Now Jane Pratt has started a website, xoJane.com, and I am really digging it. Marianne Kirby (from The Rotund) and Lesley Kinzel (from Two Whole Cakes) are both writers there, and I think at least one of their other regular writers is plus-sized. That’s not just one token size ten contributor, that’s multiple people who are straight-up fat. (Back in the magazine days, there was one vaguely curvy girl named, I think, Katy (?), and I always felt like I could relate just a little bit more to her pieces.) The best thing about this is that THEY WRITE ABOUT ALL SORTS OF THINGS THAT DO NOT INVOLVE FATNESS.

Don’t get me wrong, they write great stuff about size issues. Lesley just wrote a piece called What’s Wrong With Fat-Shaming?, addressing those horrible billboards featuring sad-looking fat kids (I saw them in Atlanta last year, too, and I always wonder how the poor “models” feel, being plastered on a billboard, children, and being held up as some sort of example of what’s wrong with the world.) I also enjoyed her recent piece about Tim Gunn:

His comments are ultimately the same old body-loathing crap we hear all the time, wrapped up in faux sympathy, and therefore I must take issue with Gunn’s self-applied title of “advocate for larger women” as I believe his words do those women more harm than good. Especially when Gunn says of one woman on the new show, “…she’d been overweight her entire life and never known a normal, slim and sexy body.” (Emphasis mine.)

Check out the body politics tab for more (not just from Lesley, but from other contributors as well). But Lesley has also written about Downton Abbey and collecting things and tampons, and Marianne has written about eloping and fan fiction and Anne of Green Gables. I have no idea how the site works, but it doesn’t seem like “you’re our Fat Contributor, so please write about fat,” more like “you’re a contributor, please write about what interests you.”

I have to say tha I would love to see some more contributors of color, but the site is really doing something right by us plus-sized readers. So thank you to xoJane for having some real size diversity among your staff.

Gaultier is, of course, the same designer who used Velvet D’Amour in a previous runway show. More pictures at HuffPo, where they pair the slideshow with this recent quote from Ditto:

“It’s really interesting to me that people will look at a thin person and go, ‘That’s a healthy person’. I want to go, ‘Come open my refrigerator and look and then let’s talk about what you think is so bad’. To be thin and to stay really thin, sometimes…some people literally do coke all the time. Some people smoke cigarettes instead of eating. That’s crazy. But that’s ‘okay’ because you look healthier.”

Thanks to Christina for the link! And thanks to Beth, and Jean Paul Gaultier, for being awesome.

Because they are never JUST shoes. They’re what I was, for a long time, allowed – when you’re fat and your options are limited, sometimes shoes become the thing you use to express yourself…

It’s one of the only areas in which I’ve ever had just as much choice as any other person on the street when it comes to things required for getting dressed. And that’s a powerful thing. It’s one reason I have what feels like so many shoes. It’s one reason I have so many DISTINCTIVE shoes – it matters less that my fashion options are limited if I can make a statement with my shoes.

In her post, Marianne acknowledges that this is only possible for those who wear a readily available size shoe. And this reminded me I’ve been meaning to do a post for those of us who, like me, don’t wear a common shoe size.

I have always been tall and had large feet—I was wearing a size 9 shoe when I was 13. And of course, Persons of Size also sometimes have wider than average feet. All of this means we can’t walk into a shoe store and expect to find something that fits. Except Payless which, god bless em, goes up to a 12 and has wide widths, to boot. (HA! TO BOOT!) But, you know, Payless shoes do tend to fall apart sometimes.

So, what are our options? We can search Zappos by size or width, paying close attention to the customer notes in the comments (some brands tend to run large or small) which allows us to hit shoes at a variety of price points.

As for specific designers, Fluevogs go up to size 13, and they have some “unisex” styles as well. I know Weetabix has gotten Stuart Weitzmans and Guccis in size 12 at Nordstrom (which is currently having a “free shipping on shoes” sale). She’s the fancy Nordstrom shoe shopper, whereas I am the Payless shoe shopper.

And in this comment, Lisa mentioned that drag queen shops usually have women’s shoes in generous sizes. (Well, they would.) So if you need a red leather stiletto boot in a size 15, this is your lucky day.

So, how about it? Ladies with Feet of Size, which brands work for you, and where do you buy them?

1. From Feed Me: Fat women are paid less than men in the workplace. So obviously, we should lose weight. Wait, what?

Fat women are paid less than women who aren’t fat; fat men, on average, earn comparable salaries to men who aren’t fat. So women are penalized by employers for being fat… All the young women who don’t identify as feminists because they don’t have to fly that flag anymore should take note of studies like this one. Gender discrimination is alive and well in 21st-century America.

But that’s not where the writer of this story went. No, her conclusion was quite different. She wrote, “It’s bad news, but maybe it will help fund better prevention strategies and new treatment methods for this growing scourge.”

Excuse me? Did I hear you right? The answer to discrimination is getting rid of the quality that’s being discriminated against?

2. From Already Pretty: the problem with “she shouldn’t wear that.”

[S]tylistic shoulds and shouldn’ts reinforce the idea that there are absolute rights and wrongs in clothing choices, tastes, and body shapes. Saying a woman “shouldn’t” wear something because of her figure supports the idea that there is one way to look good. And there isn’t. In fact, women who push social comfort levels with their stylistic choices may gradually force the observing public to accept that. Although some may prefer that women with cellulite conceal it, women with bony clavicles mask them, and women with zits apply cover-up, each woman is entitled to make her own choices.

3. The theme of the comp class I’m teaching this semester is feminism (actually, I told them it was unofficially called “F the Patriarchy”—it’s led to some terrific debate and discussion) and I shared this tidbit from Shakesville with them the other day. A headline reads “Man badly burned when girlfriend’s house set on fire” when, in actuality, he was her ex-boyfriend and stalker. And oh yeah, he set the fire.

[A]n amazing example of how violence against women is minimized in news reporting… the violent stalker is badly burned. His intended victims, who merely were doused with gasoline and terrorized, are OK.

4. From Womanist Musings: Gabourey Sidibe as “Mammy.”

There can be no denial that there are some people who will look at Gabourey and see mammy smiling back at them both consciously and unconsciously, yet that is not a function of her, but a function of Whiteness. When we use fat hatred to claim that her success is obscuring the talents of other Black women, we are only playing into the divisive strategy that Whiteness has long used to control people of colour. Even the Black women that some believe are deserving of greater accolades, are still perceived by Whiteness as fitting into either the jezebel or sapphire trope, and therefore; the way to divest ourselves of these horrible caricatures, is not to further demean another Black woman, but to defeat the idea that any of these labels are representative of Black womanhood. The entity that needs to disappear is mammy and not Gabourey.

5. Terrific satirical essay from Lesley about the importance of the “suffering ween.”

The sight of fat women is a heavy cross said men must bear every moment they step out into the public spaces where people congregate, be they city streets or shopping malls or public transportation or the dentist’s office. Their eyes burning as though filled with a raging fire, their inability to control their speech — the inescapable, uncontrollable need to instruct the offending woman on the pain she is selfishly causing them — this is hardly their fault! They must say something, in the hope that their words will drive the fat woman back into the shadows and thereby cause the unthinkable torture being imposed upon their enfeebled weens to finally relent. They cannot be responsible for the things they say and do while in such agony. We cannot rightly blame them when it is men, and the relative rigidity of their supremely important peckers, who are being attacked here, attacked by fat women who dare to allow themselves to be seen.

Pretty awesome collection of links, am I right? Let’s discuss in the comments!

Linda Holmes at NPR:

It has a lot of dumb jokes and broad (har har) portrayals, and everyone in the writers’ room should do 20 laps for the moment where two fat guys don’t know enough not to wedge themselves into a stairwell (a joke worthy of Saved By The Bell) and 25 more for a busted-furniture joke.

That stuff absolutely has to stop if the show is going to improve, both because it’s embarrassingly lazy and because it’s less observant about weight issues than some other nice moments in the opener. See, a guy like Mike is bound to be acutely aware of himself and is highly unlikely to cavalierly lean on tables. That’s not a “don’t make fun” killjoy thing; that’s a character thing. The cheap visuals are hard to resist, of course, but they must be resisted when they interfere with what is otherwise, surprisingly enough, a pretty human picture of these two people.

Dan Fienberg (co-signed by Alan Sepinwall) at Hitfix:

There are two different shows at war in the pilot for “Mike & Molly.”

One is a surprisingly sensitive, occasionally funny character study about two people who have had struggles in their lives, but now have maybe found a life partner. It’s not that you ever forget that the characters in this version of the story are overweight. No, the majority of the punchlines are still girth-based, but the gags rarely seem malicious and the tone of the comedy stems from welcome and familiar interaction with friends and loved ones. That is to say that there are definitely fat jokes, but they’re sheltered within a safe space.

In this show, Gardell and McCarthy are excellent…

In [the other] version of “Mike & Molly,” our female lead is introduced comically and frantically and somewhat humiliatingly working out to the blaring strains of “Brick House.” That version has one table destroyed and another upended by Mike’s inconvenient heft. That version has a ridiculous scene in which two Overeaters Anonymous members literally get stuck in a stairwell because they’re walking side-by-side.

I think that there’s less of this “Mike & Molly” than there is of the good version, but this is the version that the studio audience (sweetened laugh track) seems to most enjoy and this is the version that probably will stand out as the most memorable. This is the version about two fat people, who happen to be in love. This is the version that’s laughing at its main characters and not with them.

Feinberg also adds this:

If you have a comedy about any group of people who aren’t represented extensively on television, you probably don’t want to be laughing *at* them. Beyond just being smug and insufferable, you’re pigeon-holding the totality of a group’s representation down to being the subject for mockery. It’s here that one sadly needs to point out that in TV comedy, just about anybody who isn’t pretty, thin, white and middle-to-upper class is under represented. We’ve advanced a tiny bit from the days where the cast of “Friends” could wander around New York City for over a decade and meet roughly two people who didn’t look exactly like them, but not very far.

It’s great that the critics seem to be calling the show out on its fatism, and pointing towards some of the show’s possibilities for a positive representation of fat people. So will you be watching it? (I, sadly, will be working tonight and will miss both it and How I Met Your Mother.) If so, come back and let us know what you think!

If I were to do a clothing line, it would be for sizes 16 and higher. Because I really believe that those women are truly a neglected population, and when I visit department stores and I go to the shop that’s called “woman,” I am horrified! Horrified by the awful, degrading, disrespectful choices that women have. It is mind boggling. I mean, selecting these gigantic prints, and it’s… I mean, who wants to look like a couch?

Thanks to Kathy for the link (and transcription)!

Millions of Americans go through this agony every day; 68% of us are overweight or obese. Yet we have few literary insights about obesity to help comfort us; zero provocative tales about the plight of the salad-muncher for us to identify with during bleak dieting times; hardly any entertaining stories about hitting the gym which might propel us to suck it up and go to pilates class after a long workday. We turn to Oprah, or The Biggest Loser, or Weight Watchers—but not fiction.

So yeah, he’s looking for “perceptive insights about struggling with obesity” in his literature. Not exactly what I’m looking for in my own literature about fat people, quite frankly. Some of the comments are noteworthy. Cynthia Hawkins says:

I can’t think of a work that might be about struggles with obesity … but even more interesting, I can’t think of a character who just happens to be overweight who isn’t also a baffoon, a source of comedy in some way, a sidekick, or a villain, etc.

James says:

It strikes me that ‘fat fiction’ would be quite a niche market with a limited appeal to people who haven’t struggled with weight. Our favourite characters tend to be ones we can relate to, or aspire to be like.

Really—if someone is fat, there’s no way we would ever “aspire to be like” them? Because any good qualities they may have are overshadowed by their fatness, I presume? Ridiculous.

And BuffPuff’s comment (worth reading the whole thing, but I can’t figure out how to link it; just scroll down) is just the bomb:

I would say that the reason there aren’t many books with fat protagonists in either literary or popular fiction is because we live in a highly fat phobic culture. If we didn’t, literary agents wouldn’t feel the need to pose questions about the commercial appeal of same to the readers of their blogs…

In all the books I’ve ever read featuring a fat protagonist, weight/self image has been an issue of some kind and self loathing writ large. Art, after all, imitates life and it’s near impossible, as a fat individual, to make one’s way in such an openly hostile environment and not have those issues come up. This is particularly true of women, who regularly bond over their perceived physical shortcomings, particularly when it comes to issues of food and weight and regardless of what size they are. Why do you think Bridget Jones’s Diary – a book about a neurotic, weight-fixated ninny, who isn’t actually fat – struck such a massive chord with the public?

This, however, is where art and life seem to part company. What there aren’t many of are novels in which a fat female protagonist is permitted to find love, happiness or success without losing weight by some means first, (broken heart leading to convenient loss of appetite/fortuitously timed sickness/Weight Watchers), or where they’re only permitted to find happiness with another fat person because, let’s face it, no one else would have them, (and, yes, this is sarcasm). I tend to avoid these like the plague. As a fat woman whose self-esteem improved in leaps and bounds the moment she decided to make peace with her body and quit the infernal diet-go-round for good, I have a major problem with that kind of tired, patronising pish. It’s not dissimilar to the state of gay fiction back in the pre-Stonewall dark ages – you could publish it, film it or put it on the stage … just as long as the characters you were portraying were shown to be wretched, embittered, lonely and seething with self-hatred, preferably enough to hang themselves in the final act.

That whole discussion weirdly made me think of Mike and Molly. Alan Sepinwall recently said that the show “is constantly at war over whether it wants to be laughing with or at its main characters. The ‘with’ parts I like, and Gardell and McCarthy are charming. The ‘at’ parts are nauseating.”

We want to see fat characters in TV and in books, and in film, but we don’t want them to be shown as objects of pity or (the dreaded Jemima J syndrome) people whose sad lives improve immeasurably once they are thin.

So, what are your favorite books with fat characters in them? And how do you want to see fat people portrayed in books?

Thanks to aych for the link!

Finding a decent pair of plus size tights is a bit of a challenge. Sometimes tight purveyors make gigantically long tights with a larger waistband, as though their customers are plus size giraffes. I’m 5’9″ and even I shake my head at these ridiculous things. Also, in theory, tights should be more hearty than your average silken hosiery, and yet somemanufacturers send out tights which are dear and apparently made of knit gossamer and spider webs. Therefore, even though I LOVE all of those choices, I tend to shy away from places like Hips And Curves, Tights Online and We Love Colors. Mopie is delicate enough to pull that off, but I cannot. More specifically, my ass, thighs and the rubbing action of said thighs cannot.

Mopie and I met up with BFDivas Sony, Elise and Marie Denee for an Igigi free-for-all and Elise was very taken with my hot pink tights. “Promise me you’ll do a tights post. PROMISE!” she insisted. And here I thought it was just me. Here’s the advice I gave her: shop where  maiden aunts and librarians shop. No kidding! The venues may not have the sexy colors but their tights wear like iron and go through dozens of washings with nary a pilled inner thigh.

Here are my top picks for sturdy, well-fitting tights:

• Catherine’s. Most fatshionistas flutter their eyelids at the thought of walking into this store, with its applique’d polyester dresses and matronly sportswear, but their hosiery is amazingly resistant to runs. The colors are pretty boring however, black tights are the workhorses of a fall wardrobe and I get all of mine from Catherine’s. (Sizes up to 7x)
• Woman Within/Roamans/One Stop Plus/Jessica London: If you buy from them, you’ll forever get a million paper catalogs in the mail, but oh the colors! Orange! Teal! Cranberry! Purple! You automatically get an heir and a spare with their 2 pack deal, so it’s the best bang for your tight dollar, even if they don’t wear quite as long as the boring options from Catherine’s. They have cool sparkly Lurex too. (Sizes up to 8x)
• Avenue: Inconsistent sizing (sometimes I get the weirdly long or super small pair) and word on Fatshionista is that they changed the quality of their standard tights but I still can’t resist things like the double diamond pointelle. The hot pink pair of tights that prompted this post came from Avenue. (Sizing up to EE, which fits 320-375 lbs)
• Torrid: Pretty one note for selection (and that note tends to be goth). Even though I’ve given up on their plain black tights, Torrid is still my automatic go to for statement hosiery like fishnets. Huge caveat: they have the crappiest waistbands imaginable, and the runs/rips always start there, but I usually just go MacGyver and either cut off the waistband entirely and hold them up by wearing a pair of Spanx over them or cut the legs off and use a garter belt. Torrid gets extra credit for using models of size in their photos. (Sizing up to 3x/4x, which means practically nothing)

What did I miss? Where are the amazing tights to be found? Hit us up in the comments for your juicy secrets!

Full disclosure: Neither BFD nor I received any compensation to endorse these products!

That’s why I object to “overweight” as a descriptor. Over what weight? The weight other people think I should be even though they have no experience with my body composition beyond looking at me? The weight a BMI chart says I should be? The weight a fashion magazine thinks I should be? The only thing I’m over is all the effort to Other my body.

This sent me looking back at one of the earliest BFD posts, about this very topic. (Although I called “overweight” a term that is “as neutral as it gets.” Which, see above.)

Interestingly, many of the terms used to describe overweight men could be considered positive. Like “beefy” or “burly” or “brawny” or “stocky,” these words imply physical strength and substance and are only applied to women when we want to say “big and butch,” whereupon they become negative again.

Although many of my ideas have evolved, and I no longer hesitate to use the word fat, it was an interesting entry to revisit. I was curious to see how the terminology has evolved, so I typed “fat” into the search box at Urban Dictionary. And, wow, I do not suggest doing that. Especially not when the synonyms include words like “bitch,” “stupid,” “whore,” “vagina,” “woman,” “smelly,” and “girl.” The number one definition is this:

According to Hollywood, What you are if you are a female weighing over 100 lbs. Nicole Richie apparently thought she was fat, now she looks like a nine-year old boy.

Ugh. Clearly a dude who thinks he’s being progressive, but really is just body-shaming in a different direction—and of course, focusing only on women and their bodies. Of course.

For “overweight,” the terms that come up include “nail the whale,” “buffet queen,” “fat chick,” and “fattractive”—again, none of which I suggest you look up. I mean, just yesterday, Urban Dictionary was very helpful in explaining to me what the new “double rainbow” meme meant. But that is some ugly, fatphobic, misogynistic stuff.

Hey, the new “related posts” feature just found another post where I looked up fat on Urban Dictionary! Plus some interesting comments, with people objecting to the word “fat” and “fatty” as well as making some observations on race.

Okay, enough going down the rabbit hole of my own previous posts. It’s been two years, which means I think it’s time to ask again: what euphemisms do you love, and which do you hate? What’s your favorite word to describe your body? If you’re thin, do you get tired of being called “scrawny” or “skinny” and told to eat a sandwich? If you’re fat, do you call yourself that? And what do you think of the word “fat” in general?

It’s got the universal man/woman icons on it, only the woman is bigger and it says “Team Player” underneath, the implication being that the guy wearing the shirt will “take one for the team” and chat up the fat friend so his bros can hit on the hot chick at the bar.

WTF! There are plenty of men for whom I am the one they WANT to hit on, the the bullet they take so their friend can get the hot girl. I *am* the hot girl! Stop opressing me with your douchebag t-shirts!

Intrigued by the tag “fat girl” on the shirt itself, I clicked it to see what other shirts were being offered. The pleasant surprise is that they were more positive than negative, with slogans like “Fat Girl Pride!” and “Everyone Loves A Fat Girl” outweighing (no pun intended) shirts like the misogynistic crap pictured here.

Still, check out this misogynistic crap. The whole discussion of “entering” is just gross in and of itself, and once again it’s both objectifying women and reinforcing the notion that certain women are societally “acceptable” to have sex with, and others are not.

Still, there’s always the amusing T-shirt reading, “Help, this FAT girl ate me!” Which would only make sense if written by a fat girl who wants to poke fun at the “skinny girl trying to get out” trope.