a l'allure garconniere

hickiesandhotpants:

“Locating the problems of social injustice in the world, rather than in our bodies, has been key to naming oppression. It has been powerful for marginalized peoples to say, ‘Leave our bodies alone. Stop justifying and explaining your oppressive crap by measuring, comparing, judging, blaming, creating theories about our bodies.’ But at the same time, we must not forget that our bodies are still part of the equation, that paired with the external forces of oppression are the incredibly internal, body-centered experiences of who we are and how we live with oppression.”

- Eli Clare

I always love what Eli Clare has to say.

(Source: dewdropdewdrop, via rainbowchardkittenpants)

rebelrebelbatcat:

“In summation, the cardinal rule for avoiding the moments that make us body-policing assholes is: Don’t comment on other people’s bodies or eating habits, not to them, not to people they know, not to strangers who may be nearby. If it would bother you to hear it said about yourself, don’t say it to someone else.”

- Lesley Kinzel

ugh. this.

for a good two weeks now i’ve been thinking about a comment my boss made about how “tu aimes manger… tu manges tout le temps.” i know for a fact he didn’t mean anything by it, but it still felt like judgement. and now i am self-conscious about snacking my desk… and i know i shouldn’t! and i know he wouldn’t want me to!

and then, last week, a coworker of mine at my other job asked if i thought a person we hadn’t seen since december had lost weight. i honestly hadn’t noticed (and even if i had it didn’t seem like a topic of conversation or a “thing” to bring up) and said that, and then when she saw him she asked him, “have you lost weight?” and he said “i don’t know, maybe?” and she said, “well i meant that as a good thing!” really smiley and all positive and nice. it made me cringe so hard.

i know so many people (i can think of six off the top of my head) who have lost weight when sick, depressed, or were struggling with an eating disorder, and people in all sorts of contexts and circumstances think it’s not only OKAY to comment on the change in their appearance, but not in a caring way: rather, in that fucked up, super socially acceptable way of “losing weight = good! losing weight = you are healthy/ier!” and then we still swallow the bullshit of “i want to lose weight for myself” without taking into consideration how much fat shaming we put up with on a daily basis.

then, again this sunday, i felt uncomfortable when people were talking about celebrities and how Iconic Hollywood Actress X is just way too skinny, etc. etc. and everyone was joining in and saying what they thought! “well i think she’s beautiful.” i’ve always disliked those conversations but never know how to disengage from them…

i love this advice. it sounds really simple, but it’s harder than we think. we are so trained to comment on people’s bodies that we often don’t even realize it.

(via modernistwitch-deactivated20120)