#even if logistically i understand where the ideas n ideology behind it comes from | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

latinokaeya-moving · 2 years ago

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semi related kinda actually. one of those super common fat stereotypes that didn’t really stick/make sense to me until i grew older was the idea of fat equaling weak or pathetic like. that’s a really common association right in both media and the average consciousness of ppl. but it was never something i learned to internalise as a kid bc a Lot of ppl in my family including myself had always been built big and broad and everyone was always just so physically strong??? like looking back not in an unnaturally impressive way or anything but just so many of them had been manual labourers in some way in colombia and then they came here to do cleaning and even though it might not seem it that’s Such a physically taxing job especially if you’re doing it for 12+ hours every day and like. the strength that built Showed in the roughhousing at home so clearly ?

like as little kids me and my brother would gang up on my grandma to play wrestle and she would sooo soundedly defeat us each time like she had such solid grip and weight behind her arms even as an old lady she was short but broad and Sturdy and physically strong!!! and my brother is huge and tall and Fat he was the biggest kid in secondary school i’m so sure and he could pick up and manhandle and throw other kids even older than him with ease. he played rugby with these fit lanky guys i knew in my year who would tell me that they would stay the Fuck away from him when they played bc they knew he was unmovable and Would slam them to the ground without breaking a sweat. hell he could right now pick me up and physically slam me on the ground if he really wanted to and im big! i’m heavy as hell! i weigh almost as much as he does!

so growing up surrounded by my family i just. kinda got used to associating fatness with physical strength as this obvious innate thing so when i sorta expanded my horizons n saw the way it was used in popular media as visual shorthand for like. laziness And Therefore weakness it was just very. unintelligible. it didn’t make sense to me at all. i didn’t get it lol

#x #i know it’s a double edged thing right. like fat r both weak/pathetic but also these huge intimidating monsters to the dainty thin ppl #but while the monstrous association w fatness was Very much instilled in me the weak part was Not At All. it’s possible that being nonwhite #affected that for me in some way but u know. whatever.#it’s just a really strange disconnect i still have w the way fatness is perceived and portrayed #a lot of stereotypes i like. know them and am aware of them and. not necessarily Understand them obviously but like. i have reasonable #common knowledge of them that i picked up as a kid right #but this is just one of those things that continues to be rlly jarring when i see it #even if logistically i understand where the ideas n ideology behind it comes from #weird right. it might be a kinda ‘cultural’ thing of like. valuing the look of ‘real physical strength’ / sturdiness as well i guess #but even in theae cultures there still feels like there’s a kind of Obvious divide between the perception of fat ppl as Strong vs as Weak #and it just wasn’t something i ever caught onto lol. i guess i was too in my own feelings about feeling monstrous/inhuman bc of my fatness ?#idk man. does anyone get what i’m saying please tell me i’m making sense sndksndjd

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