Living in a Sizeist Society: Woman Attacked on Evening Commute

[sabelmouse]

British businesswoman Martha Coupe was sitting in an almost-empty train car on the way back from work. Suddenly, someone screamed "You big fat pig" before physically attacking Coupe, leaving her with forty bruises and one eye swollen shut. The attacker was restrained by another passenger, but got off at the next stop before the police could arrive. Coupe's crime? She was taking up two seats.

An article on BBC News and a subsequent commentary by Kate Harding explore the implications of hate crimes committed against fat people, abuse that is both generally unnoticed and socially accepted. Some people, Denise Winterman writes for the BBC, would be surprised that Coupe's attacker was another middle-aged woman. But Coupe herself was not.

"Fat people are fair game for everyone," said Coupe, who weighs around 300 lbs. "Yes, I've had beer cans thrown at me by youngsters, but the abuse doesn't just come from the obvious places. The normal rules about behaviour, respect and common courtesy don't apply to us."

The reasons for the alienation, abuse and open criticism of people who are significantly overweight stems from many causes, and Winterman's article goes into these in depth. Susie Orbach, the author of Fat Is A Feminist Issue, thinks it comes down to society's all-consuming pressures to be slim: "Often," she says, "it's not the larger person's excess weight that is the problem, it's the other people's obsession with being thin."

Still others blame fat people because of the common perception that their weight is their "fault," or that people are overweight because of laziness and a lack of control. This ignorance is not something that many go out of their way to correct. And although genetic makeup has a lot to do with weight, the dialogue around personal health has created a significant stigma around being overweight, even though weight is not always the best way of determining health.

"The government and the press have created an atmosphere where people think they have a legitimate right to go up to an overweight person and tell them how to live their lives," said Coupe. "To them we are all the anonymous pictures of fat people they see in the papers and are the cause of all society's ills, as well as a drain on the NHS. We deserve what we get. We're not people with feelings."

Winterman also posits the idea that people have innate negative reactions to people they find unattractive, and that dislike of excessive weight often provoke even more negative attitudes. However, Kate Harding is right to point out that we can't excuse ourselves so easily on this point - as she writes, "Noting that negative reactions to "unattractive people" are not completely within the average person's control...is one thing. Implying that this means we all have an instinctive aversion to fatties is quite another. The idea that fat people are categorically, universally unattractive is a function of fat hatred, not a reasonable explanation for it."

This incident happened just days before the release of the new issue of Glamour, the one that has the much-touted spread of plus-size models. Many hope that the move toward models that actually look like real people in major fashion magazines will open up a necessary conversation about body image, one that can dispel some of the sizeism promoted by the mainstream media. But it's also hard to see the Glamour spread as a huge step forward.

Ximena Ramirez wrote a great post for Care2 about this a few days ago, and she rightly points out one of the more interesting aspects of Glamour's coverage: the fact that "plus-size models aren't all that 'plus.'" Turns out, "plus-size models" can actually be as small as a size 6. One model in the photo shoot even had to pad herself out because she was too small for plus-size clothing. And although it's encouraging that Glamour is trying to convince designers to produce clothes in larger sample sizes, moving up from a 4 to an 8 is less significant than the media buzz would lead us to believe. The "average American woman" is 4-6 sizes bigger than that, and a woman who is a size 8 would never experience the emotional and physical abuse inflicted upon people who are significantly more overweight.

This is something that filters into even the most liberal bastions - Cintra Wilson's now-infamous article about Manhattan's new J.C. Penney published in the New York Times last August is a case in point. Yes, there was a huge online outcry about Wilson's snobbery and prejudice, and she was forced to issue an apology (although it was resentful and qualified), but what about the editors who let that article through? And the people who said that it wasn't so much sizeism as it was classism?

Mulling over the abuse that was inflicted on Coupe, Harding writes, "We can't pretend that such abuse is somehow separate from the moral panic over obesity, the fiction that looks-based hatred is hard-wired, the way our collective guilt about overconsumption is projected onto fat people, the automatic equation of fatness with laziness and greed, and a million little fat jokes that people "didn't really mean anything by." And it's true that sizeism is still one of the most acceptable prejudices (think about all the fat jokes you see in mainstream films) - and although Coupe's story is extreme, it's far from abnormal.

This is something we can change, starting with our own relationships to our bodies and the way that we discuss weight generally. Don't crack that fat joke - or obsess loudly over the number of calories in your lunch. Don't make the assumption that weight is directly correlated to laziness or greed. It's hard to do, because our society makes sizeism and fattism so normal, but it can start with us.

What do you think? How can we expand the discussion about sizeism so that anti-fat hate crimes - and smaller emotional abuse - become unacceptable?

http://www.care2.com/causes/human-rights/blog/anti-fat-hate-crimes/

[Eric Martin Gorse]

This article while good gets the victims name wrong, all that other articles I have seen about this story
refer to her as Marsha not Martha.

[Somewhere In the shadows]

while the attack was uncalled for, there comes a point when you can't just say, 'she's a big, beatiful woman' anymore. it's not about sizeism, it's not about prejudice. when a person weighs 300 pounds, it's just a health risk. they shoudn't lose weight because they're not sexy enough; they shouldn't starve themselves down to a size 0. they should shed some pounds for their own benifit. even if they don't get down to a healthy weight, every bit counts.

[thedragonfruitking]

i dont't do fat chics. does that make me a bad person?

[danman]

this is a load of nonsense. I do not condone the crime but if somebody beats up someone else shouting You filthy mofo, this logic would make it a hate crime against incestors.
As well the whole idea of hate crime is rubbish. The crime should be viewed for what it is, and the motivation comes into question only in the extent whether it can be alleviated (either unintentional or provoked, both of which is not the case)
As far as weight goes, both groups (FA and fashion) confuse medical fatness and fatness. Firstly studies have shown that it is being unfit ,or lightly obese that is the problem. And as far as medical overweight (BMI 25-30) goes - this group has the same morbidity and mortality as the BMI 20-25 only the diseases distribution is different.
However, Heavy and especially morbid obesity as suggested by name itself is a serious health setback, and can b no more attractive than smokers' cough or rotten teeth.
This shows that those who revere such fatness are mere sexual deviants (such women are often icapabl of conceiving, which alone shows that it is not a healthy sexual preference.)
Same holds for coathanger models.

That being said, the rest - individual preferences are no matter for politics. I prefer women that range from somewhat overweight to rather heavy, and there is nothing to that. Somebody else prefers skinny ones and again that is just a matter of his genetic makeup.
I do as well prefer black haired ones over blondes, but i doubt somebody in the right mind would consider it "colourism"

[President Clive-φ-Davidson]

While I understand that things as violent as this do happen, I believe that they are very rare occurrences. I also believe that there is no need for any type of crime to be considered more or less punishable because of D&E or political correctness. Doing so would also be discrimination, as the discriminatory crimes that are not included (it is impossible to include them all without making crime against anyone a hate crime [<-Hyperbole]) would be less (or more) punishable.

However, I in no way believe that discriminatory crimes should not be agknowleged, as they are as great a crime as any other.

[Clive Davidson in no way indorses/supports hate crime, or discrimination of any kind.]

[sabelmouse]

Fat is a humanist issue

Want to know what it's like to be fat? It means facing a constant barrage of humiliation from people who feel entitled to comment

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* kirby
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o Marianne Kirby
o guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 11 November 2009 11.30 GMT
o Article history

In the thread following Neville Rigby's article about BMI, a particular comment caught my eye. A reader asked:

What I would really like to see is a response from an obese person's point of view, I am very polite as well and would not presume to comment on a person's weight but I remember reading sometime ago a report that said many obese people do not see themselves as fat, whereas those of us who put on a few pounds do recognise the fact, don't know whether that is true or not?

Well, I am a genuine fat person. I've been fat since I was seven years old. And amazingly, I know I'm fat. I've never not known it. How did I acquire this knowledge? I knew because I was told. Constantly. Incessantly. Inescapably. From every source. From every direction. No reprieve.

I knew I was fat, as a child, because my mother put me on a diet when I came home from summer vacation. I knew I was fat because when school started that year, some boys in my class teased me and called me names and threw things at me on the playground.

When I was a kid, I knew I was fat because I did not look like any of the kids in the JC Penny catalogue. I did not wear any of the clothes that I thought were cute because they did not make cute clothes for fat kids. Retail told me I was fat.

The doctor, when I got sick with allergies, let me know I was fat by telling me to lose some weight. Apparently, losing 20 pounds would have made me magically less allergic to pollen.

Once I started high school, I knew I was still fat because that pesky clothes issue cropped up again – as it did tonight when I went to buy myself a pair of festive velvet pants for the holiday season. I knew I was fat because I had a gym coach who was into humiliating the fat kids. And then there were some jerks from the football team who acted just like those kids back when I was seven years old.

Magazines told me I was fat – and that my boobs were too big, not perky enough, too small and shaped wrong. Television told me I was fat – and smelly and not wearing the right clothes. The clothes I could not buy because I was too fat.

The internet tells me I'm fat all the time. Every time I post a photo in a public forum, there is the inevitable refrain of "lose some weight, fatty." Sometimes, there is also "die in a car crash, fatty" and "you should hang yourself if you can find a strong enough rope, fatty." Those are always fun to wake up to in the morning.

I know I'm fat because I can't just join a gym or go the mall or visit a new doctor without it being an enormous – pun fully intended – part of my identity. It is part of my presence. It is part of who I am – that loud, fat girl with the curly hair and the weird sense of humour.

You want to know the funny thing here, though? I'm not a special snowflake. My experience is not unique. I am not the only fat person in the world who is repeatedly – every time I leave the house, and even if I don't – reminded that I am fat and the world thinks that is a problem.

Fat people – even people who are only marginally fat, if that – know they are fat because the world is full of people who are ready to leap out without any provocation to remind them of it.

We're fat. We know it. You really don't need to tell us.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/nov/11/obesity-fat-awa...

[danman]

As a not-exactly-slim person i find the author of the article to be annoyingly whiny and self-important. As most such "fat lobbyists" are.

[sabelmouse]

i can sympethise. having had a weight problem since babyhood and been insulted all my live i know how she feels.

[Joey Joe Joe Jr. Shabadoo]

If people attack fat people, I don't think it's necessarily a hate crime, I think it's just because these people looking for someone to attack are probably going to choose someone least capable of fighting back. Fat people are also easier to steal from. Obviously it's wrong and certainly more wrong than being fat.


BUT--Everyone should eat healthy and exercise, as much as possible and this "love your body" idea should be shunned for the lunacy it is. Of course models are way too thin, but the girl in this story was 300 pounds. No one should weigh that much, not even people who are 6'8". Don't read this story and get the idea that, just because she was victimized, it is okay to be that heavy. It's not. She needs serious serious medical help.

[danman]

Better be accurate. It IS ok to be heavy (overweight). It is mostly OK to be mildly obese IF you are physically fit. IT IS ABSOLUTELY NOT OK to be morbidly obese , like the woman in question.

[Beckoneko]

For belonging to a forum that has a major emphasis on decreasing world suck, I am surprised at the level of intolerance. Yes, it is unhealthy to be morbidly obese, but these people are aware of it. It does not justify hating them as a person because they are unhealthy. Would you hate a cancer patient for being unhealthy, and throw things at them in the street and yell, stop being sick? You may be thinking, "But it isn't their fault they have cancer." Lung cancer, skin cancer, and colon cancer are preventable if you don't smoke, wear sun screen, and don't eat too much red meat, respectively. They made a lifestyle choice to not take care of themselves, and are sick as a result of it. Now you may be thinking, "It isn't always their fault if there were outside factors such as influence from other people, living conditions, genetics, etc." Being fat can be genetic, they could have an underlying medical issue that causes them to be fat and unable to lose weight, they may have only learned how to eat one way, or may not have the economic means to eat healthy and buy a gym membership, or expensive exercise equipment. They may have been injured severely to the point where they can't get up and exercise. Their health is their concern. It in no way gives you the right to judge them as a person, and even less right to torment and beat them because of it. You don't have to date them if you don't want to, and no one will twist your arm to, just don't be rude about it.
I am average size, and thus overweight. I have been chubby my whole life, and have a mother who has had me on a diet since the third grade. It has been so ingrained that when I was in jr high, I wasn't fat, but would wear three sizes too big because I thought I was too fat to wear the size that fit (I was a size 6 and 130 lbs of solid muscle, but wore a size 10). Which in jr high when all your friends are a size 1 or 3, 6 is enormous in comparison.
At one point after high school, I stopped eating for 2 months (heart break diet, not anorexia), I dropped from a size 14 to a size 8 during that time, and my mom would still tell me how fat I was. If fluctuating around the average mark can be so psychologically and emotionally damaging, I can't imagine what damage being seriously over weight would do.
My boyfriend has always been heavy since he was a little kid, and he told me about how much he was bullied. It broke my heart to hear how cruel people are. Not only was he picked on by classmates, but doctors, class aids, and teachers. When he was in kindergarten, a couple of high schoolers threw him against the wall, his teacher kicked him and told all of the other students to pick on him. It would be one thing to call someone names, but in high school, kids would throw full, open soda cans, blocks of wood, and chunks of metal at his head just because of his weight. Some girls kicked him so much that he still has knee problems today because of it. And he was very Christian as a child, and would not fight back because his teacher told him he would go to Hell if he did.
He does not complain or whine about how people treat him, and takes it in stride. He walks everywhere and doesn't handicap himself or wallow in self pity. Everyone has their issues and flaws. Do we go up to strangers who look perfect and yell at them to stop being so OCD? Do we condemn people with plastic surgery for being too superficial? Do we beat up skinny people for having a supposed eating disorder (even though we don't know if they do or not)? Most likely not, but why? Because they look the way we think they are supposed to look? Maybe you should take a good look at yourself before condemning others so shamelessly.

[danman]

Sorry but i think you misunderstood just about everyone here.
I wonder what do you mean by intolerance - i certainly do not go around shouting at overweight folk you swine (being about 240 lbs myself, it would be ridiculous as hell)

There is a large difference with cancer though - you do not get groups of cancer admirers gloryfying nearly dead people and saying that the medical classification that cancer is unhealthy is BS.
Everybody recognises that having cancer just like being morbidly obese is dangerous.
Also most especially dangerous types of cancer are gotten outside of control of one - pancreas, bone, leukaemia, brain ..


Secondly the idiot who beat up the woman is an idiot and would probably have done so if she had any other outstanding trait, or maybe even without one. Calling any such thing a hate crime and using it to push your political agenda is as disgusting as the act itself.


Frankly i sympathise with you - you apparently have a stupid mother. Putting such a young child on diet could have retarded your growth, and even make for health problems further on (rickets just out of my head)

But , and that closely relates to my point, your BF was not bullied because he was fat (although it helped to rally attention to him ) Other people who are not fat but do not 'fit the mould" are bullied as well.
I am not saying it is his fault, but frankly, refusing to apply violence and fight back is what helped it the most. You see, the person who picks on someone is looking for a cheap nerve relief or entertainment . If you beat back, it might hurt at the time but next , he will find someone else. I have although not so extensively experienced this kind of thing as well , but i very soon (primary school) learned that fighting/swearing back is the best defense, and can say that i have not been picked on since - in high school a few idiots attempted something, (i did not understand much language in the beginning and except for being overweight was the most stereotypical nerd ever :D ) but since it turned bad for them, even if one i was unable to beat as he was somewhat stronger, they never attempted anything again.
I see that this might be hard to admit, as people like to put fault at things they have no control of (eg weight) rather than that they do (eg behaviour) but it is the truth. (Just saying it in the case you two have children i guess)

And as the last paragraph goes, yes many other types of people are picked on. (And myself i really think anyone having wanton [ie not after an accident] plastic surgery is stupid and superficial)
So do not put in others' mouths assumptions they do not make :D