You want to know why?
Being bullied or teased for being skinny is not oppression.
When people make fun of you because of your size, it's petty stupidity. People make fun of fat people because society tells us that being fat is the worst possible thing you can be. There are so many programmes dedicated to showing people lose weight. There are constant adverts telling me I need to lose weight, need to slim down, need to shed the pounds, need to not look how I look.
Meanwhile girls who do not look like me say they are treated the exact same, while flicking through a magazine filled with girls who look like them, while a television is filled with programmes about girls who look like them, pausing to look at adverts showing girls who look like them. While society holds up girls who look like them as the epitome of health and beauty and sex appeal.
I am a size 14, which in the UK is the average size. I have a belly and I have muffin top when I wear skinny jeans and my thighs will never have a gap between them. I'm chubby. So when I wear crop tops out in the street, people don't admire my flat stomach or toned abs cos I've not got them. Instead they stare or glare at me because I have the audacity to have a little pooch of a belly hanging over my jeans. I have stretch marks that decorate my thighs and butt and hips and people hate to be reminded that I grew, I filled out, I gained weight and I'm okay about it and I'm not ashamed. When I ask for the next size up in a store and they tell me they don't have any there, or they don't stock past a size 8 I'm given the look of disgust because how dare I want to look pretty and feel good about myself.
And yeah, it also sucks if you get teased for being thin. It sucks to be bullied for anything about yourself and it's not okay for people to insult you no matter what your body type is. But people being mean to you is not the same as a socially constructed opressive culture where my body type and body types bigger than mine are constantly held up as undesirable, unhealthy, an epitome of laziness, greed, sloth, gluttony, ugliness. I could go on.
Look at the modelling industry. It's literally impossible to be too thin to be a model. Multiple times models have died from eating disorders, some weighing as little as 70lbs. And they've been modelling right up to when they died. Constantly you see models with ribs sticking out, collarbones popping out, legs that are so thin they look miles apart. I'm yet to see a model who's short and chubby with fat thighs and a belly, unless it's a specific campaign about body-type.
To quote someone on Tumblr:
"Having been the victim of a rude comment DOES NOT EQUATE to being a marginalized group that receives systematic and institutional discrimination and oppression."
Yes, people can hate on you for being thin and that sucks majorly. Seriously, they're idiots if they hate you no matter what your body type. And I'm sure loads of people are going to jump in and say they had x and y happen to them, and yes that sucks majorly for you and I'm sorry that happened to you if people were mean to you. But it's still not the same. Skinny bodies are still everywhere in media, everywhere you look and if you're not skinny, then you're ugly.
I don't hate anyone based on what they look like, and I don't hate skinny girls and I don't think any body type looks better.
No body type is better than another, but society disagrees and it's on your side.
Not registered?
Create an account