As part of my summer of freedom, I have decided to try to read as many books as I possibly can, probably a book a week until September. I have a list started that includes my favorite authors (Paul Auster and Margaret Atwood), works of feminism, works about fat acceptance/liberation and maybe a few sex books, classics and new authors to consider. I'm really looking forward to reading some of the literature about Fat Acceptance, since so far, all of my knowledge comes from blogs.
In terms of FA, I decided to start with a book called Shadow on a Tightrope. I chose the book because it included both factual information and stories of fat women, so it seemed like a good way to ease myself into more heady, intellectual books. As it turns out, it was a great place to start because it seems that it may the first Fat Liberation book published, or it is often where people start reading.
The book is organized into several different parts which cover: Exposing fat myths, memories of fat women, the struggle to exercise or participate in sports because of ridicule, living with embarrassment and isolation, medical crimes, and fat women as survivors. I thought it was well organized because it built some factual basis in the first chapter and then showed the grave injustices that fat women face and go more for the emotional from there, and then bring it back to more intellectual prose by talking about politics towards the end.
It was a very intense read for me, especially because it is an outdated book (1983). I know that seems counter-intuitive, but I guess I had just imagined that FA was relatively new and that was the reason why I had just discovered it recently. To find out that people have known about the dangers of diets since the 80's and maybe earlier and still all we see on TV is Jenny Craig ads and Michelle Obama's bullying is horrifying.
It was also really grueling to read about the many accounts of intestinal bypass, which for those who don't know, was done before gastric bypass and involved removing most of the intestine so that food passed through people without it ever being digested. To read about what so many women went through, and what was considered to be "normal" healing from the procedure-- painful diarrhea, hair lost, pain, vomiting, nutritional deficiencies, infection, fever-- not to mention the complications which often arose, was staggering. The worst part was that these women were healthy to begin with (it was often a requirement for the surgery) and they were extremely unhealthy and many died, after. I can't think of more obvious proof that thin and health are not the same thing!
In terms of sexuality, I thought it was interesting to note that most of the women in the book identified themselves as lesbians. I suppose that it makes sense because these particular Fat Lib people had come from a feminism perspective and many feminists at that time were lesbians. I was a little put out by it, to be honest, because I hate the idea that you can't be attracted to men and be a feminist at the same time. However, it was also very interesting to hear of women who considered themselves lesbian feminists and then followed men's conventional beauty standards and how upset this contradiction made fat lesbians. People can learn to be so critical about everything, expect fat hate for some reason. Why this is was explored in the book but I think there is lots of room for more studies and theories about this contradiction.
There was one essay about fat sexuality, and the author identified that she was attracted to males. The essay was painful to read. It demonstrates how interconnected body image is with other aspects of sexuality and shows first-hand how dangerous fat-hate can be to all other aspects of a person's life. The things that fat women are expected to sacrifice for sex or a relationship are mind-boggling once you really start to think about it. There are always conditions that must be followed, or else you will wind-up alone. You must learn to be grateful for any kind of attention, because you are not deserving. Furthermore, fat women are pushed into the Eve/Mary dichotomy perhaps even more than women in general. We are either supersexual and willing to sleep with anyone or we are asexual, jolly, fat women who provide comic relief and little else.
Overall, the book was a great read and one I would definitely recommend for people new to Fat Acceptance or for those who would like to know more about the history of Fat Acceptance. We need to educate people about this, it has been nearly 30 years since this book was written and almost no one knows about the truths it contains. We need to end the suffering!
~Mrs. Sprat
No comments:
Post a Comment