You live with it all the time, it is all around you, you have known it all your life. But you can rarely see it.
The hatred of women’s bodies – so ubiquitous you don’t even know what you’re looking at. Then every now and again your head somehow clears the clouds and you suddenly get to see the hatred with fresh eyes, as though you hadn’t been raised in a culture of it since the day you were born and hadn’t grown up thinking it was completely normal, and when that happens.. it feels like a punch to the face.
Fat-shaming, one of the world’s favourite forms of female body hating, is a particularly potent form of nastiness when attached to pregnancy. This lovely and quietly revolutionary piece, “Fat and pregnant” from Raising My Boychick and the heart-breaking comments that follow it are head-clearing reading.
For most people in this culture — not only fat women — bellies are one of the, if not the, most stigmatized, most shame-laden part of our bodies. Add the all-over shame of existing in the world with a fat body, and it’s really, really hard for most of us to take and share photographs of our pregnant bellies.
I took pictures, but I remember — distinctly — being disappointed that I didn’t look pregnant until the very end. At 21 weeks I took, like, a dozen pictures of myself in the mirror (fully clothed, because it wasn’t until after my son was born that I started to respect what I have going on here), trying to capture what looked like a maybe-baby-belly to me. I asked my husband’s opinion on the pictures. He looks and says off-hand, “It kinda looks like you’re sticking it out.” Devastation! Even though he didn’t mean anything mean by it, it made me feel really ridiculous for taking the pictures, because I had to try, apparently.
I am also a “fatty” so when I became pregnant for the first time I didn’t take belly photos. I hit 16 weeks and took a bunch one afternoon and then deleted them because I was “fat” I took another the next day.. just one. And as it was that was going to be my one and only photo during that pregnancy. My baby boy was born premature two weeks later and didn’t make it.
Oh how I kicked myself for not keeping all those belly photos.. proof that I HAD been pregnant! I still cherish that one belly pic and now looking at it I can totally see a baby belly and not just fat.
We can’t stop this world’s hatred soon enough.
Fat hatred is my GRR of the week. This is an article that resonated especially with me, I think it came from a Hoyden linkspam a day or two ago:
http://blogs.bluebec.com/im-fat-and-am-going-to-die-eventually/
It’s frustrating in part because I know I am large, I know that that is not optimal… But I get so severely punished for it (Even more than for being trans, seriously) that I literally can’t even begin to think of productive ways to deal with those issues because all I feel is shame, shame, shame. At times, I even feel gross seeing myself in the mirror.
I’m a nudist at heart, and anything that drives me to wear clothing to hide away my shame is soul-shatteringly sad.
*cheers* Out of all of the feminist blogs out there, yours and RMB are my favorites.
I’m such a fangirl.
I often laugh at my baby bump, after drinking, eating too much etc. I’m a petite short-arsed woman, so a larger tummy comes and goes. The pot belly is fine for me, and I don’t feel self conscious about it.
But I’m leaving a comment today because I’m EXTREMELY self conscious about my boobs, and when I put on weight they get bigger, and I don’t want to care, and I usually don’t care what people think of me, but I feel ashamed that they are big, and I feel fat because of it, and the cycle of thought is just embarrassingly awful. “I’m fat! You’re not fat! Your boobs are fine. They’re massive and make me fat. You’re comparing yourself. But they’re fat! Why is it so wrong to have big boobs? You’re great as you are. But I’m FAT. Why feel ashamed of your womanly features. Because girls with big boobs get teased. etc etc etc”
I’ve not been pregnant, so can’t relate to the pregnancy/belly/fat shaming aspect of your post, but your ‘hatred of women’s bodies’ saying rung true to me in this regard. Boobs are lovely and fine and womanly, but sometimes I don’t feel they’re mine to love. Do they belong to a society who hates women’s bodies? YUCK.
[...] blue milk laments that the hatred of women’s bodies is amplified when one dares to be both fat and pregnant and Bluebec takes on some fat myths in I’m Fat And I’m Going to Die [...]