Hi, I want to start by saying that I fall under the thin-privileged category and I really love your blog. However, I do think that fat-shaming is part of the larger problem of body-shaming that does connect to misogyny. I believe that fat-shaming is not more or less oppressive than thin-shaming and both are disgusting. That being said, this blog draws attention to the idea that someone's body is never up for hate, ridicule, or even discussion.. Thank you!! (weirdly written hope you get it!)

Asked by

happy-retirement-deactivated201

Thanks for writing in. As explained many times before on this blog:

1. Fat people are oppressed. We’re being denied the right to adopt, keep our children in custody cases, we’re paid less than our thin counterparts, we’re being experimented on by a generation of anti-obesity doctors, surgeons, researchers, and activists, there is a “War of Obesity” on us, researchers are being given millions of dollars (in aggregate) to find connections between fatness and every ill known to man to the extent that they’re being intellectually dishonest (like claiming fatness is contagious, a study that was widely pressed and then debunked almost immediately, though the debunk wasn’t given a fraction the airtime of the original study), there’s a popular television show in some n-th season all about torturing and shaming fat people, and I could go on and on and on.

None of which is happening to thin people. So please check your thin privilege if you think for an instant that thin-shaming is oppression, or in any way comparable to fat-shaming. It isn’t.

2. Male privilege and thin privilege intersect, but thin privilege is not a subset of male privilege. Fat men are also subject to the oppression laid out in point 1. I do agree that fat woman are targeted with much more intensity, and that the intersection of thin privilege and male privilege magnifies each x1000. And yes, fat woman are perceived to be ‘out-of-control’ by boner-centric patriarchs and Nice Guys [TM] who see scoring a fat chick proof of some kind of abhorrent ‘beta’ status or something. But this strong intersection doesn’t mean that fat shaming is strictly misogyny.

3. True on the final point. It’s meaningless to hate bodies, because they aren’t inherently moral. This culture, however, strongly moralizes body types. Thin people are seen as better citizens, partners, friends, employees, children, siblings, artists, students—you name it.

The overall thrust of your comment is to try to put fat shaming and thin shaming on some kind of equal ground, when they’re not. This blog publishes over 10 items a day, and has been for about ten months now, illustrating that very fact. I’m glad you enjoy the blog, but I’m not quite sure you fully grasp its purpose.

-ArteToLife