I stumbled across this while researching old feminist publications. I can’t really explain why I liked it so much.
I don’t agree with the author’s perspective, but it’s a point of view I’d never heard before, and she writes beautifully, with wit and humor and pain.
I did read it, but I don’t really buy it. She pays lip service to perspective but then says:
which just brings it back to herself again. Plus, her concluding lines in which she considers sending her post-bypass friend a dozen donuts but then decides not to are weirdly snarky and self-congratulatory. I don’t believe that she’s really achieved perspective and empathy.
Different strokes for different folks - and thank you for sharing this! - but in my personal opinion, this essay is full of super toxic, overly dramatic HAES rhetoric that can be really harmful.
Really? I found the conclusion pretty brilliant. She’s saying she understands her friends decisions aren’t about her, but she still doesn’t believe in it.
The part about the dozen donuts I took to be the antithesis of her earlier selfishness. In the first half she describes eating candy in front of her friends while they’re dieting, only supporting her mom for the free clothes, taking everything personally.
At the end she says “There are worse things a person can be than fat,” which has two meanings here. The first, that weight gets a disproportionate amount of attention compared to other issues. The second, unlike her friends who experienced a weight loss journey, her change came from within. Basically “Being an asshole is worse than being fat, so I’m gonna try not to be an asshole.”*
I definitely took it that she realized being an asshole is worse than being fat - I loved this article, thank you for sharing!
I can see where you’re coming from, that’s a fair interpretation!