Feminist Happenings

[laceblade]

A linkspam is being collected for people speaking out about Feminist's On-Going Disability Fail here. If you know of posts about the topic, submit them via comments so that they can be added.

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While we're at it, I recently very much enjoyed this post by sasha_feather about fat acceptance and Michael Pollan.

I would say it's not Pollan's attitudes precisely, but that he is uncritically adopting the wider cultural attitude of fatness as a disease. Several times he said that the Western diet is responsible for "heart disease, Type II diabetes, and obesity."

I have been thinking and thinking about this, and I need to think about it some more, because it's complicated and it makes me uncomfortable. ...

Also I think it's weird to pathologize a body type. Diseases are socially constructed; what is and is not a disease is not so easy to say. And I think it's weird to say that being fat is a disease. I think it's OK to say that some things associated with being fat are diseases, that being fat might make you more likely to have certain diseases, but even then you should remember that it is not a one-to-one situation and does not apply to everyone: it's only true at the population level, and association does not necessarily imply causation, either. It is more complicated than that!

It's a false equivalancy: people like to think that being fat means being unhealthy, automatically. They like to think that being thin (but not too thin!) means good health. Well guess what, that is not always the case either. It's more complicated!

In the comments, there is also a discussion about problematic things in the movie Wall-E.

Comments

[sasha-feather.livejournal.com]

Hey cool! Thanks!

[nylorac15.livejournal.com]

I really don't know enough about the correlation of weight and disease to intelligently comment on it. I will say, though, that following Michael Pollan's advice from In Defense of Food over the last year has led to me lose 20 pounds. It was really simple - try to eat veggies, go organic if you can, only eat sugar if it's a natural part of the food, not added. I don't even work out. I'm not sure why I would have lost that weight if was natural for me to have it. I 100% acknowledge that there will be variation in people, though, so please don't take this as a "Why isn't everyone as skinny as me!?" head-in-the-sand moment.

Regarding Wall-E: Creighton figured this out a while back, and I'd been meaning to mention it to you but kept forgetting. We think, and there's plenty of evidence in the movie to back us up, that they're not supposed to be fat/lazy, they're all giant babies. If you watch the movie again, their proportions are baby-like even though they're adults: huge heads, super-short arms and legs, they can't even walk. (When the guy falls out of his chair, he flails and looks around exactly like a very confused baby.) The big moment of truth in the movie involves them taking their first wobbly steps. I really think their appearance is intended to convey that they're helpless and entirely dependent on Buy & Large for their care (like babies), not that they're just lazy or fat.

[nylorac15.livejournal.com]

I should say, I totally agree with sasha_feather's post. I don't think Pollan is the problem, though. For people who are unhealthy, weight entirely aside, he's out to help them. I don't think I've ever seen him explicitly talk about obesity as a problem in and of itself.

[sasha-feather.livejournal.com]

I think that's a very smart analysis of Wall-E! It makes a lot of sense and probably is what the writers/producers meant to convey. They finally start to grow up when they take responsibility for their surroundings and for the care of the actual babies, etc... sort of a coming-of-age story, in this sense.

It's still problematic, though-- when you have to look that hard to see this analysis, there is something wrong with the portrayal. Also there is such a conflation of people who use powered mobility (ie wheelchairs), people who eat fast food, consume mass media or use the internet, as being unthinking and, as you say, dependent and infantile.

Dependency isn't necessarily a bad thing, depending on others is part of our social fabric and it is how all of us survive-- interdependency. Of independent thought is good too, and one kind of dependence, like depending on a chair to help move you around, doesn't imply lack of independent thought.

I'm just thinking out loud here! :)

[mystickeeper.livejournal.com]

This analysis makes sense, but I still find it problematic. People with disabilities are often infantalized by society/the media, so their portrayal as babies dependent upon the store for their care can also be a reference to their being disabled by their laziness/weight.