Okay. To “clear this up real quick” if multiple people are all having the same issues with your post, you probably were in fact being offensive. It’s nice that you weren’t intending to be, but it would be nicer if you stopped justifying and just…apologized. Or listened. Or didn’t say anything and just made an effort to word things better in the future. The point of what I said before is that — standing alone, because that’s how all posts on Tumblr stand — the post links weight and health, and it also makes being fat something to fear. You’re defending to me the fact that thin insecure people need to be told that they aren’t overweight — the message isn’t that they are wonderful the way they are but that they LACK a hateable quality. All that does is make being fat something off in the distance to avoid. Don’t worry, you’re not fat! Not, “so what, you have rolls, so does everyone”. Of COURSE “even” thin people are insecure, but it’s immensely privileged and fatphobic to tell thin people they don’t have to be insecure about BECOMING fat. If that’s something worth saying what the hell are fat people supposed to do? You say that you don’t believe that all larger people are unhealthy. Yet a sentence later you mention that SOMETIMES obesity can be unhealthy (which presumably is a justification for having mentioned so much that ‘you’re healthy!’ in the post). Sure, sometimes obese people can be unhealthy, and sometimes thin people can be. It isn’t relevant to rolls. You also haven’t grasped my problem with that entire discussion, which is that health is not a good metric to tell someone to cheer up about. Unhealthy people are valid people. If someone is obese and has diabetes, for example, they have not failed as a person and are still worthy of love and care by themselves and others, any more than an amputee or a cancer patient or someone with depression. Do you congratulate your friends that they haven’t been hospitalized recently? No? Then let’s get away from judging healthy thin people vs healthy fat people vs unhealthy fat people. Also, no. It wouldn’t be considered thin shaming if thin people were left out. For one thing, thin people carry privilege that fat people do not. For another thing, if this were a post about how everyone has rolls and fat people don’t have to look smooth and hourglassy, thin people wouldn’t be relevant to the discussion. If it were a post about how …everyone has visible ribs sometimes and you don’t have to worry, you’re not getting underweight??… I guess it would be a little thin shaming but that’s NOT WHAT THIS DISCUSSION IS ABOUT.
Zoom Info
Okay. To “clear this up real quick” if multiple people are all having the same issues with your post, you probably were in fact being offensive. It’s nice that you weren’t intending to be, but it would be nicer if you stopped justifying and just…apologized. Or listened. Or didn’t say anything and just made an effort to word things better in the future. The point of what I said before is that — standing alone, because that’s how all posts on Tumblr stand — the post links weight and health, and it also makes being fat something to fear. You’re defending to me the fact that thin insecure people need to be told that they aren’t overweight — the message isn’t that they are wonderful the way they are but that they LACK a hateable quality. All that does is make being fat something off in the distance to avoid. Don’t worry, you’re not fat! Not, “so what, you have rolls, so does everyone”. Of COURSE “even” thin people are insecure, but it’s immensely privileged and fatphobic to tell thin people they don’t have to be insecure about BECOMING fat. If that’s something worth saying what the hell are fat people supposed to do? You say that you don’t believe that all larger people are unhealthy. Yet a sentence later you mention that SOMETIMES obesity can be unhealthy (which presumably is a justification for having mentioned so much that ‘you’re healthy!’ in the post). Sure, sometimes obese people can be unhealthy, and sometimes thin people can be. It isn’t relevant to rolls. You also haven’t grasped my problem with that entire discussion, which is that health is not a good metric to tell someone to cheer up about. Unhealthy people are valid people. If someone is obese and has diabetes, for example, they have not failed as a person and are still worthy of love and care by themselves and others, any more than an amputee or a cancer patient or someone with depression. Do you congratulate your friends that they haven’t been hospitalized recently? No? Then let’s get away from judging healthy thin people vs healthy fat people vs unhealthy fat people. Also, no. It wouldn’t be considered thin shaming if thin people were left out. For one thing, thin people carry privilege that fat people do not. For another thing, if this were a post about how everyone has rolls and fat people don’t have to look smooth and hourglassy, thin people wouldn’t be relevant to the discussion. If it were a post about how …everyone has visible ribs sometimes and you don’t have to worry, you’re not getting underweight??… I guess it would be a little thin shaming but that’s NOT WHAT THIS DISCUSSION IS ABOUT.
Zoom Info
Okay. To “clear this up real quick” if multiple people are all having the same issues with your post, you probably were in fact being offensive. It’s nice that you weren’t intending to be, but it would be nicer if you stopped justifying and just…apologized. Or listened. Or didn’t say anything and just made an effort to word things better in the future. The point of what I said before is that — standing alone, because that’s how all posts on Tumblr stand — the post links weight and health, and it also makes being fat something to fear. You’re defending to me the fact that thin insecure people need to be told that they aren’t overweight — the message isn’t that they are wonderful the way they are but that they LACK a hateable quality. All that does is make being fat something off in the distance to avoid. Don’t worry, you’re not fat! Not, “so what, you have rolls, so does everyone”. Of COURSE “even” thin people are insecure, but it’s immensely privileged and fatphobic to tell thin people they don’t have to be insecure about BECOMING fat. If that’s something worth saying what the hell are fat people supposed to do? You say that you don’t believe that all larger people are unhealthy. Yet a sentence later you mention that SOMETIMES obesity can be unhealthy (which presumably is a justification for having mentioned so much that ‘you’re healthy!’ in the post). Sure, sometimes obese people can be unhealthy, and sometimes thin people can be. It isn’t relevant to rolls. You also haven’t grasped my problem with that entire discussion, which is that health is not a good metric to tell someone to cheer up about. Unhealthy people are valid people. If someone is obese and has diabetes, for example, they have not failed as a person and are still worthy of love and care by themselves and others, any more than an amputee or a cancer patient or someone with depression. Do you congratulate your friends that they haven’t been hospitalized recently? No? Then let’s get away from judging healthy thin people vs healthy fat people vs unhealthy fat people. Also, no. It wouldn’t be considered thin shaming if thin people were left out. For one thing, thin people carry privilege that fat people do not. For another thing, if this were a post about how everyone has rolls and fat people don’t have to look smooth and hourglassy, thin people wouldn’t be relevant to the discussion. If it were a post about how …everyone has visible ribs sometimes and you don’t have to worry, you’re not getting underweight??… I guess it would be a little thin shaming but that’s NOT WHAT THIS DISCUSSION IS ABOUT.
Zoom Info

Okay. To “clear this up real quick” if multiple people are all having the same issues with your post, you probably were in fact being offensive. It’s nice that you weren’t intending to be, but it would be nicer if you stopped justifying and just…apologized. Or listened. Or didn’t say anything and just made an effort to word things better in the future.

The point of what I said before is that — standing alone, because that’s how all posts on Tumblr stand — the post links weight and health, and it also makes being fat something to fear. You’re defending to me the fact that thin insecure people need to be told that they aren’t overweight — the message isn’t that they are wonderful the way they are but that they LACK a hateable quality. All that does is make being fat something off in the distance to avoid. Don’t worry, you’re not fat! Not, “so what, you have rolls, so does everyone”. Of COURSE “even” thin people are insecure, but it’s immensely privileged and fatphobic to tell thin people they don’t have to be insecure about BECOMING fat. If that’s something worth saying what the hell are fat people supposed to do?

You say that you don’t believe that all larger people are unhealthy. Yet a sentence later you mention that SOMETIMES obesity can be unhealthy (which presumably is a justification for having mentioned so much that ‘you’re healthy!’ in the post). Sure, sometimes obese people can be unhealthy, and sometimes thin people can be. It isn’t relevant to rolls.

You also haven’t grasped my problem with that entire discussion, which is that health is not a good metric to tell someone to cheer up about. Unhealthy people are valid people. If someone is obese and has diabetes, for example, they have not failed as a person and are still worthy of love and care by themselves and others, any more than an amputee or a cancer patient or someone with depression. Do you congratulate your friends that they haven’t been hospitalized recently? No? Then let’s get away from judging healthy thin people vs healthy fat people vs unhealthy fat people.

Also, no. It wouldn’t be considered thin shaming if thin people were left out. For one thing, thin people carry privilege that fat people do not. For another thing, if this were a post about how everyone has rolls and fat people don’t have to look smooth and hourglassy, thin people wouldn’t be relevant to the discussion. If it were a post about how …everyone has visible ribs sometimes and you don’t have to worry, you’re not getting underweight??… I guess it would be a little thin shaming but that’s NOT WHAT THIS DISCUSSION IS ABOUT.

littlemisslillykat: dinobearthemighty: ‘Just because I love my body doesn’t mean I’m not trans. Stop gender policing.’  Only tiny part of my self-portrait shoot for Photo II. © 2013 Dino RowanRemove credit and I’ll send the dinosaurs after you.  THIS^^^^^ <3! Yeah, it’s fine to be trans or trans* spectrum and to not be happy with “everyone should love their body” sentiments, but I definitely don’t like the hundred or so times I’ve seen it phrased as though all trans people are the same and have the same story. Not inclusive and not accurate.  For that matter, and granted I fall a little outside the trans community as an agender person, but I have way more shame and self-doubt about NOT having dysphoria than I do on the (much rarer) occasions that I just wish all my sex markers would go away, precisely because of things like that. 
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littlemisslillykat:

dinobearthemighty:

‘Just because I love my body doesn’t mean I’m not trans. Stop gender policing.’ 

Only tiny part of my self-portrait shoot for Photo II.

© 2013 Dino Rowan
Remove credit and I’ll send the dinosaurs after you. 

THIS^^^^^

<3! Yeah, it’s fine to be trans or trans* spectrum and to not be happy with “everyone should love their body” sentiments, but I definitely don’t like the hundred or so times I’ve seen it phrased as though all trans people are the same and have the same story. Not inclusive and not accurate. 

For that matter, and granted I fall a little outside the trans community as an agender person, but I have way more shame and self-doubt about NOT having dysphoria than I do on the (much rarer) occasions that I just wish all my sex markers would go away, precisely because of things like that. 

(via sparkz-achive)

Source: dinobearthemighty

Having two cisgendered women slap moustaches on themselves and pretend to be trans women, posits that trans women are not really women. No trans woman would present themselves post transition this way…

lol because I can’t even read an article criticizing a celebrity’s use of transmisogynistic slurs and imagery without basically being told I’m not really a trans woman because I choose to have facial hair/don’t believe that “transitioning” (whatever that means) is something I personally need in order to be a trans woman. (via sixtyforty)

Ugggh just came across something really similarly posted by a trans person on tumblr. Can we please talk about why transmisogynistic tropes are fucked up without claiming that the sole reason they’re fucked up is because “OMG no trans women look like this!  ~real trans women~ look like this! *insert picture of jenna talackova*”  And instead acknowledge that it’s fucked up because it dehumanizes all trans women but especially women who don’t look like fucking jenna talackova?

(via boyqueen)

If you are somebody who thinks the criteria for being a “real” woman are those evidenced by a beauty pageant queen then I want you to never speak to any of the ladies I know, trans and cis alike. 

And on a shallow personal note I think ladies with facial hair are gorgeous as hell. 

(via sharpestrose)

Yeah, having two cisgendered women slap moustaches on themselves and pretend to be trans women is fucked up for a lot of reasons, none of which is that a trans woman wouldn’t have a moustache. 

Trans women, like everyone, can look any damn way they please and not a single decision makes their womanhood less legitimate. The thing you’re critiquing is transphobic, but so are you for doing it this way. 

(via sharpestrose)

Source: sixtyforty

Weightlifter Sarah Robles is an incredible athlete, but outside the world of squats and snatches, barely anyone knows her name. And even though she’s the U.S.’s best chance at an Olympic medal, she’ll never get the fame or fortune that come so easily to her fellow athletes — in part because, at 5 feet, 10.5 inches and 275 pounds, she doesn’t fit the ideal of thin, toned athletic beauty. - Jessica Testa

The Strongest Woman In America Lives In Poverty

Sarah Robles is ranked higher than any other American weightlifter, male or female. She’s the best hope the U.S. has at an Olympic medal in the sport — but she struggles to pay her rent.

(this quote from Sarah kind of breaks my heart: ““I still have bad thoughts about myself, but I’ve learned that you have to love yourself the way you are,” Robles says. “I may look like this, but I’m in the Olympics because of the way I am.”)

this is why the cult of amateur athletics in the Olympics really pisses me off. because people like this woman, who aren’t in the “sexy” sports, are left to struggle in obscurity and poverty. No, she wouldn’t make the same kind of money as an NBA star even if she were a “pro”, but for fuck’s sake, until we’re guaranteeing everyone an income they can live comfortably on, let’s stop pretending that these people, on whom a giant industry that makes some people very rich is built, shouldn’t get paid out of some sense of misguided purity. 

(via champagnecandy)

actually, boxing and wrestling are the only two sports in which amateurism is required to qualify (otherwise you couldn’t have famous basketball players - lebron james, kevin durant - playing on the team). that said, there is still an enormous amount of lip service to it.

in either case though, sponsorships are a huge part of the game, and sports seen as more socially acceptable, beautiful and powerful without being challenging are going to do better. i feel terrible that this awesome woman feels shitty about herself, and even worse that she’s not even doing well financially despite supposedly being a “hero” for representing our country. we get so patriotic about these things, but we pressure and overwork our athletes and then don’t actually celebrate them (which is true in every country, for that matter).

(via blasfemme)

Source: fresafresca

The Size Issue: Body Positivity Fail: Tess Munster and SWAK

thesizeissue:

So I was super excited when I saw that Tess Munster had styled an editorial and been interviewed by SWAK, not just because she’s super present on Tumblr, but also because I’ve loved her style in lots of other shoots, primarily for Domino Dollhouse. She’s a model in the larger ranges, rather than…

I wrote an article on my side blog about my incredible disappointment in Tess Munster’s recent SWAK editorial and the body (particularly tummy!) shaming language and assumptions that got used in it. Check it out!

Birth Pools seized by the FDA in Portland

fuckmemilo:

glitterpaws:

Pregnancy is not an illness and birth is not a medical procedure. 

Water birth centers and water births themselves are some of the most therapeutic and safe ways of giving birth. It makes me so angry to read this article, to think that the FDA is stripping that experience away from pregnant people, their children and their families.

o hay patriarchy. 

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?

From the article:

“They claim they are unregistered medical equipment, but they are not providing a way or means to get them registered. In other words, if the medical authorities can’t stop waterbirth, then just have the FDA take away the birth pools,” she explains in a lengthy discussion that began yesterday.

and also:

Martha and Barbara need help – specifically, a high profile attorney and support from any midwives who were practicing waterbirth before 1978.

“If you know of anyone practicing waterbirth prior to 1978, please let them know we could use their help,” Martha pleads.  That would be the only way to establish birth pools as eligible to be grandfathered in.  Also, “We need a high profile attorney to highlight the ludicrous nature of this attempt at taking away women’s choices for comfort in labour,” explains Barbara.

SIGNAL BOOST.

(Like, if the FDA was insisting some kind of paramedic or licensed medical professional like an RN or CNA or whatever be there in case of emergency, I might understand that, but this is insane. “Pregnancy is an illness.” Interesting, we don’t seem to agree that ending it is acceptable either.)

(via sexstainability)

Source: revenge-of-the-witches

attractiveness is not indicative of human worth but evaluations of same can certainly be indicative of human terribleness

glamaphonic:

So today Hunger Games fandom on Tumblr spent enough time explaining how handsome & dashing was antithetical to black guy with an afro that I had to go take a walk before I completely flipped out on somebody.

Then I come back only to find Tumblr now explaining how Mercedes on Glee could never get it with Sam on Glee because ~*~SOMEONE LIKE HER~*~ could never land ~*~SOMEONE LIKE HIM~*~ in real life.

So, now, you get to see me flip out anyway.

I’m going to ignore the basic empirical inaccuracy of that statement because as “someone like her” who knows many other “someone[s] like her” I really don’t have the patience to calmly explain to you the SHOCKING and UNHEARD OF fact that we do, in fact, receive romantic/sexual attention. (YES! I know. TV never explained that to you because we were too busy being sassy and focusing on our careers/families, but I assure you it is true. And some of this attention, okay, are you sitting down? Get this: it is, in fact, from “someone[s] like him.”)

Instead, I’m going to explain something else, and normally I would go YMMV and leave it there. But I’mma lay this down anyway because even in defenses and call out posts I keep seeing people assuming some things are objective truth when they most certainly are not.

This:

This right here?^

This is a 100% unexceptional, could not be bothered to turn your head and look at him on the street, bland as fuck, blond, white boy completely indistinguishable from 9000 other bland, blond white boys in Hollywood who look just like him because that’s what’s IN at any given time, and there are few things in the entire world, I feel, more illustrative of what media trains us to value than the facts that: 

1) there are people legitimately seriously arguing that Amber Riley is somehow aesthetically unworthy of the physical perfection that is completely forgettable human simulacrum “Chord” “Overstreet” 

AND 

2) even in a large portion of arguments against the idea of this as an unrealistic relationship people are discussing the Sam character’s ability to look past the physical as a rationalization for how it would happen

are you fucking kidding me with this bullshit

Actually, forget I asked that because I know you’re not.

So, I’m going to say it slow and mostly with small words in case someone is missing what I’m getting at:

The only reason that people think that Mercedes could not “realistically” hook up with Sam

is because

she is black and fat

and he is white.

Not even white and attractive…

BUT white and exactly inoffensive enough for society’s deeply racist (sexist, ageist, etc.) standards to thus default him, as a young white man, into “objectively” hot — to make him the ideal. While Mercedes as a girl, both fat and black, is automatically held as a body of little to no worth or appeal.

This is all BULLSHIT. It is not objective. It is not fair. It is not a reflection of the real world. It is not just to be understood that, based purely on physical appearance, a guy who looks like him would not be interested in a girl who looks like her. It is nothing but racist, colonial, horrible, disgusting, offensive standards of worth and beauty and attractiveness being SPEWED everywhere by people who either don’t realize or don’t care how WARPED what they are saying is.

And this is not me telling you that you are not allowed to find Sam or the actor who portrays him attractive. If you’re into that, whatever, I really don’t give a fuck.

This is me telling you that if you think of him and Amber Riley and this somehow seems WILDLY UNREALISTIC because he is just too attractive to possibly want her (AND LORD KNOWS THERE IS NO REASON TO QUESTION WHETHER SHE WOULD WANT HIM AMIRITE?)… just sit the fuck down now because you’re ignorant and you’re wrong and no one wants to hear what you have to say until you stop polluting the world with the racist, sizeist garbage that is falling out of your brain.

The only thing I want to add to this (besides my outrage) is that while I don’t find Sam attractive, I think that it doesn’t matter if we agree or don’t agree on Sam’s blandness. Even if Chord Overstreet is like, the next Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp (or Andrew Garfield!) or whoever everyone is salivating over — even if he had girls THROWING themselves at him, he could and should think that Mercedes was the most beautiful girl in the world and that she had the most stunning badass personality and best voice. He might very well pursue her over anyone else in the world, and, presuming she also wanted him, they could have a great relationship.

I do think that there is a lot of sizist, racist bullshit going on here, however. I think regardless of WHO is talking they’re simply placing his relative beauty, no matter how high they think that ranks, above hers. Which is ridiculous because she’s goddamn beautiful.

amber riley looking STUNNING in a black floorlength mermaid gown

(I see the same sort of arguments about Lauren and Puck occasionally, but not as strongly probably, since there’s less intersectionality to Lauren. I am lucky enough to actually not have seen anti-Samcedes shit yet. Actually, most of what I’ve seen was the internet LOBBYING for Samcedes, so much so that when it happened I yelled “TUMBLR MADE THIS REAL!” But you know, we can never appreciate things unless we can’t have them.)

I also feel like this argument has a lot of self-internalized hatred going on along with its racist, sizist crap. Stop putting your selfhatred on other people. Stop BELIEVING bigger girls, or black girls, or whoever, can’t be with…whoever they want! Stop demanding that media feed you perfectly thin blonde cheerleader-jock couples EVEN ON A SHOW ABOUT OUTCASTS because you’ve been told that you are not good enough to be one of them.

Own up to your privilege, and to the biases you are living, and SHUT THE HELL UP.

(This reminds me so much of all the tabloid fodder about Arnold Schwarzenegger’s mistresses and how they’re not as “attractive” as Maria Shriver. There was an article on Jezebel.com, I believe, about how that nearly always happens to women in the media who someone famous has an affair with. I feel terrible for Ms. Shriver, but seriously? Someone can be attracted to someone regardless of age, appearance versus conventional stereotypes, weight, race, number of tattoos, whatever. THAT’S the part you find appalling?)

(via sharpestrose)

Source: glamaphonic

Women's Rights Petition: Tell Skechers to discontinue "Shape Ups For Girls" | Change.org

It has come to our attention that Skechers, the shoe company that has marketed the “Shape Up” sneakers as weight loss tools for women, has begun marketing “Skechers Shape Ups for Girls”. Ads for these shoes have run on networks such as Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network, and are clearly geared toward girls as young as pre-school age.

The commercial in question features a band of thin girls singing about their shoes, and being followed around by surly looking boys dressed like ice cream, burgers, and other “junk” foods. Women have plenty of time to be targeted for their weight throughout their lives. By not only marketing a shoe line to young girls, but also not even having an equivalent for boys, Skechers is sending  a clear message to girls and women: you’re never too young to start hating your body.

This is unacceptable.  Both in theory and practice, this product is offensive and potentially harmful to girls everywhere. Tell Skechers to let kids be kids, and stop body policing young girls!”