Episode 204 Transcript

You're listening to the Fierce Fatty Podcast, Episode 204: Part 2: NYT “Confessions of a Former Body Positivity Influencer”: What It Gets Wrong. I'm your host, Vinny Welsby. Pronounce they/them. Let's do it!

Welcome back to the show! If you're on video, we've got a little guest here, baby bear, little puppy I'm looking after. He's not a puppy, he's 14 years old, but all dogs are little puppies, right? So let's get right into it. We'll get, we'll step back into where we were last episode, and also we're going to talk about feminist frameworks and how this approach to liberation is similar to frameworks that are not helpful and give you a nice analogy about that and, yeah, talking about types of arguments that we see. All right, let's jump in. Okay, so I want to point out some argument styles or fallacies that I've seen apart from straw man. So the main thing about this video is straw man saying that body positivity means that ABC and it's not, because it's easy to break down ABC, because it sounds ridiculous, right? The other one's hasty generalization. So that means drawing broad conclusions from limited examples. So Gabriela says, alludes to the movement caused her to gain weight. The movement discourages health and influences who promoted body positivity died young. So these generalizations from either limited or no evidence, you know, saying that this limited information paints a pattern of the entire movement. We also have false dichotomy, which is presenting two options as if they are the only options. And so the two choices that are being implied here is, choose body positivity, loving yourself, that means that you are going to ignore your health and maybe die. So love your body, but bad health or death or two, stop being body positive and become healthy after acknowledging that fatness is unhealthy. And so there's a false dichotomy. It's not one or the other because, you know, neither of those are even real options. There's lots of different things in there. You know, you can be body positive, whatever that means to you, except your body and also say health is something that's important to me, I'm interested in pursuing health and so I'm going to look at what would that look like for me and that's fine and dandy. That's what's important to you, if that's your thing. And if it's not, that's fine too.

You can also be body positive or a liberationist or whatever. And you can also say, I'm not body positive and I'm also going to focus on my health and that's fine too. Or you could say I'm going to investigate health at every size and

see how there are ways I can access health at my current size. I can look to find weight neutral healthcare. I can focus on social determinants of health. Instead of BMI, I can look at different behaviors and interventions that don't mean that I lose weight because I recognize that weight loss is not an option for me for various reasons. Right? Again, that's a flattening, that false dichotomy is that flattening of an issue. We also have slippery slope suggesting one thing leads to another. One thing, one little thing that's going to lead to X, Y, Z. So in this one, in this video, it's body positivity, slippery slope to ignoring health, then to weight gain, then to disability, then to death. Oh my God. So the slippery slope is, if you're body positive, you're going to die. So there's the assumption there that there's a, this is like a chain, chain A equals B, body positivity equals bad health, death, whatever. I mean, even the first step in the chain, body positivity equals ignoring health. Well, we can knock that on the head because that's not what body positivity is. So there's this chain here and it frames weight as, weight gain is bad. It frames disability as bad. It frames both as slippery slope causes of death. So yeah, not so helpful. And the final one, there's others that happen, but the final one is, is Mott and Bailey, M-O-T-T-E and Bailey. Mott and Bailey. So Mott is a small fortified tower, kind of like a castle, right? So that's like the safe space. And then Bailey is the large open area around a castle or a tower, right? So if someone was going to attack, you would want to be in the castle and not in the large open area, right? So that's where the term Mott and Bailey comes from. And how it works in arguments is that someone will make a bold controversial claim. That's the Bailey. So that's the large open area. But then when they're challenged on this controversial claim, they retreat to the safer, hard to disagree with claim, which is the Mott, the castle, the tower. So an example of this is that, so a Bailey, this is a big open space. People should be allowed to say offensive or harmful things without consequences, right? So that's a big controversial statement. And then people will say, hang on, I don't know about that. And then the Mott, the more reasonable claim is, I just support free speech, nothing wrong with free speech, right? So it's easy to say, yes, I support free speech. Of course. And you can even introduce an issue with it's just about this and get people on your side and then slip in the more extreme version, which is the Bailey. But we're all on the same page when it comes to, I support free speech.

So in this video, the big claim fat bodies and fat people are a problem that needs to go away. Fat people need to lose weight, love in your body causes ill health and death, right? So that's the kind of controversial, the more defensible statement is we just care about your health, it's just about health. I'm only thinking about your health. So when someone says, if you were to criticize this video, someone would bring out the Mott claim. Well, it's just about health. You can't deny that. You can't deny that health is important. Do you just want everyone to die? And so it's hard to say, no, I don't care about health, because most people say, I care about health. That seems pretty reasonable. The statement that's underneath that is, fatness is bad for whatever reason. Some people might say that's not a controversial claim, right? But if you in our world, we would say that that's maybe not as helpful a statement. So finally, I want to connect this to a concept in feminism. Now that we've looked at the video, we can look at how this relates to something called choice feminism. Feminism, just around the same page, is seeking the equality of all genders, meaning, wanting to remove barriers, not just for yourself, but others. There's a concept called choice feminism. Choice feminism says that when women have the right to make choices, every decision they make is a feminist choice. This is a term that's coined by Linda Hirschman, and the term is used to critically describe this form of feminism that prioritizes personal freedom over systemic transformation of society. Sound familiar? So, personal freedom over the systemic transformation of society. So, the idea, just to recap, choice feminism, if a woman makes a choice, it's inherently a feminist choice, no matter what it is, because she is a woman. However, we know that's not true, right? Not all women or anyone with any gender, are feminists and can make choices that harm women, or play into patriarchy. One comment I read on a reddit board, someone said, "There's plenty of non-feminist women doing non-feminist things. If you don't advocate for the equal rights, opportunities, and access to power of women, you are not a feminist. A woman shitting doesn't make the turd feminist." Right? So, I thought that was funny. My poos are feminist poos, because I am a woman, and therefore, everything I do is feminist. So, that's choice feminism, but it arose due to criticisms of feminism. So, let me quote from this article from Choice Feminism and the Fear of Politics, Cambridge University Press. "Choice Feminism arises in response to three common criticisms of feminism, that feminism is too radical, too exclusionary, too judgmental. In response, choice feminism offers a worldview that does not challenge the status quo, promises to include all women, regardless of their choices, and abstains from judgment altogether. Moreover, it enables feminists to sidestep the difficulties of making the personal political, making judgments and demanding change of friends, family, and lovers. Yet, judgment, exclusion, and calls for change are unavoidable parts of politics."

Yeah, I really like that saying, "It enables feminists to sidestep the difficulties of making the personal political." And that's something that people with a lot of privilege can do. So, there's lots of criticisms of choice feminism that it ignores structural issues. Because it's focusing on the personal, it overlooks patriarchy, sexism, other inequalities, which inherently limit women's choices, right? But if you personally can make a choice, then that's fine, right? But if someone else, some other woman, somewhere else, because of my choices, doesn't have choice, then that's okay, according to choice feminism. It's privilege-based. It assumes that all women have the luxury of choice, and that is not true. And some people say that it weakens feminism by replacing political action with consumerist choice. So, a lot of people will say that choice feminism is aligned with consumerism, and how? Notice how poly positivity! We spoke about that. And the big rise of body positivity was a consumerist in nature. And finally, a criticism of choice feminism is that it normalizes patriarchy. So, it can validate choices that perpetuate traditional oppressive gender roles. So, think about that, this video. It normalizes anti-fat bias. It validates choices that perpetuate oppressive gender roles. And so, that video validates choices that perpetuate anti-fat bias. Now, there's a new YouTube channel that I discovered. Links for everything, by the way, links for absolutely everything, all my sources in the show notes. But there's a YouTube channel, Breaking Down Patriarchy, that talks about choice feminism. And in that video, they talk about a book called White Feminism by Koa Beck. And Koa Beck argues that white feminism focuses on succeeding within patriarchy rather than dismantling it. Sound familiar? It treats patriarchy like a system you can win by gaining education skills or insider strategies similar to beating levels in a game. But while individuals might succeed, the structural barriers themselves remain unchanged. In contrast, feminist traditions such as black feminism, Chicano feminism, and working class feminists focus on challenging and removing those barriers altogether, aiming to transform the system rather than helping if people navigate it successfully. So, notice how in the analysis in the video, I pointed out that they were kind of conservative type talking points or viewpoints. I mean, they're based in anti-fat bias, which is based in white supremacy. But those viewpoints are coming from an oppressive system that prioritizes the individual versus the collective. So that more, if we think about that, you know, that Bopo, Lisa Frank, white centering privileged people and, you know, echoing the stuff in white feminism that focuses on not dismantling patriarchy, but working within it. And it's the same with this concept of I don't want to dismantle anti-fatness, instead, I'm going to succeed within it by self-flagellation, by attempting weight loss, by being ashamed of my body. That doesn't stop systemic anti-fatness. It just means that you individually might see a little bit of relief temporarily while you're engaging in these behaviors and others who have less privilege could suffer.

So fat liberation is about dismantling the system that punishes fat bodies. And intentional weight loss often becomes a way of negotiating with that system. So, you know, a lot of people have reactions to folks when they, you know, influences when they lose weight. And I feel like it's the equivalent of, especially people who were like, I'm body positive, or I'm whatever, is that, you know, it's like someone saying, I support queer people, but then they vote to oppose gay marriage. It's a bit, the bait and switch. It's the saying, I really hate the beach, and booking a two week vacation on an island resort. It's just like, it's confusing, and it just doesn't make sense. You know, we're in opposite land. Your values are not aligning with your actions. And I think that's where Gabriella felt that backlash of people's perceived, perceived her values and her actions not aligning. However, we don't know, unless someone clearly states, I'm fat positive, we don't know if they are fat positive. Also, the other thing to think about is that many oppressed groups had and have people who don't agree that they should be liberated. So, for example, suffragettes getting the vote. There were anti-suffragette movements led by women saying, we don't think women should get the vote because we are dumb. And we are, I shouldn't say dumb, it's an ableist word, we are unintelligent. We don't have the capacity to be able to vote. It's just silly that women should vote. And there's also people within the movement seeking liberation, who are seeking liberation only for themselves. Many suffragettes were like, white women should get the vote and not black women because they were racist as fuck. Is it inherently anti-fat? I don't think so. Is it informed by anti-fatness? Very likely. There's many reasons that someone might lose weight. And, one of those reasons is like, for example, I need to lose weight because if I don't, then I can't get gender affirmation surgery. Does it mean that that person is an anti-fat person? Does it mean that that weight loss is inherently anti-fat? Well, if we use our critical thinking and are, you know, using a little bit of a nuance, it's informed by anti-fatness because it's informed by a system that says that that person needs to lose weight in order to get healthcare. And that person is doing their best to navigate their system where they can access healthcare. So they are in the waters of anti-fatness because we all are in the waters of anti-fatness. And that decision is influenced by anti-fatness. Is that person an anti-fat person? It doesn't sound like it, right? And again, I'm not interested in shaming or blaming individuals for the choices that they make to survive. It's so normal that people navigate internalized anti-fatness. And it's so normal that people will make decisions to engage in intentional weight loss when they're navigating internalized anti-fatness in a world that introduced anti-fatness to them and reinforces it all the day long. And they do that. They could be engaging in intentional weight loss in order to feel safe, to get approval, to get access to privilege, love, an easier life, whatever it is. And I also get why people are so frustrated when people make choices that are not liberatory. I like a metaphor. You know I like a metaphor. I've been thinking about this a lot. So to summarize all of this in a metaphor of why people might be originally upset with this creator or upset about the video. So imagine running a hundred meter hurdle race, right? And the hurdles are barriers that fat people face. So it's a race of fat people. We're all running the hundred meter hurdles and the hurdles is anti-fat bias. There may be other races going on where people are experiencing other hurdles, like racism or ableism or whatever. But in this race, let's just focus on anti-fat bias and fat people are running. Stadium over, there's a race for just straight sized people. Also, it's a hundred meter race, but they don't have hurdles for anti-fat bias, but they don't know that we have hurdles. So, and we're maybe not sure that we have hurdles even. So we look at the time that it took those straight sized people to run that hundred meter race with no hurdles. We look at the time that we took as fat people running a race with hurdles and we say, why are we so slow? We forget that we had hurdles or we deny their existence. And we say, here's evidence that fat people are bad. And then we internalize that message and truly believe that we're bad, especially because we don't see that the straight sized people are running without hurdles. Understanding anti-fat bias means recognizing and learning about those hurdles, right? And many people, when they start this work, they're like, what the fuck is everywhere? Everywhere it's fat dub, I turn on the TV, it's anti-fat bias, I turn on this diet culture. What the hell? And so you start to see the hurdles and you're like, what? There's fucking loads of them. And then we start to understand them. If you use a body positivity or a white feminism or a choice feminism or a Lisa Frank body positivity lens, then that means that you're going to approach this issue of having hurdles by maybe learning a hat to jump the hurdles better. Maybe you get some springs on your shoes. So it's surface level, you know, it's the, all bodies are beautiful. Springs are fun to have on your shoes.

You're able to jump the hurdles better, but it's not helpful at actually removing the barriers, right? Fat liberation, when done right means that you're going to take your bouncy shoes or privilege and jump over the barriers and then go back down and kick down all of the other barriers with all the other people. However, for those who are deep in internalized anti-fat bias, they not only slip, jump over the hurdles themselves, their own barriers, they also add extra hurdles for their running mates. They sabotage others. They're throwing down a banana skin or some marbles or something. And that's why formerly fat people are often the most vicious anti-fat people or, you know, people who've turned their back on fat liberation. It's like one day they're invited to run the race with the straight sized people and they saw that their time was better and then immediately attribute it to them being more moral because they're running in the straight size race and not that they were running a race with the barriers removed. So that's why people can be so disappointed when fat celebs or influencers turn their backs on fatness as an identity because they saw the shit that was happening. They saw all of these hurdles. They saw that it was unfair over here and, you know, they've got no hurdles over there. They saw what was happening and they chose to focus only on themselves putting on their bouncy shoes and/or they then sabotaged their kin. They chucked down some marbles, some freaking banana skins. They were like sleeping with the enemy, right? So it's, you know, you're running there next to someone and we're like, "We can overcome this." And they're like, "Bye, fucking loser." You know, that's what it feels like. So the analogy, anti-fat bias is the hurdles. Body positivity is learning to jump the hurdles individually. Fat liberation is removing the hurdles entirely. So do we want to just bounce over the things yourselves? I do want some of those, you know, do you remember those shoes? I want to have a go on those shoes. Remember those shoes where it's like, it wasn't a spring. It was like, it was like, I don't know even how to describe it. It was, it was like bouncy shoes. That looks fun, but I presumed that it wasn't for fat people, that there would be a weight limit and it would be like 37 pounds or something, you know? Wouldn't that be fun?

Anyway, wouldn't it be fun to then use your privilege if you have bouncy shoes to go back and kick the hurdles for others? And so then you can all do a big group hug and be like, "We, you know, we got rid of these barriers together." And that's what feminism is. It's removing the hurdles for yourself and for others, right? And choice feminism is just thinking about what it means for yourself and that's what, a lot of what is happening in this video is kind of throwing other fat folks under the bus. It's almost like, you know, going over to the thin side and being like, "Oh, you know, those faties over there, they're cheating. Those faties over there, they're using roller skates and they're still too slow." And, you know, that's like the straw man argument. And then, you know, the faties are like, "Huh? We're not using roller skates? What the fuck are you talking about?" And then, you know, people were like, "Oh, look at those fat people. They're terrible because they're using roller skates to cheat in the race." And then everyone's like big hoo-ha about how awful fat people are because they use roller skates. And all the fat people are like, "We don't have fucking roller skates." You know, that's what it's like. That's how I feel when I read, listen to this video, when it's like body positivity is bad because they deny that organ failure is a phenomenon. What? No? Have I? What? I don't see this. Okay. Well, thank you for hanging out with me today. I appreciate you. Yeah. I want to just send big love and hugs to you if you're feeling any couple way. And remember, you are worthy. You always were. And you always will be. Stay fierce, fatty. Goodbye.