Amy

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“We are taught that men are the key to happiness and fulfillment. We fear that without heterosexual marriage and childbearing we cannot become people who matter or “real” adults. It is this nexus of desire and fear that is the breeding ground for self-destructive behavior like dieting. Rather than being taught that you deserve love simply because you are a person, you are taught that love is something people must earn through particular socially sanctioned methods. For many women, that method is weight control.”
― Virgie Tovar, You Have the Right to Remain Fat

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“What we must realize is that it’s not thinness that is being eroticized. What is being eroticized is the submission thinness represents in our culture. Thinness is a secondary characteristic. The true commodity is the willingness of women to acquiesce to cultural control. Controlling women’s body size is about controlling women’s lives. This claim to control is based on fantasies of masculine superiority bolstered by the culture. This control does not just apply to thinness.”
― Virgie Tovar, You Have the Right to Remain Fat

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“My life wouldn't be easier if I were thin. My life would be easier if this culture wasn't obsessed with oppressing me because I'm fat. The solution to a problem like bigotry is not to do everything in our power to accommodate the bigotry. It is to get rid of the bigotry.”
― Virgie Tovar, You Have the Right to Remain Fat

tags: discrimination, fat, fat-activism, fat-liberation, fat-studies, feminism

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“There is compelling evidence that racism kills people. There is compelling evidence that living with the stress of poverty leads to a number of mental health challenges. There is compelling evidence that weight-based discrimination leads to heightened levels of stress and anxiety that suppress the function of major organs. And, there is evidence that fatphobia leads to shortened life expectancy.3 But racism, poverty, and weight-based bigotry are all social problems. It is through victim-blaming narratives that we cast these social issues as individual ones that can be solved through bootstrapping and consumerism.”
― Virgie Tovar, You Have the Right to Remain Fat

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“Unlike many parts of the world where fate is considered to be something that lies beyond the reach of average humans, in the US fate is considered to be something that is resoundingly within the realm of every single person’s control. Failure is an individual problem, not a collective, cultural, or political problem. The idea is that if you don’t have something, it is because you didn’t want it badly enough, or you didn’t try hard enough. Though the allure of this idea is undeniable, there isn’t much room for serious considerations of justice or historical unfairness in this narrative. But it is this fantasy—the American Dream—that is the siren song for so many.”
― Virgie Tovar, You Have the Right to Remain Fat

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