i’m going to pretend this is a good faith question even though we both know it’s not. haha. don’t say i never did anything for you ! this post is addressed to a general ‘you’ and not you specifically- this response is the result of being asked this (and ignoring it) a billion times.
i think that insulting people based on their body is mean, and cruel, and hurtful, and can be very psychologically damaging. peoples’ bodies (especially people who are not cis males) are policed, regulated, objectified, disrespected, and insulted. i think it’s depressing and cruel that women in particular are told that they’re too fat or skinny, to eat a sandwich, that they’re anorexic, that they need to lose weight, that they aren’t or are ‘real women’ because of what their body looks like, etc.
however, 'thin shaming' is not equal to fat discrimination. it is like ‘reverse racism’ or ‘misandry’- a fairy tale created by a privileged majority who are resentful that they can’t have all of the attention instead of most of the attention. never, ever in my life have i ever seen ‘thin shaming’ brought up in good faith in a conversation between thin people where the point of the conversation wasn’t to derail, exhaust resources dedicated to, or denigrate conversations about fat shaming. if you are able to forget something is happening until another oppressed group is talking about their oppression, you are probably not oppressed.
fat people deal with the meanness too, and that can be very damaging and lead to things like eating disorders and self-harm and low self-esteem. on top of that however, we deal with discrimination. to quote, well, me:
we exist in a dominant culture where thin bodies are praised, represented, celebrated, and accommodated. when you are passed up for jobs or lose jobs or make less money because of your weight, are denied access to medical care and health insurance or discriminated against by your doctor because of your weight, when you cannot physically fit into the world around you because it is not made for people your size, when you are asked to pay double the fare on airplanes, when the government declares your body to be an ‘epidemic' and wages a 'war' on it, when you cannot buy clothes in stores, when your credibility is doubted because of your weight, when your chances of being found guilty in a criminal trial are greater because of your weight, when your perceived health is constantly up for judgment and question, when there is no representation of you in media that isn’t the butt of a joke or some kind of crude slob/glutton, when you are blamed for your health or disability because of your weight, when you are constantly told by the dominant culture that you are unattractive/unlovable/disgusting/smelly/obscene because of your weight…
when those things start happening, we can pay equal attention to ‘thin shaming’ as a form of discrimination. until then, i’ll thank you to not bother fat people with this stuff in spaces created for fat people. this blog has nothing to do with thin people; it was not created for you, and it is not a blog about your life experiences. if you like it, that is awesome ! welcome ! if you don’t like it, maybe one day people will create a fashion blog with thin people, fingers crossed. we have carved out these spaces for ourselves to discuss our lives and problems, to bond over our experiences, and there is no room here for ‘equal’ time to be spent on ‘thin shaming’. it sucks to have people criticize your body; it sucks that we live in a culture where some (but not anywhere near most) fat people get fed up with individual thin people and say mean or ‘bitter’ things about them. it sucks. i do not support it. i will never, ever say anything cruel or weird or intrusive about thin bodies (or anyone’s body, or my own body), and i will call out anyone else who does. but please, please, for the love of god stop insisting that it’s the same thing as fatphobia. it isn’t, and you know it.