There isn't enough room for all this bullshit

HelloGiggle.com recently shared this photograph from selling website/app Wish, that were advertising a pair of plus size shorts:

Charming, huh?

As noted in the HG article this is an incredibly cruel way to advertise clothing. Naturally there's been some uproar over social media. Christina, of Interrobang art, who makes and sells clothing up to a 34, posted this fantastic response on her Instagram account

But this isn't the first time this sort of cruel marketing has been used. AliExpress were under scrutiny back in 2015 for using this image to sell plus size leggings

The Big Bloomers Company, a site dedicated to plus size underwear use this to advertise their plus size tights

Aye, you keep smiling it up Sally Small.

I don't doubt there are many more, these are just the ones I was able to find first. So what's the issue? 

In laymans terms it's disrespectful as fuck to use this sort of strategy to advertise plus size clothing. 

The photos are utterly ridiculous, verging on comical and circus-esque. "Look how HUGE this product is! You can fit a whole other person with room to spare!"

And that's the thing, isn't it? We don't see fat people as real people but rather bodies that can't be comprehended without using "normal" bodies for scale. You want to advertise plus size clothing, and demonstrate how big your products are? USE ACTUAL FAT PEOPLE. Use a diverse range of sizes to demonstrate the variety of sizing you offer. "Here's a body wearing a size 12, and here's the same product in a 32." It's NOT HARD. 

There are so many fat people out there who would offer their services. Look at how plus size brands have tapped into using bloggers to model for them. The sizes are out there: you just won't use them.

Frankly I am sick of companies humiliating fat people and in the next breath taking our money. If they aren't using micro-aggresive language like "flattering", "slimming" and other such crap to suggest our fat can, and should, be magically hidden then they are outright removing us from their brick and mortar stores. 

What is even the logic in this? Do they not think fat people are going to take one look at this and close the fucking tab? Bullying people does not a profit make. Too long have companies tapped into a person's low self esteem to sell you a product you don't need, for an imaginary issue you don't even have. But people need clothes. What we don't need is being made out to be circus freaks. 

New Year, Same Old Diet spiel: Is it time we ditched the tired tropes? Trigger warnings for diet talk.

“Every weight loss program, no matter how positively it’s packaged, whispers to you that you’re not right. You’re not good enough. You’re unacceptable and you need to be fixed.”

― Kim Brittingham, Read My Hips: How I Learned to Love My Body, Ditch Dieting, and Live Large

Fat acceptance and body positivity for some is a hard journey. For some it comes suddenly, for some it can be a life time of work. Discovering the body positive movement saved me. It saved me from the years of self-loathing, the decimation of my self-esteem, and helped me re-discover myself. But it also made me appreciate how complex body issues can be, especially as a fat person whose body is highly politicized and reviled by society.

Social media has provided a means for those in marginalised bodies to share and connect where mainstream media has deeply lacked. Navigating this can be a minefield, however.

Recently on my Instagram I found myself coming across many accounts using body positive tags, and importantly tags created by fat people, on weight loss posts and I’ll be honest, it got my heckles up.

It’s a hotly debated issue whether you can actively lose weight and claim to be body positive. I feel that the two are not mutually exclusive per se; you can advocate for people to be respected and loved regardless of size. But I draw the line at using fat positive tags for weight loss posts. I also resent how, when using said tags, there is then the use of health as justification for this.

Dieting, in of itself, is fatphobic. Despite scientificevidence that suggests long term weight loss is impossible for the majority it is still a practice that is actively encouraged. Why is this?

Many people explain that they are losing weight to be “healthier”. This is a fatphobic statement, suggesting that fatness equates to poor health. It is assumptive and wrong. Thinness does not equal health. You don’t need to lose weight to be “healthier”, nor do you need to lose weight to work on your fitness. There are plenty of fat people in the world who involved exercise and fitness regimes into their lifestyles. There is a difference between making healthy goals; i,e walking more, drinking more water, taking more supplements to "I want to be healthy so I will lose weight."

Health is different for every individual and there are many factors to consider, such as mental health and chronic illness. Using the size of your body as a framework for something as complex and individual as health is ill-considered.

Personally, if people want to lose weight, that is entirely their choice. But when you are actively participating in fat positive/body positive spaces I think you need to examine your reasons why you choose to participate in diet culture, a culture that actively oppresses fat people; a culture that is used to humiliate and degrade fat people and to eradicate fatness. Consider that assumptions about health in relation to fatness don’t come from nowhere and that we can all be influenced by a fatphobic society.

There's an increasing attitude within the BOPO/fat-posi movement that when people make criticisms of diet talk within these spaces they are somehow being “negative” or insensitive to other people’s personal journeys or lifestyle choices. Critiquing the content within our own movements is not negative, it’s necessary. We do not move and grow if we can’t examine our own contributions and the ideals we uphold. Weight loss may be a choice but it is unfair to ask these spaces to reassure people that they can stay comfortable in their “choice” to uphold fatphobic ideals.

It’s unfair to use fat positive media circles to promote yourself, while systematically upholding the idea that thinness is the standard for beauty and health.

She's A Beach: A Farewell To Summer.

That's it folks. All 5 days of it. /sarcasm.

Summer is over and with it the cooler nights drawing in quicker and leaves starting to tumble around us. Looking out of my window as I write this I see a grey sky and so I wanted to give a wistful farewell to summer. I felt this was also appropriate given a lot of negativity surrounding the plus size community with Nicole Arbour and recent let downs from Lane Bryant and Evans. 

This isn't a particularly ground breaking outfit but it was to me. This summer was the first time in my life that I wore a short skirt and my bare legs out. 

Fat girl with legs out; world falls into anarchy and chaos. Or not.

As someone who's pretty dang fat, and has been for most of her life, I can't tell you the fear that comes with baring your flesh. My tattoos have given me the confidence to bare my wobbly arms, and mostly because I loathe being too hot. But legs? My legs have always been a point of weakness for me. 

Strolling along that beach I almost felt angry at myself because the wind and the sun on my legs felt so amazing and I had denied myself it for so many years. But I had to remember that I'd also spent the majority of my twenty nine years being told that my body should be hidden, that it was disgusting to see, so how I felt had never really come into it. Turning your back on many years of learned, toxic self hatred takes time, so I let the disappointment pass and actually enjoyed how my body felt felt for once in my life. 

Sometimes you have to take a risk.

I'm glad I pushed myself out of my comfort zone. To know I can do this, that it's another step towards loving myself and not punishing myself for looking the way I do, as though I should be ashamed. 

Plus that sun feels damn good. 

Title schmitle.

Outing yourself as a feminist on social media often erupts a tsunami or eye-rolling from Facebook friends who hit the unfollow button faster than a speeding bullet. Coming into your own, politically speaking, can be a real eye-opening experience.

Facebook is a beast of its own and is quite unique in that, for some, there is a real sense of obligation to have people you can barely stand on your friends list, lest you look like some sort of mean bitch; the loathsome, boring co-worker, the cringe worthy family member, the old schoolmate who you barely spoke to back then and for some bizarre reason wants to add you some 10 years later. Luckily Facebook has a wonderful tool whereby you can hide these people from your feed and for some time you forget they actually exist until one fateful day they pop up on a status touting their less than desirable opinion on a controversial topic you have decided to share.

I’ve reached a point now, after a few online skirmishes and the words “man-hating feminazi” being thrown at me from former acquaintances that I’ve made a decision to cultivate my online spaces to incorporate only people I can actually be bothered to speak to. It’s not so much a question of people agreeing with me, far from it. I am always open to changing my opinion and I appreciate anyone who can present their argument in a thought-out way that gives me a new perspective. But I am loathed to deal with people who argue just for the sake of arguing.

So it’s always particularly jarring when I engage with friends on Facebook and their friends turn on you. It’s difficult because you want to tell them to go jump but you have to be respectful to your friend who, for some reason, keeps these people around.

I suppose the reason for this post is more for a show of solidarity to those who, for their own reasons, aren’t as ruthless as me when navigating their social media spaces. (I have dramatically culled family members when they have been less than thoughtful, no one is safe.) It’s difficult to be taken seriously when you are politically minded, and a strong minded woman at that. It’s difficult to express yourself politically without someone trying to undermine YOU, not your argument, because half the time they don’t actually get what you’re saying just that you have the audacity to say it. It’s difficult to not apologise for speaking out because we tend to start out sentences with “sorry but..”

The best thing I ever did was decided that I wasn’t going to let anybody undermine me. I wasn’t going to let anyone mock me. Bully me. Silence me.

I want you to challenge me. Support me. Inspire me. Enlighten me. 

But you will never bring me down.