I need a fat Minoan girl icon

[minoanmiss]

Not just because drawing an abundant girl in a corset would be fun. I had reblogged a bitter post about fat people vs thin people, and when I saw it on my Tumblr I thought about it and took it down.

Years ago Hanne Blank ripped my heart out when she came out against the phrase "Real women have curves." I felt like she'd abandoned fat women by condemning something some of us whispered to ourselves while sobbing over abuse people had heaped on us. I felt like she'd agreed with everyone who told me I would never get a job/a SO/anywhere in life unless I lost drastic amounts of weight. I felt like she'd agreed with the people who told fat women I've known to be grateful for being sexually assaulted because it was the only way a fat girl could get laid.

I still struggle with that. But I thought about it and when I'm calm I can definitely see the point that tearing someone else down is not how to raise oneself up. I can credit that this phrase which helped me actively hurts other people. I don't use that phrase anymore.

More broadly, I saw a post I really agreed with about lifting up rather than calling out, about putting in positive efffort to praise people for doing good rather than focusing on opportunities to scold people. Tumblr can be so negative -- US society can be so negative, especially right now. I'm going to try to put more effort into promoting positive things. Not lying, not keeping silent on important truths, but "looking for the helpers" as Mr. Rogers put it, on signal boosting stories that deserve to be known.

ANyway, this is me thinking in text, for a little bit.

Comments

[acelightning]

"Real women have curves"... and angles, and bones, and muscles, and flat places, and every other shape it's possible for a human body to have. A line I like better is, "There's no wrong way to have a body!"

[callibr8]

Indeed, all ways of "having" a body, are fine. Another friend of mine puts it this way, "my body, my science experiment". Something to consider, anyway.

[acelightning]

At first glance, I parsed that as, "My body, my science project!" Given the amount of radiation I was exposed to, that's a bit closer to the truth for me :-)

noun phrases

[callibr8]

Science experiment, science project ... kinda the same when you think about it.

Great icon! "Exposure" has scary implications, though. Eeep!

Re: noun phrases

[acelightning]

Radiation treatments after cancer surgery, for two unrelated types of cancer, one year apart. That was more than five years ago now (read my user profile for more information). At the time, some of my friends joked that it ought to give me super-powers... ;-)

Re: noun phrases

[callibr8]

I think your friends are right: you have superpowers, they just haven't figured out the right labels for them. I went and checked your profile, as suggested, and am still picking my jaw up off the floor. "Fall down seven times, get up eight", seems like a modus vivendi that you exemplify. Also, I think you've out-persisted Elizabeth Warren, based on the synopsis your profile provides. You are a wonder!

Icon choice for this comment made in your honor, not as an attempt at self-description.

Re: noun phrases

[acelightning]

Well, remember I'm almost 70 years old, so I've had plenty of time to do lots of things (and I plan to do a lot more!). But thank you! gingicat recently nicknamed me "The Unsinkable Ace Lightning" :-)

I've explained this in a number of contexts, but my main "super-power" seems to be what psychiatrists and psychologists call "resilience" and other doctors and carers (and survival experts) call "positive mental attitude". It is learnable, but I don't think I learned it - I think it's factory-installed. (I also don't give up easily, but that may have been learned.)

And I like your icon :-)

[redbird]

Related to that: real women have skin with pores. Those literally impossible magazine pictures of models we're asked to compare ourselves to aren't real.

[sabotabby]

I used to find things like "real women have curves" inspiring until I realized that it was just another way to divide women.

[johnpalmer]

Um. Yes, it is another way to divide women, especially if it's a matter of "see, I'm better than little miss skinny over there". But the idea that there is beauty in curvaceous women, that one can be proud of one's sexy body, even if it's not matching a figure Madison Avenue pushes, is a good one. It'd be a shame if the notion went away entirely, if there was no replacement for it.

"Real women..." is a bad formulation *especially* because of the descriptiveness of it... "real women have curves" does come across as stealing "real womanhood" from the non-curvy. And yet, as I think of this, I also think of the ludicrousness of complaints about "Black Lives Matter" - a statement that takes a special kind of nasty, or a special kind of stupid, to suggest is exclusive.

"Curvaceous women are beautiful" works, though it's a bit high falutin and a bit of a mouthful.

Sigh. I'm hampered. I confess, I like a woman with curves; but I also realize that what's wonderful about bodies is that they're the physical link to wonderful, beautiful, amazing, and interesting *people* who aren't defined by their body - and yet, that link is all we have, and it deserves to be cherished.

My point is... uh... damn. I hope I don't have to have a point!

Paradigms don't change that fast

[amaebi]

You do in fact spend a wonderful amount of time and effort on creation, the making of a saner and more gracious world. Thank you so much.

And all that tear-other-down-to-build-yourself-up stuff is constantly, pervasively finessed on us. As is interaction as battle.

Let us garden together-- for beauty and fruit and interactive order now, and for sustainable thriving for the years to come.

[amaebi]

I really want to see that drawing. :)

[minoanmiss]

Once I get my scanner/printer back online! I really want to dra her too. :)

[lettersfromeleanorrigby]

I am reading Rebecca Solnit's series of essays called "Hope in the Dark," and she talks about this, what it means to be hopeful/positive-- that hope isn't unfounded optimism or pessimism, but just saying that things could change and we have an obligation to be realistic and do our best in the meantime and not kill ourselves over some lack of perfection.

It's a great bolster to my spirit.

[jadelennox]

I've been thinking about this as well. (And have had the same complicated feelings about curves and body positivity.) I've been thinking about it in the terms of the debates about the toxicity children's and YA lit community, where people lifting up diverse voices have done an immense amount of good in a very short time, but there's a balance between appropriately calling out what needs to be called out and creating an awful cesspool of purity culture, and twitter & mailing lists are not good at nuance or bringing out the best in people.

(The US's most prominent academic childlit mailing list just got unceremoniously shuttered because the maintainer decided he deserved cookies for being a Good White Person. All the signal boosting of the Internet makes it so the only voices people hear in childlit online are "Any Problematic Statement Makes You Satan Never To Be Forgiven" (twitter) and "Stop Being Mean And Give White People Kudos For Trying Because You're the Real Racist." (mailing lists) And nobody signal boosts the voices that are "This Book / Author / Publisher / Reviewer is Awesome and Here Is Why". It's an outrage economy and too little about looking for the helpers.)