Hi friend,
As the body positivity and fat acceptance movements spread, lots of folks are dipping their toes for the first time into advocacy and activism. This is wonderful! We need every single voice to help change our fat-hating and racist culture.
I'm combining two similar questions today (lightly edited for anonymity and clarity):
Reader H. asks, "How would you stand firm in your words if someone told you fat oppression doesn’t exist?"
And reader K. writes, "I've been learning just over the past year about how to advocate better for people living in bigger bodies, how to have healthy discussions about intuitive eating and fat liberation, and how to approach situations like this with appropriate boundaries and knowledge.
As you well know, social interactions are already quite intimidating and hard sometimes being neurodivergent, but it's even harder when you're still learning and vowing to be a good ally and do your part in dismantling fatphobia and diet culture.
I saw an average sized woman, calling herself overweight (which is already an UGH word) and claiming that weight loss through her dieting would somehow cure her health issues. She was speaking about her current diet and I jumped in with the effort to encourage her against dieting, claiming that her overall health wasn't solely dependant on her weight, and she shouldn't deprive herself. She didn't care to hear what I had to say.
My only intent was to let her know that it was SOCIETY'S ingrained ideals for her, and that the medical practices make profit off the oppression of fat people and women/folx that have this inherent belief that they need to shrink or do the next diet fad to attain happiness and health.
I simply wanted her to know that she was worthy as she was, that her body was good enough, and she deserved to take up whatever space her body called for. So since reading this email of yours, I'm wondering if a different response/approach on my part would have been more beneficial or allowed for better reception on her part.
Was I unintentionally dismissing her feelings about her body? (Granted she was a complete stranger to me) Was I dismissing the greater scale of impact for folx in bigger bodies when I claimed that her weight wasn't the problem?"
Just like the advice that's given to writers of "write what you know," a lot of folks who are newly involved and enthused start with activism where they see problems around them -- but then feel like they're running into brick walls.
Here's the bad news: Ultimately, you can't change hearts and minds that don't want to change.
Just like you probably don't want a stranger or acquaintance trying to recruit you into their multi-level marketing business or convert you to their religion, those strangers and acquaintances probably aren't interested in your take on bodies, no matter how right you may be. And body acceptance is a new, intimidating concept for a lot of people.
(As is, alas, not hating and fearing fatness and fat people.)
Here's what change requires.
