Why do your arms look like that?

As women in this country we are subjected to the reality that our bodies are (presumed to be) public property.  They are gazed at, commented upon, judged, policed - touched without permission. Ask any pregnant woman and she will relate to you the experience of strangers stroking her belly without even asking.  Who among us has not been subject to disapproving and judgmental stares?  To comments upon out clothing being too tight, too short, too loud -- too much or too little?  Female bodies are seen as decorative bodies, there for the viewing and pleasure of others.  Whether it is the subtle perusal of an unknown man, the disapproving gaze of other women - or the blatant cat calls of street harassment, the experience is objectifying and largely unpleasant.

"And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things"

This is the objection of Granny Weatherwax from Terry Pratchet's Disc World Novels (Carpe Jugulum),  followed by her ubiquitous attitude of "I can't be having with that sort of thing"

I am inclined to concur.  The trouble with the male gaze or the ostensible public property of female bodies is that they make people into things. Which leads me to the subjects of street harassment and fat shaming.  Street harassment is something most women have experienced from time to time - the experience of being yelled at, usually in a sexual or lewd way.  It is one of the many ways that we are reminded of how our bodies are public spectacle.  If you are a fat woman, street harassment may often come with comments about your weight.  It may also come from other women - in the form of dieting advice.  I have heard stories from fat women about being cornered in restaurant bathrooms and being given advice on how to slim down.  Or having other shoppers at grocery stores glare and comment upon your food selections (or in one particularly strange story start removing "fattening" foods from your cart).  The experience of being treated this way is complicated and upsetting - but I think what all experiences of street harassment and fat shaming have in common is that they treat people like things.

I have had mercifully few experiences with street harassment - either directed at my weight or my general appearance. I've been yelled at by boys from a moving car ("fat slut!"), and once in Cork a man came up and barked at myself and three other girls, and of course I have had the near ubiquitous experience of fat-shame in the doctors office (a subject for a different post).  However, the worst experience I ever had with fat shaming came from a surprising source - the Open House at a Women's Studies Graduate Program.

I know there are a lot  of well meaning people in the world who want to teach their children or themselves to not judge others based on size or skin color or impairment.  I met one such well-meaning individual when I was deciding which graduate program to attend. She was, admittedly, a bit strange from the get go.  She asked me a lot of impertinent questions about which schools I had applied to; where I had been accepted, where else I had gone to open houses - how much funding I was being offered.  This continued to be pressed until I finally told her I was considering one other school at that point, a UC - and no I would not tell her my funding package.  When she heard the name of the school she became strangely agitated that I had been accepted there "They took you? They didn't take me!" - it was a bit shrill and a bit condescending as we stood in the restroom after having lunch with faculty.  I really didn't know what to say.

This woman confused me, she presented herself as very friendly, open and progressive but also seemed strangely obsessed with me and my body.  She asked me about my experiences as a fat lady - did I get harassed? No, I said - I rarely had anyone comment on my body.  She nodded and seemed a bit confused.  It was hard she said, being a woman - so many pressures to be thin.  This woman had a daughter, and she confided that the state they came from (Bay Area, CA) was very appearance obsessed.  That she was concerned that her daughter would grow up to hate her own body - and that she (the mother) wanted her daughter to be accepting of everyone. She related that her daughter had started noticing differences in people.  She told me how she wanted to be sure that her daughter knew that everyone came in different sizes.  What did I do - she asked - if children commented on my weight?

            I was a little uncomfortable at this point.  This was before I had found Fat Acceptance as a group and the useful language that comes with it.  I had been fat for years and I was comfortable with who I was.  I had read Marilynn Wann's "Fat!so?" and even before that had come to the moment with family and friends where I requested that they stop insisting I wasn't fat. I as fat, I knew it - it was OK.  Fat was only a problem if you said it as an insult.  So I was torn, on the one hand I found this woman's insistence on talking about my body rude and a little bit insulting.  On the other hand I wished more people would be aware of the messages they were telling kids about bodies.  So I grinned, gritted my teeth and tried to hand out a few enlightening tid-bits about the idea that people come in all shapes and sizes and that she ought to treat questions about fat the same way she would inquiries about hair color.  I walked away and hoped it was the end of it.

It wasn't.

I must interject at this point that I had been nursing a migraine all day during this experience.  By early afternoon I couldn't take it anymore and I went home to take medicine and sleep for a few hours in the hopes of feeling better in time for the evening's mixer where I could meet faculty and staff.   By the time night fell my headache was manageable, though not gone.  I got dressed, went to the party and tried to have a nice time. And for the most part  I succeeded, until this same woman cornered me in a room with just her and her daughter.  The kid was cute - what 3-year-old isn't? We had a somewhat pleasant conversation where I told her about life in Tucson, AZ - until part way through the child tugged at her mom's skirt and a whispered conversation occurred.

I was informed that the little girl was fascinated by my upper arms.  The fat on my arms hung over my elbow - her mother informed me and reached over to pinch the fat.  The little girl nodded furiously.  I was shocked - not that the little girl noticed, kids do that.  They get to an age where they are figuring out how people are similar or different - they comment on people's skin color, their weight, their hair color, their able or disabled bodies.  The child in this was innocent.  However, her mother was not - and I could not believe they way she was handling this situation. 

 

The Mom proceeded to whisper to her daughter, they both whispered back and forth behind their hands (no really, actually behind hands).  She looked at me and said "I told her that it is because you are fat."  She looked at me and then in a very pointed way said "Remember how we talked about how people are different and that's OK?" More whispers.  "Some people just eat more than others, and they get big arms" There was then something about eating well and dancing a lot if she didn't want arms like mine ... I just stood there, flabbergasted.

This woman thought she was doing the right thing, she thought she was teaching her daughter acceptance and diversity -- and I had never been treated with such bigotry in my life.  I wanted to yell at her - I wanted to tell her that you don't pinch other people's fat.  That you don't use the word fat with a child and follow it up with a discussion about the presumed poor eating habits of the fat person.  That if you want to teach your child to be open to diversity and the broad spectrum of people in the world you should probably also teach them that it is rude to whisper and point!  That the act of whispering and pointing makes that person into a fetish - an object to be observed and commented upon but not interacted with.  I wanted to tell her how rude and intolerant she was being and how awful she had made me feel.  But I didn't.  I didn't because blowing up at another prospective student at an open house is unlikely to reflect well upon you no matter how justified the reaction, particularly when there were no witnesses.  I also didn't because my migraine had come back and I simply didn't have the reserves to deal with this crap.  So instead I just walked away.

When I went home that night I cried to my husband about how I had felt bullied by a three year old and her awful mother. The hardest part was that I felt like somehow this was my fault - that I had permitted this to happen by saying that pointing  out diversity was OK.  That somehow the fault was mine, that it was my issue with my fat since the pointing out of that fat made me feel hurt.

It took me a while, but eventually I realized that was crap.  The problem wasn't that the child had noticed I was fat - or even that Mom had said that I was.  The problem was that this woman had treated me all day as if I was nothing but my fat.  She treated me like an object - not a person.  All day she had been trying to be the progressive, accepting, hip graduate student who understood my "challenges" -- but what she was really being was judgmental. She only saw my fat.  She only interacted with me as fat.  She asked about being fat - what is it OK to call fat people? How do you deal with people seeing your fat? She never bothered to notice that I was a person.  When she sat there whispering, staring and pointing - she treated me as an object. And she taught her daughter to do the same. I was upset because that night I was treated as fat personified, a walking cautionary tale/diversity visual aid. I was changed from a person into an object.

I wish I could have that moment back, that I could tell her how this moment where she thought she was being progressive and open was the most humiliating fat experience of my adult life.  I wish I could tell her that if she wanted her child to learn to be open to all people, to not judge that she should first teach her daughter to treat all people as PEOPLE not parts - not skin colors, or fat arms, or old wrinkles. PEOPLE. And that part of that was treating all people with courtesy and respect - and not pointing and whispering.