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.

Until now, that is: one of the creators and stars of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Rob McElhenney, has gained 50 pounds for season seven of the show, which premiered last week. McElhenney, who plays Mac, says:

I never wondered what it would be like to have a fat character. That’s just mean and it’s not funny. Ultimately, what was funny to me was the abuse on one’s body. Mac was always talking about putting on mass, so he decided to put on mass. His vision was that when David was sculpted, they started with a big slab of marble and then he was whittled down. So Mac created himself a big slab of marble, but it turned out he was just a big slab of beef and never trimmed himself down. That to me is the funnier aspect of it. It stemmed from watching a really popular sitcom where the actors were better looking than five or six years before and I was like they’re better looking because they have more money, they are more famous, they have better makeup and wardrobe people. Our show has always been about deconstructing the sitcom and not creating likeable or attractive characters. It wasn’t just about weight gain, but about making myself look as self-abused as possible. I tried to look as ugly as possible.

(Two things about this quote that jump out at me: first, Danny DeVito is in the cast, and he’s not a thin guy, so they do have a “fat character,” although I can’t off the top of my head think about any weight-based jokes at his expense. I’m also not sure why having a fat character would be “mean,” but I’m guessing McElhenney’s referring to the type of character who exists for the sole purpose of having weight-based jokes made about them–a character trope with which we are all familiar.)

We started watching Sunny a couple of seasons ago (the gang’s musical, “The Nightman Cometh,” is endlessly hilarious to me), and the characters do and say wildly offensive things, making jokes about everything from crack addiction to rape. I do appreciate the fact that the woman in the group, Dee, is allowed to be just as offensive and horrible as the men, which makes it a rich comedic part for Kaitlin Olsen (who is married to McElhenney in real life). The question each episode seems to ask of the characters is “how low can they go?”

Glenn Howerton and Charlie Day, the co-creators of Sunny, were on one of the podcasts I occasionally listen to, WTF with Marc Maron. According to them, the characters–in their racism, sexism, and selfishness–are always the butt of the jokes, which is the source of the comedy. Howerton says:

Even with this year’s premise of Mac gaining weight, we are not making fun of fat people. We are making fun of Mac, because he thinks that he’s this muscle-bound person, and he’s done absolutely nothing in order to actually achieve that goal… this is not a person who is naturally fat, this is a person who is destroying his body under the delusion that he’s actually creating muscle… and that’s the joke, not fat people in general.

I’m glad Howerton makes this distinction, because I feel a lot of comedians don’t see a problem with making fun of fat people, and I appreciate (having seen the premiere and as a viewer of the show) that there’s more going on here. However, the “fat = funny” equation still strikes me as problematic. Alan Sepinwall, in his review of the premiere, calls Fat Mac a “sight gag,” and says:

Okay, first things first: major, major, major props are due Mr. Rob McElhenny for having the random but brilliant (if not necessarily wise from a personal standpoint) idea to put on 50 pounds in the off-season. Fat Mac is just a marvelous sight gag – in a way, it reminds me of that “30 Rock” episode where Jenna ate too much pizza over the summer, only, you know, real – that makes me laugh every single time I see him, while also standing in nicely as a commentary on the state of the gang. They’re getting older, and dumber, and sloppier – and in Mac’s case, fatter – and while another show might take this as an opportunity for personal growth, “Always Sunny” mainly just observes that they’re all getting too old for this shit, then has them keep doing it anyway, cuz it’s really really funny.

I don’t watch 30 Rock, so didn’t see the “Jenna ate too much pizza” plotline (which sounds like a dumb plotline, if I can judge merely based on the description) but I will be watching Sunny this season and am curious to see what others think. Here’s a preview of the show featuring “Fat Mac.” So what do you think? Do you watch Sunny, and do you think Fat Mac is funny? Can fat ever be funny?

Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. —Ben Franklin

I’m sure you’ve all read plenty about the TSA furor, which has been upsetting plenty of people. Friend of the blog Aych has written about her experience, and posts written by and about rape survivors have added additional layers of horror to the whole thing—and have suggested that the purpose of the pat downs is not actually to search people, but to embarrass them into choosing the scanners instead.

So I was reading this article about how the TSA agents don’t like the patdowns any more than airline passengers do, and what’s one of their complaints? Of course. Fat people.

“It is not comfortable to come to work knowing full well that my hands will be feeling another man’s private parts, their butt, their inner thigh,” wrote one male agent. Even worse is having to try and feel inside the flab rolls of obese passengers, and we seem to get a lot of obese passengers!

Well gee, I’m really sorry my “flab rolls” are making you uncomfortable while you are groping my private parts in public. Obviously I should fall in line and just go for the option where my naked body gets projected on a screen for you instead.

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!

…One in four female characters was depicted in “sexy, tight, or alluring attire,” compared with one in 25 male characters. The female characters were also more likely than men to be beautiful, and one in five were “portrayed with some exposed skin between the mid-chest and upper thigh regions.” Because you wouldn’t want to take on the world without baring your midriff—girl power! (Another study found, troublingly, that women in G-rated films wear the same amount of skimpy clothing as women in R-rated films.) One in four women was shown with a waist so small that, the authors concluded, it left “little room for a womb or any other internal organs.” Maybe we could carry them in our purses?

No wonder young girls are reporting body image issues earlier and earlier.  Not only are fat females treated by the filmmakers as lesser or non-sexual grandmothers, but the girls we’re supposed to emulate are hyper-sexualized with giant Hentai eyes and Angelina Jolie pouts. And to think we all blamed Bratz dolls!

You know, I honestly cannot think of a sympathetic fat female human character in an animated kid’s movie.  There were fat people in Wall-E, of course, but it was pretty offensive stereotyping.  I think Mrs. Potts eventually turns into a fat human, but for the majority of Beauty and the Beast, she’s tableware.  Arguably, one of Sleeping Beauty’s fairy friends is a plus-sized fairy, but that movie is old than my grandmother. Likewise, Hyacinth the Hippo. Dora the Explorer isn’t a svelte lass, but she’s also like six. And there are never fat princesses.

Then there’s Ursula the Sea Witch. Love her.

You know, she’s the first fat villian who really has some power. The other fat girls in Disney movies are either fairy godmothers (who twitter a lot) or singing teapots. Up until Ursula, the female villians were all tall, angular women with pinched faces (Cruella DeVille; the Wicked StepMother in Snow White; the aunt with the Siamese cats in Lady and the Tramp; Maleficient, who is also awesome for rocking that head gear) and she ends up embodying ultimate power (and, you know, getting stabbed by a boat, but whatevs).

But the fact remains that Ursula is still evil, and definitely not sympathetic. In fact, the only plus-sized female main character in recent memory is Princess Fiona, who is introduced to us first as being thin and Cameron Diaz-y and then her plus-size state is explained by her having been cursed. Seriously. Cursed! And the only reason she ends up being ok with her state is the fact that her man loves her best when she’s all green and belchy.

Let’s discuss in the comments!

Unless she is not confident, because those people are hideous even if they are supermodels! Or so I have been told by very many well-meaning people. (Sorry, that was a bit derailish. Venting from the time I tried to get someone to rephrase “confidence makes you 1000x more beautiful” to “confidence helps people see your beauty” so that I wouldn’t have to conclude that I am hopelessly ugly, and she was all, “NO! Confidence is vital to beauty!” So remember, kids, the thing to tell people who are insecure about their looks is that their insecurity makes them disgusting.)

I’ve advocated confidence myself, plenty of times. (Just check out the “related posts” links for evidence.) It feels like in my own life, confidence has been an asset to me. But this is such an interesting angle from which to look at the idea of confidence. What if you’re not confident? Does that make you a failure? Are we oppressing people by suggesting that they “should” become more confident?

Also, saying that “every woman is beautiful” made me think of Lesley’s recent piece on appearance-based privilege, wherein she suggests that perhaps we don’t need to feel beautiful or even believe we’re beautiful to have fulfilling lives:

[F]or me, there was tremendous freedom in surrendering the idea that subjectively feeling — if not objectively being — beautiful was a requirement of a happy and fulfilling life. This is not to suggest that people shouldn’t feel good about themselves, or even “pretty”, as the occasion warrants — my point is that this feeling should not be the necessity and the compulsion that it is, and that when it occurs, it should neither be underscored nor negated by the response of the majority, according to what masculine doctrine finds most valuable. Wanting to feel pretty, to appreciate and value oneself as a beautiful person, is a fine notion. Confronting, deconstructing, and redefining what counts as beauty is a valiant effort. But we should also be vigilant: is it personal gratification and self-love we’re after, or the advantages that being beautiful to others would afford us?

So, what do you guys think about confidence? Is it okay if we don’t have it?

I’m guessing that a lot of us had Sassy moments that impacted your impressionable years. For me, when I read something that Mike Flaherty said about Roseann Barr being a “fat ugly cow”, something broke inside my brain. I wrote a seething letter to the editor, taking him and the magazine to task for preaching acceptance and then spewing that level of body hate. It was the first time I had ever dared to defend my body–my fatness–and it felt like the most dangerous thing in the world. Mike called me personally to apologize and then they published a version of the letter (although with a softened comment about still trying to lose weight) in their March 1990 issue.  I used the payment to fly to NYC and hang out in the Sassy offices with Christina, Mike and then spanking-new writer Kim France (now EIC of Lucky), pretty much making me the luckiest teenager in America for a short few hours.

One of the things I remember most about those two afternoons was how Christina told me to keep writing and keep questioning shit. Christina took her own advice. Check it out:

In Jane Brody’s column about BMI on Tuesday, she, or some hack doctor she quotes, says that it’s thoroughly possible for a 125 pound, 5 foot 5 inch woman to be fat. Shut the front door. Jane, this is frigging impossible. I am resisting the impulse to say you are going senile.

An ad for a plastic surgeon in The Montclair Times today asks, “Do you suffer from cellulite?” Suffering? Really? I’m almost speechless. There is a lot of suffering in this world, to be sure, very little of it from cellulite.

Tabitha Soren (former MTV News correspondent back when MTV was still relevant) said “Sassy has changed my life by making me hopeful that society’s stereotypes of the ideal physical female are unrealistic and terribly outdated. Sassy celebrates women who are real people that exist in the real world, not plastic surgery victims.”  It doesn’t happen often but it’s absolutely amazing when you see that your idols are still exactly who you thought they were, more than twenty years later.

Rock n roll, Christina Kelly. You’re still the coolest girl I’ve ever met.

There’s a chart at that link, but before you click, be warned: there’s plenty of fatism to be had in that article. The writer assures us he’s “no cow,” conflates larger sizes with poorer health (and ice-cream eating) throughout, and talks about how he doesn’t “deserve” to feel good if his pants size is really 39″. Ugh.

Anyway, women complain about vanity sizing all the time because it makes it so difficult to reliably shop for clothes (particularly when brick-and-mortar stores refuse to carry your size, and you have to order online, cough cough). We say, “Why can’t the sizing be straightforward! Measured in inches! Like men’s sizes!” We do not say, “Why can’t men’s sizes be equally misleading and confusing, because that would be more fair!”

Fashion industry, you’re going in the wrong direction.

I’d seen some stirrings on Twitter, while I was out of town for the weekend, about a problematic post on Feministe, but I didn’t have a chance to go read it.

Then this morning, I read this terrific post from Meowser on the controversy, as well as the strawman version of Fat Acceptance that is being engaged by some feminist bloggers.

We say, “What causes people to weigh what they do is complex and multifactorial, and varies a lot from one person to another — and you can’t tell what people’s habits are by their pants size.” They hear, “Weight is purely inherited and has nothing whatsoever to do with behavior.” (Uh, no. Try the behavioral factors have been played to fucking death in the media, and we really, really don’t need to flog them yet again. Also, try dieting is a behavior too, and it makes most people who try it fatter, not thinner, especially if they take it up in childhood.)

Meowser also pointed to this post by Aunt B, which is well worth a read.

I just don’t see how any discussion that involves people policing women’s bodies and trying to dictate what women do with them can ever be feminist.

“Weight can signal a lack of activity or too many donuts, and that shouldn’t irk anyone,” Monica says. But that’s not a cultural critique. That’s an invitation to stick our noses into the business of women who are somehow “signaling” by being fat.

Again, I feel like this is a point that feminists would mull over–does a body, merely by being a body, signal anything? If my having big boobs tells you nothing about whether I’m a slut, why are you so sure it tells you anything about whether I’ve had too many donuts?

Here are the reasons fat is a feminist issue that I quoted back in 2007.

Why is it a feminist issue? Because only women are hounded for our weight 24/7 in every possible media venue. Because women are constantly being pressured to conform to fuckability standards – weight, hair, makeup, clothes, shoes, and sexual compliance are only some of the things that women are subjected to…

Men are not subject to these pressures to conform. Men are only considered fat if they are well over 50 lbs. overweight. Every inch of a man’s body does not have to be fat-free, sculpted, cellulite-free, etc. for him to be considered a real man. A woman with fat on her body (except breasts and hips) is hardly a woman at all.

Yes, fat acceptance also includes men, and men also deal with fatism and self-esteem issues and pressure to have more ideal bodies. And body acceptance extends to everyone: fat, thin, in between, because we are all faced with a world full of unrealistic standards. So fat is not a feminist issue to the exclusion of anyone who is not a fat woman.

But should feminists consider fat a feminist issue? Do they have a responsibility to consider that fat shaming affects women disproportionately, or that a woman owning her body—the same body autonomy that feminists argue so vehemently for when it comes to sexuality— extends to her owning of its fat percentage? Absolutely.

Michaele Salahi poses in a bikini for [InTouch] and then says she is not an anorexic and that she eats plenty and that if people would get out and move they would look just like her. Eating plenty huh? Want to know what she eats everyday? In the morning she has a bowl of cereal and at night she has a salad with some grilled chicken in it. No lunch or anything else the entire day. Umm, how does she even have the energy to move around…

Not to be outdone, Real Housewife Bethenny Frankel says the way she lost 33 pounds after pregnancy was to “Taste everything, eat nothing.” Umm, that sounds like one of the favorite tricks of anorexia. .. What [the tabloids] have done is put two incredibly skinny women in bikinis in their magazine and said they basically don’t eat. That is the only way you will look like them and the tabloids seem to be celebrating it. That is wrong, wrong wrong. If you are naturally skinny, then great. You are just as sexy as the curvy person or the overweight person. What I don’t like is they are saying the only way to be sexy is to be thin and to not eat. That is wrong.

I think we’re all pretty familiar with the hypocrisy of the tabloids by now. But still, as long as they keep printing this, it’s good to keep saying it: these messages are damaging and dangerous. And the Real Housewives may be, right at this very moment, the number one thing that’s holding back contemporary feminism. Well, them and Heidi Montag.