On the LIZZO Hate and Fatphobia

By
The Lizzo fiasco made me really think. To be honest, I only feel certain ways about my body sometimes, because I feel I'm expected to. I'm expected to hate the weight I gain, my love handles, my chubby tummy and forever strive to be socially palatable for the rest of the years I have left. It's really exhausting, I don't want to do it but I feel like everyone is looking at me to be disgusted in my body and hate the way I take up space. I feel like it is just what should be done.

photo by Jennifer Burk@jenandjoon

There is a redefining of self that comes with freedom. So, understanding that I don't have to think that way can be destabilizing in the beginning, but I am interested in how I navigate all of it, as FUCKING UNCOMFORTABLE as it is.

Needless to say, it is intriguing how normalized fatphobia is. So normalized that, many people do not accept the word as a definition of what they do. It is often playacted as faux care for the person's health, but no one that truly cares will say the things they do. They do not consider what they do and how they act fatphobic. It is not as simple to see your own blind spots especially when your specific blind spots are normalized. This is why white people don’t see the dissonance when the conversation of race comes up or when men don’t see a problem when we talk about the need for feminism.


But it is important, more so to interview yourself so to say. If you are uncomfortable, ask yourself why. Why am I uncomfortable when it comes to this person? What about them makes me uncomfortable? If I were them, in their body, how would I feel about myself? Vocalize your answers, take your time to form your words and be honest with yourself. Do not be judgmental, do this with self-compassion. When we ask ourselves these questions, we give ourselves more room to understand our own selves, the world around us and our duty to it.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

THOUGHTS: HELLO? BIGGER ISSUES OVER HERE.

By
Image
Sometimes it puzzles me that most of the things we argue about are insignificant, compared to what we NEED to be invested in. To me, issues of sexism, homophobia, racism and more of its kind are little issues. Don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to insinuate that they aren’t important. No. Little issues are important too. I’m trying to insinuate that these little problems should have been solved a while ago. That by now, we as humans should have realised how restrictive these issues are, we should have seen the light. We should have understood the main goal. We should be discussing our similarities not hating on our differences. We should be talking about the planet we share, the humanity we all share. The fact that that we all see the sky, we all know what love and pain feel like, we all wonder about the possibilities of what is beyond the sky, the stars, the moon, what is inside us, what gives us life, how our body work. How about the other living things around us, what makes t
Read more

Nigeria’s inability to just let herself heal

By
Image
Image by  Crea8t  from  Pixabay   “I’ve never seen a useless country like this…” “I can’t believe I’m from this country” “Nigeria is a huge joke” “God have mercy, where are we heading to in this country? Everything is upside down?” These are all real statements, by the way, I didn’t just make them up. I have for sure said an equivalent of that sometime in my life but that doesn’t help me or the situation. We forget our history or rather, we want to move past it like it was just this thing that happened. Nigeria was birth out of a huge trauma, and much like any other trauma, there must be space and time to heal from it. Acceptance is also important. You cannot, for instance, get hit by a car, lose a leg but expect to walk like nothing happened. You must first heal from the wound, get a prosthetic leg that fits you and then practice walking one step at a time. You will not walk like a person without your wounds and that is as should be. Before colonization, Nigeria was n
Read more

So you're scared of getting pregnant? I found some info

By
Image
  So, I figured out what it’s called. Tokophobia . I wasn’t expecting the name to sound like that. “Toko”  phobia. Lol doesn’ t sound normal to me. Primary Tokophobia, the fear of pregnancy and/or childbirth. Tbh I don’t know why every woman doesn’t have this. The part that got to me was the reasons they gave for why a person with tokophobia thinks of it. Like fear of the imagined labour pain, or fear of body changes , or low pain thresholds . All concerns are valid , but th o s e aren’t mine . Although, now that I think about it, it could be part of it for me too. My body changing, truly, to never being the same again. That’s quite a change honestly when you think about it, from probably getting blind to my puss changing completely and then kids!!... and the body scars and the possibility of dying, and how often you hear about women, especially black women, dying so easily , because of little things in the delivery room. I am scared frankly because, like most of my fears- religious
Read more