupations with bodily form. Nakamura and Meskell argue that there was a strong tendency for delineating and exaggerating the buttock and stomach regions in the female and non-gendered figurines. The emphasis of the buttocks and stomachs was typically at the expense of other bodily characteristics such as limbs and sometimes even breasts. While breasts were the trait most commonly depicted (since both males and females have them), the stomach and buttocks received the most exaggeration.
This phenomenon was characterized by Nakamura & Meskell (2009) as the Three B’s: breasts, buttocks, and bellies. These are obviously the fleshiest part of the body, where excess energy from the diet accumulates as fat and where the body can manifest distinctive visual signs of ageing or maturity. The prominence of such features may refer to fertility or abundance, but can also indicate longevity and survival. Voigt (2007) discussed this issue with seventy-six clay and stone figurines from level VI at Hacılar noting the predilection for drooping stomachs and accentuated buttocks. Hacılar dates to the upper end of the Neolithic sequence at Çatalhöyük, and many of our examples of sagging and protruding derive from the latest levels at Çatalhöyük. Voigt argues that these robust evocations represent bodies worn by work and childbirth, and as such, these were ordinary women that served as models for adult roles within the society. Given the high number of figurines representing the aged and ageing, we suggest that the role of older individuals in the Çatalhöyük community may have been particularly significant.
Assembling Çatalhöyük, edited by Ian Hodder and Arkadiusz Marciniak
The most common traits depicted on anthropomorphic figurines were the breasts (67% of figurines with traits), buttocks (56%), and bellies (40%). All three traits cooccurred at least once with all of the other anthropomorphic traits except for beards. While breasts were the trait most commonly depicted, the stomach and buttocks received the most emphasis or exaggeration. We have noted previously that there was a strong tendency for exaggerating the buttock and stomach regions seen in increasing numbers on female and nongendered figurines. This attention to the buttocks and stomachs, to their careful delineation or pronouncement, was typically at the expense of other bodily characteristics such as limbs and sometimes breasts. Notably, a few abbreviated-human crossover examples also sported exaggerated buttocks and breasts, suggesting that the two “traditions” of exaggeration and abbreviation were not mutually exclusive nor strictly divorced.
The combined emphasis on breasts, buttocks, and stomachs has prompted many to interpret these figurines as pregnant or fertile women. However, as we have argued previously, many of these features were depicted in such a way that is not suggestive of fertility, but of maturity. Furthermore, while breasts and stomachs are secondary reproductive traits (genitalia being primary), buttocks are not. The most common paring of traits was bellies with buttocks (21), breasts with buttocks (20), and breasts with bellies (19), while all three occurred together a total of 17 times. Many cultures, including contemporary ones like our own, place enormous emphasis on the buttocks, bellies, and breasts in social, sexual, and esthetic terms; the depiction of these features, therefore, does not necessarily signify reproduction or fertility. Notably, buttocks are the second most common trait on anthropomorphic figurines after breasts, while bellies receive slightly less attention.
At Çatalhöyük, we have found only two figurines with pubic triangles and eight phallomorphs. It is also notable that across virtually all of the representational media, there is a seeming aversion to depicting children, adolescents, mothers with babies, and childbirth. The representational material in total thus suggests a severely curtailed presentation of the life cycle. As in other cultures, some aspects of the cycle may invite prohibition since they represent dangerous or liminal life experiences. For a more potent symbol of fertility/virility, one might turn to the small number of purely phallic examples. However, these are isolated examples of an idiosyncratic type rather than whole bodies, and they appear to be another clear example of the desire for abbreviation, this time of the male body.
Articulate Bodies: Forms and Figures at Çatalhöyük by Carolyn Nakamura & Lynn Meskell
Rethinking the Çatalhöyük house, then, requires rethinking the Neolithic body with the help of authors such as Jasbir Puar, who writes of the body as assemblage (2007); Rosi Braidotti (2002), or Marilyn Strathern (1988), whose anthropological theory of the body has come closest to supplanting Douglas’s. On the basis of research in twentieth-century Papua New Guinea, Strathern proposes a non-Western concept of the person as “dividual” rather than individual: an entity at once more partial and more expansive than the modernist monad, and constituted through multiple heterogeneous incorporations rather than existing as a unitary essence.
This notion can help us make sense of the sex of the Çatalhöyük body, especially if we concentrate on its parts. Consider the penis. Meskell identifi ed a number of the ceramic and stone figurines at Çatalhöyük as “phallic” – but she notes that these small objects are surprisingly ambiguous. Some are simultaneously male and female: when rotated, a penis and testicles become breasts or buttocks. This visual punning suggests an attitude that emphasizes the mutability, not the fixity, of bodily sex. The little penises are usually pierced for wearing; they are detached body parts that can be attached to any kind of body, male or female, adult or child. Detachability of body parts and substances is key to Strathern’s theory, since it indicates a body that is partible rather than unitary. The detachable penis, like the bucrania, does not inevitably serve as a metonym for a whole gendered person, for masculinity as an abstraction, or for “phallic” power. Instead, elements of maleness and femaleness may be intrinsically partible, inhering in the products of men’s and women’s labor, as well as in manufactured body parts.
"The Hau of the House" by Mary J. Weismantel in Religion at Work in a Neolithic Society edited by Ian Hodder
goodnight hairy trans women. goodnight fat trans women. goodnight trans women with deep voices. goodnight trans women with broad shoulders. goodnight tall trans women. i love y'all.
its so hard to take fatphobes seriously when you realize they're living in a fullfledged delusion. Like you could look at a thin person and i buying our groceries one after the other and see them buying nothing but carbs and snacks and soda and frozen processed foods and me buying nothing but locally sourced meats and whole vegetables and water and maintain that i must live a less healthy lifestyle bc of my weight. You can watch me and a thin person walk up the same hill and see them losing their breath and needing to take breaks and see me make it to the top without breaking a sweat and maintain that i must live a less healthy lifestyle bc of my weight. You can watch a thin person eat an entire bucket of fried chicken in one sitting and have nothing to say and then see a fat person eat nothing but salads for a week and tell them "hey you know salad isn't as healthy as you think it is i bet that dressing is full of fats and croutons are just carbs i bet that salad is mostly croutons and disgusting fatty dressing this is why you aren't losing weight". You have to completely divorce yourself from reality to maintain your worldview and its pathetic. 99% of the thin people i know dont go to a gym regularly and dont worry about eating healthily at all. Im simply not going to live in your fantasy world where thin people are allowed to be thin because of their genetics but fat people can never ever be fat because of their genetics and every choice they make is a moral failing.
No matter how little notes something i post about fat liberation gets some volatile fatphobe always manages to find it and say the stupidest least science informed bullshit ive ever heard in my life, its a true show of dedication from them even i don't think about fat people this much
Reminder btw that “you’re not fat”, “you’re so huggable!”, and “you’re so brave for wearing that” are not the compliments you think they are!! Please be normal about fat people!!
Thin people are absolutely relentless with this. "But I have to TELL them!" "I can't just not SAY something!" "We can't just PRETEND it's fine to be fat!"
They really seem to think the main reason people are fat is because we're simply drowning in approval and no one has been brave enough to inform us that it's better to not be fat, actually
I genuinely think it's related to what I observe about singleness, virginity, and ace/aro topics: people's entire worldviews are threatened by fat liberation. And having your worldview challenged is scary... especially because so many people have put so, so much personal effort into Not Being Fat, so much self-hate into gaining weight, so much self-denial of food they like and forcing themselves into activities they hate, to avoid being fat.
And fat liberation says "It's okay to be fat!" and fat people say "I'm happy being fat and I don't try to become skinny!"
And it scares people that that is an option. It scares people to think that they have sunk so much time, so much effort, so much misery into avoiding being fat. And this person in front of them is just... not even trying. Rejecting the game. Saying You Don't Have To Do That.
If they accept that they didn't have to do that... then they made themselves so unhappy, for so long, for no reason.
They want their effort, their unhappiness, to have been worth it. To have meant something.
So they have to believe that being fat is wrong, bad, gross, a moral failing, and the only reason anyone would be happy that way is if they just don't know better. Because the other option is to realize and admit that they suffered unnecessarily for years and it meant nothing at all.
So sick of thinness everywhere all the timeeee so sick of nothing but hairless women on tv it’s so boring I’m BORED. If you’re thin you have to at LEAST have hairy armpits.