Art, music, fashion, politics, and whatever else that interests me.
But you might not want to go to the beach because of the attitudes you will encounter there. And these attitudes? Are not about whether you personally are ‘beach ready.’ They are about the fact that you live in a shitty society filled with judgmental assholes who apparently think they can decide whether you have a ‘beach body.’ And I wish I could make all those assholes go away so you could enjoy the beach in peace, I really, really do. I wish I could remove all the obstacles that make it hard for you to get to the beach and have a fun time while you’re there, whether you can’t even get ON to the beach because it’s not wheelchair-accessible or you don’t really feel like being snickered at by people when they walk past your towel and cough ‘whale’ into their fists.
Read this!
This article was submitted to me by somethinglikeagnome, and it is rife with internalized misogyny. The main premise of the article? Women shouldn’t get tattoos because men might find them unattractive.
Yeah.
It’s 2012, and we still have women telling other women that they shouldn’t express themselves in any way that a man might find objectionable.
But not only does assistant news editor of the University of Buffalo Spectrum Lisa Khoury tell women that a personal work of body art is tantamount to “putting a bumper sticker on a Ferrari”, but she offers some helpful hints for what you could better put your time and money into. The gym! Manicures! High heels! You know, suitably ladylike things!
This is a pretty tired and contrived article for this day and age. I much prefer the counterpoint article published five days later…I only wish it hadn’t been necessary.
And FYI, Khoury? My tattoo is awesome, and it’s also pretty damn sexy.
alleyleeplz sent me this last night but I didn’t have a chance to post it then (sorry!) but here it is. Besides the awfulness of the actual article, there are some horrible comments on it too. You don’t fight internalized misogyny with misogyny, people!
So this morning I see that professional fat-hater Jamie Oliver has posted a petition which he’s asking people to sign in support of his “Food Revolution,” and in which he’s included the bullshit stat that “obesity in the US costs $10,273,973 per hour” (sure) and notes, in all-caps, “OBESITY IS PREVENTABLE.”
Celebrities who have signed the petition are posted in rotation: Jennifer Aniston, Eva Longoria, P. Diddy, Kim Kardashian, Ryan Seacrest, Ellen Degeneres.
It’s always nice to see wealthy people with access to the best food, comprehensive healthcare, personal trainers, private chefs, and individual nutritional plans put their names to a petition admonishing the fatties that OBESITY IS PREVENTABLE.
When there are people for whom that is not true, people for whom obesity is not preventable, for myriad reasons, to bray about how their bodies (our bodies; ourselves) are “preventable” is to engage in eliminationist rhetoric.
I will never not be fat.
And it all starts when we say no. We can say no. When someone instructs us to lose weight, to shave, to straighten our hair, to get “in shape”, to wear makeup, to wear less makeup, to dress appropriately, to dress more stylishly, no not that stylishly, to stop standing out, to stop making noise, to stop being so damn large, to stop making excuses, to stop fighting, to just get along, to just do what we tell you, to just buy into this commercial weight-loss plan, to just take these pills, to just have this cosmetic surgery, to just follow instructions, to just know that we’re doing this for your own good, to never walk alone, to never walk alone in that outfit, to never draw attention, because no one wants to see that, because no one wants to see your body, because no one wants to see you.
You can tell them no, and refuse to say more on the subject. No is always an option. It’s a small word, a difficult word, a word that speaks volumes in a single syllable, and one that gets easier to say the more you do it. It’s part of your arsenal, whether you realize it or not, and it’s a powerful weapon.
You can say no.
You don’t have to explain it.
You don’t have to apologize for it.
You can just
say
no.
