#to see someone depicting the impact of fat hatred on them

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Can you say more about your thoughts on the anti-hero video? I feel that the whole thing is much more nuanced than either "side" is making it out to be and your tags make me want your take!

Anon: This is just to say that I absolutely agree with your thoughts on the Anti-hero video. It's been bothering me, and is a good example of the discomfort I have felt in certain aspects of online criticism in recent times.

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I've been thinking about Taylor a lot with her tour and so really wanted to come back to this question that I have a lot of thought of.

I should start by saying that I have only seen the most high level mainstream summary of the criticism of the video. For example: "[Taylor] made a choice to explicitly name her demon, the fear of being called fat, which is fatphobia in its most literal sense” or "Taylor Swift’s music video, where she looks down at the scale where it says “fat,” is a shitty way to describe her body image struggles. Fat people don’t need to have it reiterated yet again that it’s everyone’s worst nightmare to look like us." Both those statements absolutely fill me with rage, both because I think they're wrong about what the problem is about how the world works, and because I think they're even more wrong about how to change it.

My read on that scene was that it was a very real, if obvious point, about the messages she got about her body as a person and a performer. It was an artistic depiction of a common experience. I don't think anyone who was criticising was denying that there was something fundamentally accurate about what she was depicting. It was just that they thought she shouldn't depict it.

My disagreement is basically two fold - one is experiential and one is analytical. The experiential part is that I know what happens when women who live in our society feel unable to articulate their actual feelings around fat.

In my late 20s, I was part of an activist scene that had enough of a feminist understanding that people didn't talk about fear of being fat, but not a culture of actual liberatory fat politics. What this mean was that all the feelings that would have been expressed somewhat directly in another context - were filtered through the language of 'health'. Just making some things unacceptable to say hadn't changed the politics around it and hadn't changed the way anyone felt. Instead it just meant that the orthorexia talk went up to 11 - and it was even harder to address what anyone meant. Making the language that actually had meaning to people unacceptable made it harder for people to heal and harder for people to fight collectively.

And as one of the fattest people on this scene, it also didn't make me feel any more welcome or acceptable, it didn't feel like an act of solidarity. I always knew what people meant.

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From an analysis point of view - I think I just fundamentally disagree with the people who criticised Taylor's video about how fat hatred works in society. One of the things that I struggle with in the current moment is a version of analysis that maps one form of oppression onto each other. And one of the starting points is that there is a group that is oppressed and a group that's not oppressed.

I've never thought that's how it works in our society. I remember reading a very early version of a thin privilege checklist (I also hate privilege checklists, but that's a story for another day) in like 2005 that listed things like:

You don’t receive suggestions from your friends and family to join Weight Watchers or any other weight-loss program.

You can eat what you want, when you want in public and not have others judge you for it or make assumptions about your eating habits.

And just thinking - how do these people think the world works - do they really think it's possible for women to be thin enough to avoid this sort of policing?

There are many elements to fat hatred and the way it functions in society - but one important strand is as a way of disciplining and controlling everyone, but particular women. In this thread of fat hatred, fatness isn't a function of absolute body size, but falling outside what is acceptable in a particular context. (I do think there are elements of the way fat hatred - systems of oppression are complicated)

I have never met a woman so thin that I was able to assume that she didn't grow up being told that she was too fat by her mother and other female relatives. As well as this social element to what fat is - I absolutely think the same is true at work. I am absolutely sure there are waitresses, actresses, clothing retail workers, and people who work in the fashion industry as a whole, who are a fraction of my weight, but have not just had to deal with more fat hatred, but more material consequences in their employment for their size than I have. (And of course I can't know, but I think it's likely that my size has contributed to me not getting jobs).

So it doesn't make any sense to me to act as if you can draw a line around people based on body size and say - these people are affected by fatphobia and these people aren't.

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My third disagreement is basically the question of how we create change. One of my big criticisms of the fat acceptance movement in general is that it's incredibly individualistic. There's this huge emphasis on how people feel about their bodies as individuals - and I don't think think it matters so much. The idea that the problem is an individual woman being afraid of being called fat, as opposed to the structures of society that made her feel that way - is just completely fucking alien to my politics and makes me want to rage.

I do think there's a important discussion to be had about how to act in solidarity with each other - and that means not casually reproducing fucked up ideas in the lunchroom every work day. But I think it's incredibly important that there's space for people to make art that honestly depicts how oppression structures our life. We don't change the world, by having a problem with art that depicts how it is at the moment.

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Perception of Modern Alpha Male

Perception of Modern Alpha Male

Alpha, this term has become such a craze for most of the men of this digital era with numerous image consultants, influencers and fitness professionals ruling the internet with their own brands and creating multiple franchises under their banner. But how far is this Alpha different from the conventional meaning of a mad and angry man who overpowers his women on numerous occasions? Has the term evolved according to the modern thoughts of equality and created the quality of self-criticism? The answers are fifty-fifty for both the questions and here is why. The men of today still lack the tendency to accept criticism and definitely lack the mentality to accept women as an equal half of this society. Instead of talking about wage gaps and stereotypes, let me give you two practical examples based on real events.

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