Virgie Tovar

Every inch of skin that can experience a breeze is urgently needed in Jamaica. This makes choosing the tank top and short shorts so much easier. It takes the thinking out of wearing very little clothes for me, and being scantily clad is still an exercise in vulnerability.

This week in Babecamp we were talking about Sarai Walker’s novel Dietland.

Sharon is so intensely interesting to me in The Sinner. We get to see a fat woman who is over thirty exercise extraordinary sexual power.

The other night, I was eating capellini with asparagus and shrimp with a new friend/Babecamp Jamaica alum.

By the time you read this, Babecamp Jamaica will be over. My 57 mosquito bites will have just stopped itching.

One of my favorite ways to help people conceptualize patriarchy is by asking them to imagine a Chuck E. Cheese.

The point is: no matter how wonderfully delicious a man (or anyone) is, once you’ve seen him sneeze, fall, eat peanut butter or chew loudly, if there’s nothing else (or mostly nothing else), then he will ultimately make your skin crawl. So, there’s no point after all, right? In doing things the way we know how to do them?

Though there was useful commentary, deeply personal stories, and some incisive observations, my problem with the episode is that it ultimately repeats a harmful framework:
Fat people (nearly all women) were on trial and up for observation (their privacy already considered non-existent) — not the fatphobic bias that had so clearly shaped their lives.

What I’ve noticed, as a fat feminist, is that self-identifying as a feminist or an activist bears a different social cost depending on your body size.

I think there’s a special kind of burden placed on stigmatized people to pretend that everything is A-Okay. Would I be smiling if I was oppressed? Heck no.