Golda Poretsky, HHC
http://www.bodylovewellness.com
I don’t get it. I really don’t.
A few years ago, I joined a community of women who were committed to revolutionizing what it means to be a woman in this world. They are some of the brightest, most interesting, most accomplished women I have ever met. Give them a challenge, whether it’s starting a super-successful company or managing multiple lovers, and they do it, with minimal strife.
And yet, they are so steeped in diet culture that they don’t even bother to notice it. They rant about weight gained, how fat (read: unattractive) they are, the diets they’re on, etc. It’s completely endless.
Most of my connection to these women, at this point, is via an online community, and I used to conserve my sanity points by ignoring any posts that seemed weight-related, and sometimes by ignoring this online community altogether.
I had such high hopes for this group of women. I had such a belief that if anyone could revolutionize the way women think and feel about their bodies, they would. And I thought that that community would be a safe space, relatively free of weight oppression.
The fact that I was so wrong is deeply upsetting.
And yet, it also tells me a deep truth about those of us who are really committed to ending size-based oppression. It tells me that what we’re doing is really, really revolutionary. It takes outlandishly tremendous guts to admit, aloud, that the Emperor Has No Clothes (probably because he wears a 4x, but I digress).
So why am I sharing this with you? Because I want you to know that, even in my fat positive little bubble, I encounter people all the time who make me feel like I’m banging my head against the wall. And I also want to remind you that you are all truly revolutionaries, figuring things out as you go, living without the net of thin privilege, and that to know you and connect with you is my deepest privilege.
Also, sometimes we just need to rant about this crap. So this week, let’s rant, shall we? Comment about fat oppression, diet culture, and life in general. Let’s dive into the muck and get it out of our systems.
Golda is a certified holistic health counselor and founder of Body Love Wellness, a program designed for plus-sized women who are fed up with dieting and want support to stop obsessing about food and weight. To learn more about Golda and her work, click here.
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Excellent ranting! This is fantastic!@Lissette, I'm talking about a women's group, not an FA group.