Tankini top and bottom: Swimsuits for All, sunglasses: Sweet and Lovely
Outfit August, day 21: the queen of green
Outfit August, day 20, part 2: pretty in punk
For the evening of my birthday, I went to a party held by my friend Emily, who was visiting from out of town. I went full-out girly-punk both in celebration of my birthday and because I knew that Emily, as a fellow punk-clothing-lover, would appreciate it.
Dress: ASOS Curve, top: Tripp via a blogger who was selling clothes on StoreEnvy, socks: Domino Dollhouse, shoes: L.L. Bean, purse: really old–probably from Claire’s, giant bow: the Velvet Village, necklace: Kuma Crafts, earrings: Lithia’s Creations, spike bracelet: So Good, studded bracelet: Macy’s
Outfit August, day 20, part 1: peacocky
This is what I wore during the day on my birthday. 🙂
Dress: Yours Clothing, shoes: Clarks, necklace and earrings: So Good, fascinator: present from Steve’s mom
Important.
Lyrics, from Rafeef Ziadah’s poem “We Teach Life, Sir,” are here.
The Fat Activism Conference
This past weekend was the Fat Activism Conference! I haven’t actually listened to the recordings yet, since I was pretty busy over the weekend, but I’m excited to listen to them soon.
If you didn’t register before the conference but wish you had, it’s not too late–registration is open until this Wednesday, August 27th. It includes access to all of the recordings, electronic copies of all handouts, and access to the Virtual Goody Bag of special offers for conference registrants.
Sunday links, 8/24/14
My kitty friend Napoleon, all curled up in a ball of adorable. 🙂
Fa(t)shion
-Marie did a fascinating experiment in which she dressed in different subcultural styles and observed other people’s reactions.
–Awesome resources for masculine-of-center beauty.
-I’m so excited that Valerie of the Tiny Hobo is starting a clothing line! You can contribute to her Kickstarter campaign here.
–Photo essay: Malaysian Muslim women with and without their hijabs.
–Major hat-spiration.
Fat Acceptance
–My fat body is not weak.
-Anna takes down a Yoga Journal article that’s supposedly about loving your curves, but is actually about hiding them.
-The Association for Size Diversity and Health will be having a conference in Boston next year.
-Help Pudge PDX make their body-positive plus size pin-up calendar!
–If our fat is our fault…
-Reflections on being fat and girly.
-If you want to explore food justice and environmental sustainability from a HAES perspective, check out this Facebook group.
–The new Scooby Doo movie is full of fat-shaming, sigh.
I am madly, madly in love with this music video, and I’ve had the song stuck in my head all week. If you want to help Gaymous make “the fat queer pervy dance EP of your dreams,” check out their IndieGoGo campaign!
#Ferguson
–Reparations for Ferguson.
–Ferguson solidarity: ways to support the fight. Also, consider attending the “Black Life Matters” Ride in Ferguson next week, signal-boosting if you can’t go, and donating to help make it possible.
-Major badass alert: Hedy Epstein, a Holocaust survivor who was arrested while protesting in solidarity with Ferguson.
–What would real economic justice look like in Ferguson?
–Why the climate movement must stand with Ferguson.
–Ferguson and patience for the appalled.
–Dispatches from Ferguson.
–Palestinians and Ferguson protesters link arms via social media. Continue reading
Another thing I’m sick of: blaming fat women for our lack of clothing options
Give me the pretties, pleeeeease.
While I’m on a roll of ranting about things that piss me off, here’s another one: the recent trend of blaming the lack of plus size clothing options on the supposed buying habits of plus size customers. This piece in TIME, and this one on Fashionista are two examples, and they make me so viscerally angry that it’s hard to respond articulately–but I’ll try.
“[R]eal change for plus-size fashion will come when customers make more conscious purchasing decisions,” claims the TIME piece. Hahahahaha, no. Real change will come when companies realize that fat women are people and start making clothes in our size. It’s kind of ridiculous to insist that fat women’s shopping choices must be the issue, when our whole problem is that we don’t have enough options to choose from in the first place.
In the Fashionista article, a blogger named Sarah Conley claims that plus size women are unwilling to buy higher-priced items. I’ve seen this claim so many times, and it annoys the shit out of me for a bunch of reasons:
1.) How can retailers know that plus size women won’t buy higher-priced items if they almost never offer them? It’s like giving a group of people a choice between peanut butter sandwiches and spaghetti with meatballs, and then claiming that group has no interest in filet mignon.
2.) Plus size clothing already tends to cost more than straight size clothing. Women who wear straight sizes may be more likely to invest in the occasional expensive, high-quality statement piece because they can get the rest of their wardrobe cheaply; women who wear plus sizes have far fewer truly cheap options. A lot of plus size clothing (I’m looking at you, Torrid) is both pricey and low-quality. And most stores that sell both straight and plus sizes charge more for the latter, even though the cost of the extra fabric is negligible.
In addition, plus size women often have to pay more to find bras in our size. I’m lucky that the Playtex 18-hour bra fits me comfortably and is super-cheap on Amazon, but most fat women I know spend ridiculous amounts of money to get bras that fit, while big-box stores and department stores are full of cute, cheap bras in smaller sizes.
3.) Fat people, especially fat women, face workplace discrimination–so we make less money and therefore have less to spend in the first place.
4.) Even if it’s true that fat women genuinely have no interest in high-end designer pieces, that doesn’t explain the lack of affordable options in our size range. Continue reading
I’m SO SICK of fat-shaming within the environmental movement.
I know I’ve written about this a bunch of times before, and I don’t really have any new scintillating analysis. I’m just pissed off.
In the past week, I’ve seen the following headlines from the two major environmental blogs I read: Lose weight faster with the transit diet (Treehugger) and Just living close to Walmart makes you fat (Grist).
I’m so, so sick of environmentalists using fat bodies as a shorthand for everything that’s wrong with the capitalist, earth-destroying, people-destroying system we live in. I’m so sick of seeing people who care deeply about the same things I do treating bodies like mine as a symptom (or sometimes even a cause) of everything that’s wrong with the world.
There have always been fat people–since long before cars, suburban sprawl, or WalMart were invented–and there always will be. There are fat people who live in cities and get around by walking and public transit (ahem…*raises hand*). There are thin people who live in exurbs and drive everywhere. Fatness is neither a moral failing nor a metaphor for the ills of late capitalism.
Critique the system, not people’s bodies.
Promote good urban design and walkability on their own merits, not by scaring people with the threat of–gasp!–becoming fat, as if fatness is some terrible thing.
Let me tell you, it isn’t.
I can’t even begin to describe how frustrated I am, how long I’ve watched sizeism crop up time and time again among people who can critique almost any other kind of oppression.
I wish I could shake the entire environmental movement and somehow get it through their heads: all bodies are good bodies. “Obesity” is not a disease. Weight =! health. Fat people don’t consume more resources than anyone else. Our bodies aren’t a symptom or a metaphor–they’re just our bodies. Fat people belong in the environmental movement too, and we’re sick of being treated as victims, oppressors, or scapegoats rather than comrades.
We can hear what you’re saying about us, and we’re sick of it. We’re especially sick of it because we can see what’s happening to our planet and its people, and it makes us heartsick and terrified. We’re fighting like hell against the forces of greed and destruction, and for a vision of a better world.
We’re fighting alongside you–and instead of solidarity, we find our bodies used as punchlines.
I’m here to say: enough. We demand respect. We demand that you acknowledge our full humanity, nothing less.
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Tutus And Tiny Hats 