i'm sure i've ranted about this here before, but here it comes again.
i hate body commentary. why? because it goes hand-in-hand with fat shaming and body policing. telling me i look good because you think i've lost weight DOES NOT FEEL GOOD and it never will. period. i'm not going to rehash the reasons for this or the assumptions implied here - i've done that in another post and am too amped up and angry to go looking for it to link here.
this morning i was out for brunch with two people who are very important to me. i'm not going to say who they are, but they are permanent fixtures in my life. i have really only seen them once this summer, and that was the day i moved, so they asked to see photos from my summer. i took out my phone and gladly let them scroll through my many photos - mostly of food, my cat, friends, and various trips i've taken alone and with friends. after looking through these photos, there was one of me taken by my friend's son, who is four. the person looking at the photos said "wow, it looks like you've lost weight this summer judging by these photos, particularly this one". now, the funny thing is that the particular photo was taken about FOUR DAYS ago, so no, i have not lost weight since that photo was taken. also, what the FUCK does it matter if i've lost weight (or not) this summer?? you say you are interested to know about my life, you see hundreds of photos of me smiling, exploring, camping, swimming, traveling, laughing with friends, and your ONLY comment is "it looks like you've lost weight". not only is this hurtful for me, it makes me sad for you. the fact that you can look at all of these photos of someone you claim to REALLY care about, and all you see is body size is absolutely heart-breaking to me.
but this is what my life seems to boil down to for this person. how big or small i am and how much and what types of food i decide to put in MY body (side note - this person also called me "an oinker" because the breakfast i ordered today was quite large). it just breaks my heart. i don't know HOW to stop this body commentary. i say "i actually prefer if you don't comment on my body and i will not comment on your body, ever", but that doesn't seem to make any difference. it's like hitting my head against a brick wall of judgment and fat-shame and i am so fucking sick of it.
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
NOLOSE 2012
so, fat camp.
for months i agonized about the decision to go. the expense, the social anxiety, the time off of work, the general oh-my-god-what-if-i-spend-all-this-money-and-it-sucks-and-everyone-hates-me. you know, the usual. eventually, i decided that i NEEDED to attend the nolose conference this year. i'm going to give a summary of my experiences here, but will definitely forget and miss things that happened, things that impacted me, etc.
GETTING THERE
leading up to the conference, i was a hot mess (see above). not only was i concerned about the practical side of getting TO the conference and finding my way from san francisco to oakland with shitty eyes and a barely working knowledge of the bay area transit system, but i was also overcome with social anxiety. i don't make friends easily. i tend to avoid people. on top of that, i have never been in a room with mostly/all queer fat folks before. hell, i don't even KNOW more than a handful of queer fat folks, and i don't have ANY queer, fat-loving folks with whom i am close. so yes, in some ways it felt like these were to be "my people", but i wasn't sure what that meant or how it would feel. i also have a deep, dark fear of summer camp and i was afraid that this conference would feel just like summer camp and by the second night i would end up calling my mom in tears, begging to come home. obviously, i was TOTALLY OPTIMISTIC.
i arrived in oakland with no trouble (unless 17 hours of travel on ZERO sleep counts as "trouble"), got a room at the econolodge, ordered the worst pizza i've ever tasted, and went to bed. that was my first day at the conference.
friday, i woke up and i could hear excitement outside my window. immediately, my heart jumped into my throat and my stomach tightened. it felt like the first day of highschool (i don't know anyone, i don't know my way around and OMG I AM FAT AND SCARED). could hear fatties greeting each other, splashing in the pool, reminiscing about the past year since the last conference, comparing kick-ass tshirts and fashionable outfits. i immediately felt like the new kid who knows no one, but i put on my brave face, got dressed, and headed out the door.
at this point, i could give a play by play of the sessions and the activities at the conference, but that would be boring and i'm not going to do that. i am going to write some highlights, mostly for my own memory, and some observations on community.
HIGHLIGHT 1: FOOD TRUCKS
oh my god food trucks. dinner the first night was a food truck party and not only was it delicious, it sort of FORCED interaction outside of sitting at a table and having a guided discussion (as the sessions had been). i need this type of forced interaction, lest i sit in my room and order terrible pizza, so this was a great experience. oh so yummy.
HIGHLIGHT 2: THE SESSIONS
so, the sessions felt a great deal like group therapy. i mean, i've never gone to group therapy, but this is what i imagine it would feel like. and i don't mean this as a negative, it just contrasts my expectations of conferences, which isn't surprising given that part of my job is attending academic conferences. at those, we don't sit in circles and tell our stories/share our feelings. there was a lot of reflection, processing, sharing, and trusting that went on in these sessions. some of which i was not prepared for. there were things that came up for me that i was sort of blindsided by, but happy for. this space was very important for me, and sharing it with so many others who have some common experiences (and some vastly different) was profound.
HIGHLIGHT 3: FATTY SWIMMING
wearing a bathing suit is SUCH A THING. for years, i wore shorts AND a full sized tshirt over my bathing suit AT ALL TIMES. then i moved to shorts and a tank top, then just shorts. this year, for the first time since childhood, i've experimented with bathing suit-only swimming (but that was while camping in the middle of nowhere with one friend). at NOLOSE, swimming is nothing. everyone is fat, everyone is looking gorgeous in their bathing suits - one piece and two pieces, and no one gives a flying fuck that you are fat AND IN A BATHING SUIT. i can't quite describe this experience of freedom after more than 20 years of fear around wearing a bathing suit in public (or, hell, even in private). it may have been the most significant thing i experienced all weekend.
COMMUNITY?
i have a hard time with this. in some ways, getting together with a bunch of people with whom you have at least one thing in common feels like a bit of a forced community. at the same time, there are so many common threads to our stories. there were so many times i heard someone sharing a part of their story and thought "holy fuck that could be me talking". i rarely have that experience and it was very overwhelming. on top of that, i am an introvert, and a hardcore one at that. it really felt like EVERYONE else at this conference was an extrovert, and although i'm sure that's not the case, i didn't come across a single person who said "me too!" when i shared this. this made the community-building/social aspect of the conference very difficult for me, not surprisingly. i really look forward to seeing where this community settles in my life and how i continue (or don't continue) to be a part of/interact with it.
for months i agonized about the decision to go. the expense, the social anxiety, the time off of work, the general oh-my-god-what-if-i-spend-all-this-money-and-it-sucks-and-everyone-hates-me. you know, the usual. eventually, i decided that i NEEDED to attend the nolose conference this year. i'm going to give a summary of my experiences here, but will definitely forget and miss things that happened, things that impacted me, etc.
GETTING THERE
leading up to the conference, i was a hot mess (see above). not only was i concerned about the practical side of getting TO the conference and finding my way from san francisco to oakland with shitty eyes and a barely working knowledge of the bay area transit system, but i was also overcome with social anxiety. i don't make friends easily. i tend to avoid people. on top of that, i have never been in a room with mostly/all queer fat folks before. hell, i don't even KNOW more than a handful of queer fat folks, and i don't have ANY queer, fat-loving folks with whom i am close. so yes, in some ways it felt like these were to be "my people", but i wasn't sure what that meant or how it would feel. i also have a deep, dark fear of summer camp and i was afraid that this conference would feel just like summer camp and by the second night i would end up calling my mom in tears, begging to come home. obviously, i was TOTALLY OPTIMISTIC.
i arrived in oakland with no trouble (unless 17 hours of travel on ZERO sleep counts as "trouble"), got a room at the econolodge, ordered the worst pizza i've ever tasted, and went to bed. that was my first day at the conference.
friday, i woke up and i could hear excitement outside my window. immediately, my heart jumped into my throat and my stomach tightened. it felt like the first day of highschool (i don't know anyone, i don't know my way around and OMG I AM FAT AND SCARED). could hear fatties greeting each other, splashing in the pool, reminiscing about the past year since the last conference, comparing kick-ass tshirts and fashionable outfits. i immediately felt like the new kid who knows no one, but i put on my brave face, got dressed, and headed out the door.
at this point, i could give a play by play of the sessions and the activities at the conference, but that would be boring and i'm not going to do that. i am going to write some highlights, mostly for my own memory, and some observations on community.
HIGHLIGHT 1: FOOD TRUCKS
oh my god food trucks. dinner the first night was a food truck party and not only was it delicious, it sort of FORCED interaction outside of sitting at a table and having a guided discussion (as the sessions had been). i need this type of forced interaction, lest i sit in my room and order terrible pizza, so this was a great experience. oh so yummy.
HIGHLIGHT 2: THE SESSIONS
so, the sessions felt a great deal like group therapy. i mean, i've never gone to group therapy, but this is what i imagine it would feel like. and i don't mean this as a negative, it just contrasts my expectations of conferences, which isn't surprising given that part of my job is attending academic conferences. at those, we don't sit in circles and tell our stories/share our feelings. there was a lot of reflection, processing, sharing, and trusting that went on in these sessions. some of which i was not prepared for. there were things that came up for me that i was sort of blindsided by, but happy for. this space was very important for me, and sharing it with so many others who have some common experiences (and some vastly different) was profound.
HIGHLIGHT 3: FATTY SWIMMING
wearing a bathing suit is SUCH A THING. for years, i wore shorts AND a full sized tshirt over my bathing suit AT ALL TIMES. then i moved to shorts and a tank top, then just shorts. this year, for the first time since childhood, i've experimented with bathing suit-only swimming (but that was while camping in the middle of nowhere with one friend). at NOLOSE, swimming is nothing. everyone is fat, everyone is looking gorgeous in their bathing suits - one piece and two pieces, and no one gives a flying fuck that you are fat AND IN A BATHING SUIT. i can't quite describe this experience of freedom after more than 20 years of fear around wearing a bathing suit in public (or, hell, even in private). it may have been the most significant thing i experienced all weekend.
COMMUNITY?
i have a hard time with this. in some ways, getting together with a bunch of people with whom you have at least one thing in common feels like a bit of a forced community. at the same time, there are so many common threads to our stories. there were so many times i heard someone sharing a part of their story and thought "holy fuck that could be me talking". i rarely have that experience and it was very overwhelming. on top of that, i am an introvert, and a hardcore one at that. it really felt like EVERYONE else at this conference was an extrovert, and although i'm sure that's not the case, i didn't come across a single person who said "me too!" when i shared this. this made the community-building/social aspect of the conference very difficult for me, not surprisingly. i really look forward to seeing where this community settles in my life and how i continue (or don't continue) to be a part of/interact with it.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
i found this
i am preparing to move (!) and was going through some old papers and photos today, purging and cleaning. i came across something that i wrote and printed eight years ago, while still living with my parents. i wrote this at a very interesting time in my life, when i was right on the cusp of a lot of change. think it says a lot about me, growth, change, and also what a terrible writer i was (and likely still am - hi me in 8 more years! i bet you're cringing at this writing!). anyway, i'm going to type it here so that i have a digital record of it. also a sidenote: i remember distinctly after i printed this, i accidentally left it sitting on the kitchen table and my dad found it and read it and i was MORTIFIED. here's what i wrote:
Most things in life, you don't notice until they are gone or have changed, and this is true with the passage of time. It is as if one day you look over your shoulder and your life has passed without you being aware of it, how every year on your birthday, people ask you if you feel and different and you respond "no" with a shrug, but then when you actually reflect on the past, you realize how different you are compared to how you once were. You have to remember to look around once in a while, or life will happen without you noticing, or worse, life will pass you by altogether. It is necessary, therefore, to reassess yourself form time to time, not externally, but from within. You must think about the beliefs you hold and how they affect the binding decisions and promises you make, and may or may not keep. This fact is so true, that it is often taken for granted and therefore overlooked, and thus is the irony of human existence.
When I was four years old, I came to the conclusion that people in general care about others; that in most situations, the average person would help out their fellow human, even if the reward is not great. This belief carried through with me until even now, when I realize that even if perhaps this is not true, I can't simply let it go. I can't give up home that people are generally good, even if on the surface some seem to have no regard for anyone but themselves, and perhaps their offspring, although I am finding more and more often that even this isn't true. It is absurd, but factual that there are people in this world who have no regard for even their own children, the supposed product of their love for another human being. However, even in the face of this dire uncertainty, I find myself clinging to the desperate hope that people are, by nature, generally good. It is necessary to define "good", even if for no other reason than to justify my belief. My belief that people are generally good simply means that human beings have some innate capacity for compassion, honesty and respect even if these same people will rape, murder, and torment their fellow humans given the right amount of provocation. This definition may seem contradictory to some, but it must be observed that the capacity for compassion, honesty and respect is not the same in all people, and is ecen skewed or distorted in some. There are some people who lack these innate capabilities, but they are the exception to the rule. So suited with my belief in the goodness of people and equipped with just the right amount of naivety, I was ready to take on the world, overcoming obstacles and facing uncertainty, all at the tender age of four.
By ten, I had realized that even though all humans have the innate capacity for "goodness", some were not willing to admit to this capacity, and required the unconditional love and acceptance of those around them. The unfortunate thing is that some people do not have the means by which to acquire this love and acceptance, and therefore spend the majority of their lives masking their innate goodness with a veil of hate and anger. These are the people we hear about on the news, who murder, rape, steal and lie. It isn't that these people can't love, it is that they learned at a very early age that showing love will hurt you and is a sign of weakness to predators. So, it became my personal mission to seek out these people and give them what the needed in order to develop and show compassion for their fellow beings. With this belief, I set out on the mission of a lifetime, equipped with my beliefs and the advantage of ten years of experience in the field called life.
Now, ten years after I set out on my brave mission, I realize that it is not necessarily foolish to believe that people can be changed with only the right amount of love and acceptance, but that it is naive to think that at the tender age of ten, or even now at the age of twenty I am ready to take on such a daring feat. So now I embark on a new journey, one of learning rather than ambition to change the world, with the hope that by educating myself in the ways of the world, I will in some way provide a sliver of light in the perpetual darkness that is human suffering
Right? I want to write a "where I'm at 8 years later in this journey" update, but I'll do that in the next post because this is long enough.
PS - I corrected a few minor typos, but kept all of the spine-tingling run on sentences and comma splices.
Most things in life, you don't notice until they are gone or have changed, and this is true with the passage of time. It is as if one day you look over your shoulder and your life has passed without you being aware of it, how every year on your birthday, people ask you if you feel and different and you respond "no" with a shrug, but then when you actually reflect on the past, you realize how different you are compared to how you once were. You have to remember to look around once in a while, or life will happen without you noticing, or worse, life will pass you by altogether. It is necessary, therefore, to reassess yourself form time to time, not externally, but from within. You must think about the beliefs you hold and how they affect the binding decisions and promises you make, and may or may not keep. This fact is so true, that it is often taken for granted and therefore overlooked, and thus is the irony of human existence.
When I was four years old, I came to the conclusion that people in general care about others; that in most situations, the average person would help out their fellow human, even if the reward is not great. This belief carried through with me until even now, when I realize that even if perhaps this is not true, I can't simply let it go. I can't give up home that people are generally good, even if on the surface some seem to have no regard for anyone but themselves, and perhaps their offspring, although I am finding more and more often that even this isn't true. It is absurd, but factual that there are people in this world who have no regard for even their own children, the supposed product of their love for another human being. However, even in the face of this dire uncertainty, I find myself clinging to the desperate hope that people are, by nature, generally good. It is necessary to define "good", even if for no other reason than to justify my belief. My belief that people are generally good simply means that human beings have some innate capacity for compassion, honesty and respect even if these same people will rape, murder, and torment their fellow humans given the right amount of provocation. This definition may seem contradictory to some, but it must be observed that the capacity for compassion, honesty and respect is not the same in all people, and is ecen skewed or distorted in some. There are some people who lack these innate capabilities, but they are the exception to the rule. So suited with my belief in the goodness of people and equipped with just the right amount of naivety, I was ready to take on the world, overcoming obstacles and facing uncertainty, all at the tender age of four.
By ten, I had realized that even though all humans have the innate capacity for "goodness", some were not willing to admit to this capacity, and required the unconditional love and acceptance of those around them. The unfortunate thing is that some people do not have the means by which to acquire this love and acceptance, and therefore spend the majority of their lives masking their innate goodness with a veil of hate and anger. These are the people we hear about on the news, who murder, rape, steal and lie. It isn't that these people can't love, it is that they learned at a very early age that showing love will hurt you and is a sign of weakness to predators. So, it became my personal mission to seek out these people and give them what the needed in order to develop and show compassion for their fellow beings. With this belief, I set out on the mission of a lifetime, equipped with my beliefs and the advantage of ten years of experience in the field called life.
Now, ten years after I set out on my brave mission, I realize that it is not necessarily foolish to believe that people can be changed with only the right amount of love and acceptance, but that it is naive to think that at the tender age of ten, or even now at the age of twenty I am ready to take on such a daring feat. So now I embark on a new journey, one of learning rather than ambition to change the world, with the hope that by educating myself in the ways of the world, I will in some way provide a sliver of light in the perpetual darkness that is human suffering
Right? I want to write a "where I'm at 8 years later in this journey" update, but I'll do that in the next post because this is long enough.
PS - I corrected a few minor typos, but kept all of the spine-tingling run on sentences and comma splices.
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
camping was fantastic
see?
i've thought about and written (and then deleted) a number of posts since i returned. which means more coming soon, probably.
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
unplugging
this weekend i'm going on a camping trip that has potential to be rather physically challenging. i went on a similar trip two years ago and that was my first time in a canoe since about 1995 (and that time was a terrible experience, after which i swore i would never get in another canoe). on this trip two years ago, i started out feeling unsure but excited and ended the trip feeling FUCKING peaceful and powerful and happy with my physical strength. as we came to the end of the last lake and pulled our canoe into the pier to return it and end our trip, there were two young men making extremely inappropriate and loud fat jokes directed at me. at first, it was extremely upsetting. here i had just had this amazing trip and my first interaction with human beings (aside from the one friend i was camping with) was fatphobia. awesome. i did my best to not let it impact me, though, and reflected on the trip positively.
we didn't get a chance to go out last year, which was heart-breaking, but this weekend, we are headed out again. except that this year we are going further in the same amount of time. which means more intense travel and portaging. part of me is feeling a bit intimidated and unprepared for this, but there's another part of me screaming FUCKING RIGHT WE'RE GONNA DO THIS. there are just two of us going, so it is sure to be both peaceful and taxing at the same time.
i really wish i could turn off the part of my brain that tells me i'm not strong enough to do this. i wish i didn't have a nagging "what the fuck are you doing?" feeling in my gut.
this should be interesting
Friday, June 8, 2012
happy friday
get yo bake on
(this photo was taken with my phone by a 4-year-old who was standing on a chair and dancing, so please excuse the poor quality)
Monday, June 4, 2012
On inclusion
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.
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.
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