Feminism and Obesity - installment #1

This is the first installment of my musings regarding feminism and obesity. Given that I see many very powerful feminists, I'm constantly confronted with how to make the pursuit of health and weight loss an empowering experience. I don't like labeling myself as one thing or another but it is easy for me to say that I don't like conformist approaches to much of anything.

I'm an extremely independent person and if a man makes any suggestions about how I can look to please him more, my back goes WAY up. It might be linked to growing up in a very righty family where respect for women really wasn't at the top of the list. My looks were always emphasized and even focused on by my father. Even to this day, I feel like I might swat Jim if he makes another comment about my weight or appearance. I grew up with the rhetoric that women should never put their kids before their husbands and that kids really don't have a chance in the world without a strong marriage. Gag.

I don't think I even met a feminist until I was in my early 20s working for a trade union. Learned so much from my mentors there. Thank you! I crossed over to corporate labour relations for some stupid reason I can't remember. After working at a brewery in management and getting whistled at as I walked through the factory floor, I quickly joined and started volunteering with Vancouver Status of Women and shoved the implementation of a human rights policy down the big wigs' throats under threat of a law suit. The union boys weren't too happy when I made them take their nudy pics down. Within a month, they were offering human rights training (AKA sensitivity training) to everyone in the brewery. I was young and naive and thought I could make change happen quickly. My view of feminism is constantly evolving and coming into myself as a woman has been a growth process.

I don't have a paternalistic approach to how I work with people at Urbanfitt. Maybe that's why strong feminists like it at the studio. I am honest and value authenticity almost more than any other quality. Not saying I've got it perfected. So if someone, man or woman, is overweight or obese and it is clearly impacting their well being, I'm going to lay out the risks in a factual way. But if an overweight or obese woman starts working with me and makes it clear that weight loss is not a goal, I don't bring it up again unless she brings it up. I understand the historical body image and food issues women travel with everyday. However, If a woman comes in and doesn't want to discuss weight loss but constantly complains about her body, I get a little irritated. I have a 'self righting' nature. If something isn't working, I'm going to try to fix it. The pursuit of body perfection is one thing.

The pursuit of healthy body weight and well being is feminist friendly.

Fat feminists might want to ring my neck for assuming someone can't be healthy and overweight at the same time. What is fat feminism?

Fat feminism or fat-positive feminism is a form of feminism that argues overweight women are economically, educationally, socially and physically disadvantaged due to their weight. Because of this, fat-positive feminists promote acceptance for women of all sizes and oppose any form of size discrimination. Fat feminism originated during second-wave feminism, and has not met mainstream acceptance. While very closely affiliated with the fat acceptance movement, fat feminists focus on women who are discriminated against because of their size.

I'm going to address this debate in detail in a later post. But thought I ought to put it out there that I know I'm pissing some feminists off by saying everyone should get to a healthy body weight to improve their health and well being. I'm not fat phobic. I'm just more experienced than they are with the impacts of excess weight.

I started my exploration of this topic by googling feminism and obesity and came up with some very interesting stuff. In fact, this crap was at the top of the google search. Today, all I'm going to do is make some of you mad, not because of anything I said. I hope.

Did you know that a good portion of right wing freaks actually blame feminism for the obesity epidemic? Seriously.

Basically their argument is if women just didn't need to join the labour force and stayed at home and cooked, their men and their children wouldn't be the fat ladened human beings they are now. What about single parents, same sex couples and anyone who doesn't belong in a traditional family. I guess these critics don't take into account that the divorce rate is over 50% or maybe they blame feminism for that as well.

Here are some quotes I found:

1. According to the American Obesity Association, 34.5 percent of Americans are obese; a staggering figure that seems to increase every year.

2. At the same time we have seen the percentage of women, both married and unmarried, who are entering the workforce swell from thirty-eight percent in 1960 to sixty-four percent in 2000 nearly doubling just as obesity rates have during the past 40 years (an R-squared value of .968 for you stats geeks).

So whats the connection you ask? Well, back in the good-old days, women were the backbone of the American diet, cooking up wonderful meals made with fresh, healthy foods. In the modern, "liberated" world, women are too busy having careers and book clubs to concentrate on cooking, so one is left with only a few options to feed the family: 1) Fast food, 2) processed foods, 3) one could allow the kids, who will eat only candy and pizza, to feed themselves.

And another:

Stats have proven the American feminist movement and arguing for a life a laziness. You work less hours then men (and complain about pay) and are more likely to obese than anyone else in this world.

Bottom line: men want attractive chicks. Chicks want money. It may not be fair, but thats life.

And another:

For some twisted reason, women are proud of this so-called liberation that allows them to work, but causes their families to bloat into jiggling tubs of inactivity. Liberation? Sounds more like subjugation…..to being fat!”


And another:

Without feminism, there'd be no obesity epidemic, because women would be at home cooking for their families where they belong, instead of relying on takeout and convenience meals!


Pretty funny stuff hey! The obesity epidemic is so complex and the debate shouldn't be left in the hands of people who must have suffered some type of serious head injury at some point.

Looking forward to continuing the discussion with posts to follow.

Jane