Author: FatFemPinUp

To say that I have an active twitter life would be an understatement as many of you who read my blog know. I use my twitter to address a lot of different topics and to critique politics and social interactions that deal with race, class, weight discrimination and gender. When talking about the African American community I often address the ways in which black men oppress black women and how patriarchal masculinity affects black men. For some reason any and all critique of black men or men in general is read as a HATRED of men and I think it is unfair that any time male sexism is called onto the carpet, men are allowed to declare that you simply hate all men and dismiss what you have to say. It’s not pretty, describing the ways in which men contribute to a culture that excuses things like rape, female objectification etc. but pointing things like this out should not be labeled as hatred. There are a lot of things in our society, in our culture, that are atrocious and that are upsetting. There are people who are complicit in maintaining the oppressive status quo, why then is it considered hatred to address those people? What I find interesting is that black men seem to believe they are above reproach. They will agree with you when you talk about how white men are complicit in white supremacy which in turn oppresses people of color and drives capitalism but don’t you dare mention how black men contribute to the gender based oppression of black women. Calling cultural critiquing “hatred” silences and redirects a conversation that MUST be had, not only to the benefit of those suffering under the oppression but those who are perpetrating that oppression. It is especially hard to reach men of color because they experience oppression based on their race and that victimization seduces them into believing that they cannot in turn victimize but black women know this is not true. Does black male patriarchy mean every black man is a horrible person; does black male patriarchy render solidarity between black women and men impossible? NO. But it is not up to those who profit/perpetrate a system of oppression to silence those that are victims of it. Progress in the black community is seriously stunted when an open and honest discussion about sexism and patriarchy cannot be had and the opinions of black women are continually dismissed as misandry.

There is a difference between hating men and critiquing men in an effort to improve the lives of those oppressed under male rule and the lives of the men contributing to patriarchy. bell hooks talks about the ways in which patriarchal masculinity effect men in her book “The Will To Change: Men Masculinity and Love”. According to hooks, patriarchal masculinity robs black men of their humanity; it alienates them from their loved ones and encourages them towards behavior that slowly kills them, like violence. Patriarchal masculinity shows men that being vulnerable and expressing any emotion besides anger or lust makes you subject to losing your manhood and those privileges that come with manhood. The way that bell hooks critiques patriarchal masculinity is out of love, a desire to show men how their version of masculinity contributes to their own unhappiness. We cannot always critique patriarchy from a standpoint of “this is how patriarchy is damaging men” because patriarchy also has ill effects on women, ones that are more immediate. Pointing out these ill effects in conjunction with the ill effects of patriarchy on the men who are supposed to be profiting from it, makes for a holistic critique of a damaging social system. The problem is that even when we take this holistic approach to critiquing sexism in the black community, those old ideas about sexism come back up. There is a belief that if anyone critiques black men they are not for black communal freedom from racism. There is a belief that if you critique black men you are showing the world their weaknesses and thereby betraying your own community and exposing yourself as a man hater. The labels that come with critiquing black men can seriously silence black women who have something important to say! There is also the idea that a WOMAN cannot critique black men because her opinion will be biased. Women and men alike will be biased regardless of whether or not they are critiquing their own gender or another gender, it is human error. This does not mean that what they have to say is not legitimate or cannot be used for the betterment of the community. We have to get past this belief that calling out patriarchy is hatred for the patriarchs. Not every feminist/womanist talks about patriarchy from a holistic point of view, not every advocate for female social justice uses language that makes men comfortable but it is important to remember that victims of oppression do not HAVE to ensure the comfort of those they are critiquing! Some of us do because we know that progress will come easier if our words are like honey but it should not be a requirement. You can aggressively talk about male oppression and be speaking generally and that NOT be HATRED. For some of us it is hard to sound nice when we feel a foot on our necks and being in a position where you are critiquing the people that hurt you is difficult. But again, there is a difference between genuinely hating men and angrily critiquing them. Misandry is the hatred of men, hatred is extreme dislike or ill will towards someone, is exposing patriarchy and suggesting a better way for both men and women HATRED? No. Sometimes what is said sounds aggressive or angry but the content of discourse will indicate the difference between a critique and misandry.

“Fuck men, all men are alike, they are all rapists and vile violent pieces of shit”……yeah, that’s misandry. That is hatred, Cut and dried, obvious……”Fuck patriarchy! It tells men that they are entitled to female bodies if they are violent enough, and dehumanizes the men that are supposed to profit from it”…….do you see the difference? Both are angry statements but one is about hatred and one is a frustrated statement about a system of oppression. Why then does the second statement silence the voices of social advocates? If men … especially men of color, for the purposes of this post, are really interested in racial solidarity with black women, then SEXISM has GOT to be discussed and addressed. It is not possible to have this discussion without a little bit of anger and even bitterness or resentment by those who have been oppressed but these emotions do not stem from hatred and associating them with hatred is counterproductive to growth. I think it is time we stop calling every critique of patriarchal behavior, HATRED, and start calling it a CRITIQUE. I know that these critiques often sound like accusations and that is why they are hard to stomach and easy to file away as hatred but the introspection called for by these critiques are beneficial to all. All knowledge and understanding that requires you to change is hard to stomach but it doesn’t mean it is negative.

*This article can be found at its original source athere*

As a fat woman who will never be thin, a fat woman with no desire to be thin, I often come across people who hate me for nothing but my size. To be a fat woman in America means to be invisible in many ways because of the social construction of beauty. When you carry extra weight on your body people expect you to make yourself scarce, they expect you to be humble at all times and in a constant state of apology for the way you look; and when you aren’t you are subject to ridicule and shame. And when you are, you get taken advantage of and are STILL subject to ridicule and shame. Lose-Lose, in a lot of ways. I, like many other women have learned that a woman is judged first by her desirability in this society and that desirability is measured by how close that woman comes to the ideal norm. Thinness, along with a lot of other traits both physical & personality wise, is one of the things used to measure desirability or beauty. Some women are born automatically missing this mark (women of color for instance) and some women develop into missing that mark (full figured women). However you arrive outside of this beauty ideal, the consequences are upsetting and wreak havoc on a woman’s perception of herself which in turn can set her up for all manner of ill use and shaming by other people. So what happens when a woman who is outside of this norm, or even when a woman matches this norm PERFECTLY, comes to love herself? It is a beautiful thing to defy the world you live in by daring to love yourself the way you are but for a lot of people, loving yourself comes with hating someone else. This is where that negative dichotomy comes into play. This is what I mean: I have known aloooot of fat women who have struggled with the way that they look and the only way they could get on top of their poor self-image was to make what they couldn’t be, thin, a negative thing. So one question for today’s blog is, why does thin have to be ugly for fat to be beautiful?

Why does thin have to be ugly for fat to be beautiful? Why does fat have to be ugly for thin to be beautiful? There is something that disturbs me about having plus size friends who refer to thin women as “skinny bitches” or who call thin women “grossly thin”. It normally says more about the fat person who hates the thin person than it does about the thin person. The thing is, hateful words like those suggest insecurity in fat women. I have been called a fat ass and other fat insults by thin women who absolutely HATE me because I have the gall to take up space without apologizing. The looks I get when I’m in public in a short skirt or dress or tight pair of leggings, express the vehemence of women who have not learned a healthy way to love THEMSELVES. When I was younger my mom would tell me that people who were mean to me were just jealous…in a lot of ways she had a point. Most of the women who get suckered into this negative dichotomy feel like they have to fight constantly to keep the world’s attention. Whether fat or thin, othering other women is about not wanting to be invisible and wanting to be powerful. True self confidence, true self esteem stem from self-love, and self-love makes you powerful AND visible. We are encouraged to measure ourselves against each other constantly and it profits us NOTHING but to create an “other” in order to make ourselves visible. When the basis for your self-esteem and your self-confidence is gained by othering other people then the foundation for your self-esteem and confidence is fickle. It sets you up to always be in competition with other women over the way that you look, it gives you negative thoughts about women who don’t look like you and it cheapness the journey into self-acceptance because it is less about self-love and more about the power involved in telling yourself you are superior. I understand this desire, as a fat woman, to make thinness unattractive. It’s a heady feeling…declaring thinness unattractive while the majority of the world holds a different opinion because thinness is one of those beauty norm ideal traits. Rejecting thinness in favor of fat and then declaring thinness to be ugly or inferior…in a lot of ways makes me feel better because no one wants to accept me for my size…it’s almost like armor, a first line of defense…but true self love is armor in and of itself. It does not require you to hate on, dismiss or judge anyone else because it is about YOU.

I’m writing today because I want to encourage thin and fat women alike to begin their journey into high self-esteem and self-confidence with a foundation of SELF love. If you constantly compare yourself to other women, like you are encouraged to do, then you will always come up short. This will leave you with two options, take a hit to your self-esteem or make what you are compared with inferior. My suggestion is to stop the comparison all together. Measure yourself against YOURSELF because your esteem, confidence and love is not really FOR anyone else.

*This article can be found at its original source here*