#thin privilege denial

[thisisthinprivilege]

"I don’t discriminate against “fat” people- I discriminate against those that are too big to live life..."

I would like to acknowledge my privilege as a 5’0 100 lb white female. I’m fairly attractive, with a personal-trainer boyfriend and many friends. I would just like to see my story shared as well. I am perfectly happy with my thin privilege. I worked hard for my body to look like the way it is. Sure, maybe my genetics had to do with it- except for the fact that my parents and grandparents are fairly overweight. But you see, I don’t discriminate against “fat” people- I discriminate against those that are too big to live life to the fullest and refuse to accept facts. I’ve been body-shamed for being too fat, and I’ve been body-shamed for being too skinny by two different groups. I’m not a muscley girl, I’m a girl with a bit of fat on my hips that likes to eat too much while watching Mark Wahlberg movies. I may fit into a petite XS or size 2, but that doesn’t make me any better than those that don’t. My number does not define me and I am carpe’ing every diem in sight without letting size even cross my mind. I’m advocating for the body acceptance of all healthy girls, skinny and large. And if you refuse to post this, I guess I know which side you are on. 

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Mod response:

Healthist thin privilege denial, thou art this post. 

Newsflash: I worked hard for my body, too. I continue to, day by day. I went from having severe health problems and a lower quality of life due to “maintaining” a thinness that was unnatural for me, to the healthiest I’ve ever been (after gaining weight I no longer have to see a cardiologist. Having a cardiologist at 17 years old is not fun. It’s not fun at any age, but that young, considering the long-term damage you can do to your heart, is a bad idea). 

This might seem world-shaking to you, but I’m going to get real: no one cares an iota of a fuck about how special you think your thin body makes you. No one cares about the bit of fat on your hips. Or what size you fit into on any given day. Or how you think some fatties aren’t worth your abuse but others deserve it. These are things you obsess about. They live in your head. They take up your time and energy and no one else’s. If you want to pretend they make you special, here’s some news: they don’t. No one’s pants size ever made them special. No one’s opinions on other peoples’ appearances every made them special. At best you can become some chattering empty (size XS!) suit that amuses other chattering empty suits. That’s the level of your contribution to the betterment of yourself and society; literally, a contribution of size zero.

You know what does make a difference to your growth as a human?

Shutting the fuck up and listening once in a while. Especially to people who aren’t like you. Especially when the shallow, obsessive, image-related thoughts get too frequent and too loud. Read blogs and books about things with which you’re not familiar. Different cultures. Different points in history. Or, if you don’t like reading, write. Draw. Try to grow something. Take a walk down a different road. Stay quiet when you would have spoken. Speak when you would have stayed quiet. Look for the vibrant colors in ordinary objects. Try to find the moon in a daylit sky. All of these things will grow you better than the circular, self-reinforcing shallow and bigoted thoughts you currently hold about yourself and other people. 

And you know what else? You really don’t deserve the advice I’m giving to you right now. You don’t deserve my time. So why am I giving it? Because there’s a strong echo of what you’re saying in the things I used to say. When I was more ignorant. When I was sicker. When I was less aware. And who knows. Maybe (if you’ve actually read to this point) you are now a little less ignorant. And even if you’re still hateful and you jab back with some response full of indignant hurt feelings, someday when some fat person you like or love is telling you about their life, you’ll remember this, and you won’t shut them down or alienate them for the crime of being too fat for your liking, or of having difficulties you can’t share, or problems that you will never experience. 

Finally, read a couple of our FAQ entries. If you read this post with an open mind and the FAQ with an open mind and still have questions, we may answer them. Sadly, however, if you had an open mind I doubt you would have written such a thoughtless, shallow, bigoted post in the first place.

"But what about health?"

"But thin people get shamed, too."

"But saying that you hate obesity isn’t the same as saying you hate fat people."

"Shouldn’t you just tell everyone that they’re beautiful?"

"But isn’t being fit/eating right a good thing?"

-ATL

[thisisthinprivilege]

I'm not sure how to respond to this so I thought I'd toss it your way

Mod response:

Yeah, so, I feel like this needs to be one large compendium faq post because I've responded to the "fat oppression isn't real oppression" thing like a hundred billion times.

1. You don't have to be systematically "picked off by the government" to be oppressed. Democratic governments in particular are very shifty about who they're going after, and they rely more on ginning up internal anger against groups than saying outright, "Yeah, these people? Gotta go." Except, of course, that there's a government-declared social "War on Obesity," especially "childhood obesity." So much for the theory that the government isn't going after fat people, eh?

That's not to say, of course, that there isn't fouler government-approved shit going on against other groups. I mean, in the US for instance there's a fucking war on brown people that is not stated as such in any document but it's happening, there's a war on people who aren't Christian (in particular against Muslims) that isn't stated anywhere as such but is happening, there's a war against people who don't believe this grand edifice of democracy is so grand and is rather the last in a long line of thieves stealing property and pillaging lives that isn't stated as such but is happening. Many of these wars are internal and supported by sentiments in various overlapping ideological groups. Most USians who read this will agree with at least one of the above-listed "wars."

2. So it's okay that fat people are paid less for the same work? It's okay that fat people's adoption, fertility, and medical treatment options are being curtailed, sometimes by direct instruction by some centralized 'democratic' government? How easy it is to own a home when you're not being paid the same for the same work? Not as fucking easy as someone who's being paid the going wage. There isn't outright prevention stated anywhere, as such. And there isn't the kind of bigotry in housing that there is against PoC, for instance.

Bigotries aren't always expressed exactly the same, even though groups who are oppressed often find themselves sharing overlapping negative perceived qualities (and note that I don't believe the following are necessarily bad qualities or that oppressed groups express them en masse, but they are perceived to be), like "laziness," "bad hygiene," some kind of "diseased" status (very applicable to fat people in this case, but not something attributed to every oppressed group), "contagious," "unintelligent," "physically or mentally damaged," "a drain on society." 

There isn't a "bigotry formula." History and the context in which the oppression arose is important in determining the expression and severity of bigotry. Fat bigotry, for instance, is a relatively new phenomenon, which started to really get going in the 20th century. 

3. The asker is also confusing a directly waged oppression with the practical effects of an indirectly waged oppression. There isn't some poster taped up in every post office called "How to Oppress Fat People."

Yet, fat people are still dying because they don't have equal access to quality health care.

Fat people are still being increasingly denied the right to parent, either to become parents or to keep the children they have.

Fat people are being experimented on by the medical industry in the form of diet pills that don't work and have side effects much worse than their supposed benefits, and gastric bypass surgery whose long-term effects have NOT been honestly studied, with both a paucity of actual long-term studies, and with the incredible failures and dangers of weight loss surgery being swept under the rug or outright blamed on the patient.

Fat people have a difficult time traveling, whether it be walking around unharassed, riding public transportation, or flying.

It's absurd that fat people have to swallow being thrown off a plane because the policy-maker was simply a "bitch" and not because we live in a society where fat discrimination is not shamed and boycotted in a way that would convince companies it's bad business to fat shame. Other private companies take advantage of fat discrimination in the same exact way, and don't have any consequences because this society not only doesn't punish fat discrimination, it often rewards it.

4. Clearly, the reason the asker believes that there is no such thing as fat oppression is because they are so used to fat oppression that they think it's normal.

And THAT is why I started This is Thin Privilege. Because it's one thing to talk about fat discrimination. It's another thing to frame fat discrimination in a way that makes people question what they think is normal. Many of the submissions we get are normalized bigotries that fat people have to put up with every day, that thin people do NOT have to put up with in the same sense. By comparing the fat and thin experience we're saying "What is happening to fat people is not normal, because thin people on average do not have to put up with this shit." 

The reason you "don't hear about thin privilege anywhere except tumblr" is because fat oppression is so normalized that most people don't just accept that bad things happen to fat people, they think bad things should happen to fat people.

And that's all I'm going to say about this ask/response. It's like the thin-privilege-denial manifesto.

-ArteToLife