Comments on: The audacity of fatness

By: Corinna Velasquez

Corinna Velasquez — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 14:34:40 +0000

hi
vpemtu68is1apslw
good luck

By: Mary Garden

Mary Garden — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 06:19:05 +0000

Yeah….it’s all coming back to me now. Various a-holes waved around that pic of Steinem as a bunny for years in an attempt to discredit her, always failing to disclose that she’d taken the job as an undercover journalist. The point of which was, I guess, that she was a hypocrite? That women liked being bunnies, and Gloria Steinem being one proved it? I dunno.

Also…yeah – I guess Ms. Wolf got the hypocrite thing too. I seem to remember her getting picked on for wearing makeup after The Beauty Myth came out.

Thanks for jogging my memory, littlem!

By: littlem

littlem — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 06:52:56 +0000

“I’m trying to remember what people picked on appearance-wise in Naomi Wolf and Gloria Steinem when they were at their youngest and hawtest.”

Mary — off the top of my head (’cause I don’t remember Ms. Steinem pre-aviators; I’m a touch too young) -

Ms. Wolf – too pretty to be taken seriously
Ms. Steinem – former Bunny, can’t be taken seriously

By: Jelly

Jelly — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 19:17:15 +0000

I’ve been a size 24 and a size 10. I’ve found that people are vastly more accepting of everything about me when I am thinner. (And I really don’t think I am projecting, or that I am confusing the effect of self esteem on public perception.) People are just quicker to judge a fat person, so it’s easier to “offend” people and harder to be assertive. If your a woman, this dynamic increases exponetially.

Considering the hosts of The View, Elizabeth Hasselbeck generates less controversy than Rosie, but I think that has less to do with her weight than the fact that the way she expresses her opinions is judged to be more “appropriate” for a woman. Granted: there are many other variables that explain the difference in these womens’ images.

By: Mary Garden

Mary Garden — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 03:19:33 +0000

I’m trying to remember what people picked on appearance-wise in Naomi Wolf and Gloria Steinem when they were at their youngest and hawtest. Does anyone remember? I seem to recall it *did* slow people down a little when they were trying to find a really potent way to hit them below the belt.

By: littlem

littlem — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 18:58:31 +0000

“But what is the size at which you can safely have an opinion …”

No size, if you’re female in U.S. culture. (That tends to be related to fear in men, but that’s another post.) You’re just further excoriated and your opinions tend to be further devalued if you fall outside the Hollywood-dictated digitized norm (which is also literally camera-distorted, but that’s also another post) — for size, skin color, hair length, sexual preference, whatever.

You all have pretty much nailed it — especially lme, Kristen, Anabell, and Rei. (Shockingly) I have Nothing to Add.

Except a gift sneak snark attack for HONI if she would like it — the next time some barbarian oinks at you, you can smile sweetly and say as loudly as you dare, while pointing and laughing at him (for some reason, men hate that – a parse for another day):

“Oh! I see that your self-expression classes have been doing you so much GOOD! Come on, sweetie, say another word.

If you can.”

By: Rei

Rei — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 04:44:55 +0000

I have to agree with some of the others here in that no matter how thin Rosie is, people would still lambast her appearence in response to her outspoken opinion.
Think of the nasty comments and parodies that Chelsea Clinton was victim to just for being Bill Clinton’s daughter in the 90′s …
People always attack how a woman looks first.
If she’s thin she’s not female enough…she’s a skinny bitch that needs a good f-ing to put her in her place.
If she’s fat she’s just plain ugly and stupid and the reason for her big opinions is that no one loves her because she is fat.

Oh..and if your appearence is flawless…You’re just stupid no matter what.

By: Brenda

Brenda — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 04:20:00 +0000

I have to tell you that there is NO weight at which a woman is free to speak her mind and give an opinon without her size or looks being attacked. I’ve done it at size 32 and I’ve done it at size 4. When I was fat, I was a fat bitch and when I was skinny, I was a skinny bitch. And the sad thing? Women are just as likely to hate and fear an outspoken woman as men are.

If Rosie weren’t fat, people would go after the lesbian first because, of course, being a lesbian means that you’re too ugly to get a man, right?

I love Rosie because she speaks her mind. I just hope she doesn’t end up in the same boat as Roseanne Barr.

By: Chiara

Chiara — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 12:42:05 +0000

To echo everyone else, I think that on some level a fat woman is a disobedient woman: she is seen as refusing to comply with deeply internalized beauty standards–regardless of the other ways she may participate in them, by wearing makeup or or having white skin or long hair or whatever the hell they involve. It doesn’t matter if she wants to comply with (some or all of) those standards or if she doesn’t personally give a shit: she’s seen, I think, as failing on purpose to toe the line about what is acceptable behavior for women’s bodies. And of course it’s our bodies, not our brains or our hearts or our contributions to the world, that define us. Audacious indeed to be out of step with the expectations for the most important thing about you.

Maybe from there it’s not too far to go to challenging other types of beliefs, as Mo says–which can be seen as refusing to comply with other expectations about women’s behavior. It’s like “You’re already walking a thin (ha! see what I did there?) line with us, lady, by not looking the way we want you to look. Don’t make us come over there by opening your mouth to issue an unpopular opinion as well as to stuff in a jelly donut.”

The great thing about fatness, though, is that you can get pretty inured to terrible comments (Honi, seriously, someone fucking OINKED at you?), so maybe you’re in a better position to deal with awful people insulting you about your inappropriate thoughts and feelings too; your body might not be thin but maybe your skin isn’t either.

By: Beth

Beth — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 12:24:58 +0000

I think Mary Garden hit it. There is just no way to win as a woman. There are so many perfectly awesome reasons to hate Anne Coulter, for instance, that I don’t understand why comments about her so often reference her skinny ass and horse face.

There aren’t many women in the public eye who are as outspoken and abrasive as Rosie is, so it’s hard to find comparisons … but I think that if she were thin and acting the same way, she’d get a different type of vitriol, but it would be there, and I am sure her appearance would come in somehow. It always does when you are talking about a woman.

(Personally I think it’s her voice that makes people vault straight from irritation to hate with her. I don’t always disagree with her but I confess to a nearly irrational amount of dislike just because the voice grates so badly.)