how do we define oppression? even more complicated, how do we define the boundaries of oppression and privilege? are there boundaries? and how do we do this without playing the Oppression Olympics? i have no idea, but i've been thinking about this a lot, specifically how it relates to experiences of fat phobia and sizeism. let me tell you a story:
every year i go into a second-year university community psychology class and give a lecture on power, oppression, and privilege (next month i'm doing this lecture in a first-year pharmacy program core course. holy crap! nerves!). in the first slide, i display a messy image of all sorts of forms of oppression/privilege. two forms of oppression that are not in the students' textbook are "sizeism" and "cissexism", so when i display this image and ask if there are any terms the students are unfamiliar with, inevitable, someone points out these two terms. i then give a description of what these terms mean, with examples of each. next, i ask students to take a few minutes, think about how privilege and oppression play out in their lives, share with a neighbour (to the extent that they feel safe and comfortable sharing), then we come back to a larger class discussion. every time i give this lecture, when i ask students to share what they discussed with their classmates, a petite woman puts up her hand and says "i experience sizeism because i am short and people
always pat me on the head and it's really annoying". huh. i NEVER know how to respond to this.
now, there are many things happening all at the same time here. i imagine this woman's experience would be different if she were a man (almost always, they comment that it is their boyfriend/brother/male friends who pat them on the head). i usually respnd to this and get students to start thinking about intersectionality, which i discuss later in the lecture. BUT - is this an experience of sizeism? does sizeism include height diversity?
similarly, the other day i posted on facebook something about shopping as a fat person, and a vert petite acquaintance from my past commented about how small her feet are and how hard it is to find shoes. now, i GET this. i can only imagine that it is really frustrating to have size 5 or 6 feet and never be able to find shoes (my feet are size 9, so i don't have this experience). but is it the same as being fat and having a choice of three stores that carry your size? when the average size for women is about 14/16 in north america (that's from memory - i could be slightly off on that), why do stores carry sizes 0 - 12? this is a systemic problem - even the AVERAGE size woman can't shop in some stores, and anyone even *slightly* above average has very few shops to chose from (note: i am a 2x/size 18 and so this is my experience).
now, let's go back to the issue of inclusion. is this short student experiencing sizeism? in my opinion, no. she is not. maybe this is just me being protective of something i experience every damn day, but a slim, short woman does not have the experience of not fitting into seats, being too terrified to fly in case she has to buy two seats, not being able to get clothes that fit and make her feel comfortable, being told by health "professionals" and the media ALL.THE.TIME. that she is going to die an early and painful, self-inflicted death because of her choices, because she is lazy and eats too much. yes, her "friends" who pat her on the head are patronizing douchebags and need to be told that. i would argue that she is experiencing some negative gender-related stereotypes ("oh, you little, dainty woman, you aren't smart enough to understand what we're talking about" *pat, pat, pat*).
in that moment, when this student shares her experiences, i don't correct her. i don't give my opinion about this definition of sizeism. i don't want to invalidate someone's experiences, but at the same time, i have just introduced this group of (about 120) students to this concept moments before, so is it my responsibility to make sure they *get* it? am i an "expert" because i am knowledgeable about this stuff? because i read about it? because i'm fat? i don't know. i haven't come across this discussion before, but it really interests me. i WANT to be able to say "actually, when i say 'sizeism', i mean THIS, not THAT". i want them to understand. i want them to understand that when they look in the mirror and think or say "ugh, i am so FAT", not only are they alienating their fat friends (or just passersby), but they are also experiencing the societal pressure to be thin and reject (abhor, even) fat. THAT'S the core of this. height, in this context, although not TOTALLY irrelevant, is not the core factor. and i don't want the point of this to be lost on them with an off-topic example. i want these students to be allies, not just in terms of fat acceptance, but in other ways, too. i just don't know how to do that without alienating them.
