Three Quick Questions: Marilyn Wann

The all-new and semi-regular Three Quick Questions is the world's shortest interview: three questions for a person in fat acceptance. Our second edition features Marilyn Wann, longtime fat liberation advocate and head of FAT!SO?.

BFB: What do you think of the current state of fat acceptance in general?

Wann: First, I don't use the term "fat acceptance," even though a lot of people do. I prefer to talk about Fat Liberation (or Body Liberation, since weight-based oppression affects people of all sizes), the Fat Pride community (or just fat community), and the need for Fat Revolution. The word "acceptance," to me, has the whiff of putting up with something one still views negatively. Also, I don't seek to be "accepted" by people who reject me -- I seek to liberate myself (and anyone else who wants to join the party!) from the fat-hating attitudes (internal *and* external, i.e., personal/political) that bring us all down. My word choice is influenced by feminism, Marxism, the Civil Rights movement, queer theory, and disability rights theory. My word choice is not trivial; it affects the way I (and others) think about fatness and thus how we behave.

To answer your question: There is very little one can say generally about fat community because we are still isolated and still pre-Stonewall. The Stonewall Riots happened in 1969 when drag queens and lesbians and gays in bars in the Village in New York City resisted police brutality. What made the night of the riots different from all the other nights when police harassed queers was that it was the day of Judy Garland's funeral in Manhattan. For whatever mix of reasons, people were unwilling to take any more disrespect. They fought back. In the process, they outed themselves as a community of resistance. (One cool account.)

Fat people are not yet that angry or that cohesive, as a community. We are hiding out in our semi-safe places and we don't organize to resist when Dr. Phil or the Surgeon General beat us up.

If one took a survey of queer people in the 60s and asked them whether they would choose to be straight if they could, I imagine a large percentage of them would have said yes. (Homosexuality was still listed as a psychological disease in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders until, I think, 1973.) GLBTQ people would give a *very* different answer to that question in, say, 1990. Or now.

If we surveyed fat people right now -- even fat people who participate in any of the currently available fat "acceptance" resources (BFB, NAAFA, NOLOSe, FAT!SO?, plus-size fashions, BBW parties, etc.) -- the majority (I'm guessing 95%) would answer yes, they'd choose to be thin if they could. I find this tragic and disheartening, but it's where we are. It's a question, not so much of actual numbers on the scale, but of ideology. Let me explain...

When I give weight diversity talks (on college campuses, in corporate workplaces, in high schools, to Girl Scouts, etc.), I always do this basic exercise. I write the words "fat" and "thin" on the board and draw a vertical line between them. I ask people to brainstorm all of the words our society has trained us to associate with these two simple words. Every time I do this exercise, no matter where I am or what the group of people is like, I write basically the same two lists:

On the fat side of the line: bad, unhealthy, stupid, smelly, lazy, ugly, gluttonous, out of control, undisciplined, binge eaters, jolly, angry, depressed, unhappy, unpopular, lonely, unfashionable, muumuus, junk food, fried food, donuts, asexual/oversexed, poor, couch potato, sedentary, cow, pig, elephant, hippo, whale. (Many of these terms are classics stereotypes that have been used against every outsider group.)

On the thin side of the line: good, healthy, smart, clean, ambitious, beautiful, in control, disciplined, happy, hungry, eating disordered, popular, social, stylish, lingerie/thongs, Spandex, tight-fitting clothes, celery, water, salads, vegetabled, sexy, attractive, desirable, rich, powerful, athletic, active, gazelle, beanpole, stringbean.

The line between fat and thin is an idea, not a fact. (Which common sense shows: i.e., the line keeps jumping around. Is it BMI 27.5 or BMI 25? Is it a size 14 or a size 8?) Fat people and thin people have an ideological choice to make in relation to the line between fat and thin. Do we believe in it...or not? Do we speak and behave (in our daily lives) as if the fat/thin divide is meaningful or do we attempt to resist and dismantle it? Do we invest in the line's version of reality or do we create a new, inclusive reality? Do we perpetuate hateful weight prejudice or do we celebrate the diversity of our bodies?

Fat people who are in the would-be-thin-if-they-could category reinscribe the fat/thin dividing line with that choice. They want the goodies that come from crossing over, rather than the liberation of erasing the line altogether. Their desire for the privileges of thinness (as currently imagined) is an investment in the worldview that oppresses fat people. Believe me, I sympathize with a desire to live the good life right now. Even moreso, because we are living in such dark times...

The witch hunt against fat is at an all-time high. (Although, perhaps that means the pendulum is about to swing back toward sanity, a bit. Fingers crossed...) The witch hunt relies on our desire for a "cure" for what is not a disease, but difference. The "cure" keeps switching between diets, pills, and surgery, whenever the latest "solution" fails and loses popularity, to keep us from questioning the viability/desirability of any "cure." Witch hunts can't last. The most unthinkable question, during a witch hunt, is to ask, "What's wrong with being a witch?" That question alone can get a person burned. (Katherine Flegal is taking heat right now for her brilliant and methodologically unassailable article in JAMA that found *more* actual deaths *under* the magic dividing line of BMI 25 than over BMI 25.) Remember, the line is an idea -- a belief -- not a fact!

I am heartened by the growing Health At Every Size community, the nascent Fat Studies community (for academics in the humanities and social studies), and by the increasing number of media mongers who are daring to ask skeptical questions about the fat witch hunt. I also see a new generation of people coming along who grew up with Fat Lib concepts. They divest from the line (like the college students who petitioned universities to divest from stock holdings in companies that did business with Apartheid-based South Africa in the 80s) more readily than previous generations, because they already know why it's cool. This is one difference between LadyFest or Fat Girl Speaks and a BBW dance, people make the political connections between sexism, homophobia, racism and fat oppression.

Right now, the fat community is growing in quantity. We are grassroots still, but there are more people with more fabulous projects (like BFB!), more fat-positive resources, than there were when I started the FAT!SO? 'zine nearly 11 years ago. That's a fact to celebrate! I hope the fat community also grows in quality, by which I mean, in developing a weight-neutral ideology. I want us to be fierce in our rejection of the false and hate-mongering fat/thin divide. I want every body -- women and men, fat and thin -- to reject that line both for our own selfish reasons (so we can each enjoy the good life of health, happiness and equal opportunity!) and because it's the ethical, compassionate thing to do (so we'll enjoy the good life in good conscience!).

I invite everyone to invest in Body Liberation. Make some Fat Revolution wherever you are!

How'd you get started in the movement?

I had a Really Bad Day. (I apologize if you've heard this story before.) On my Really Bad Day, two things happened. First, I was having dinner with this guy that I liked and in the middle of dinner, he said, "I'm embarrassed to introduce you to some of my friends because you're fat." I was outraged and hurt and stunned. When I got home, I opened the mail and read a letter from Blue Cross of California, which said, more or less, "Thanks for your application for individual health coverage, but you're morbidly obese and that means we think you're too great a risk for us to insure. At all. Buh-bye. Go ahead and die, we don't care." Or at least, that's my memory of how it sounded.

I'm certainly not the only person who has ever had a Really Bad Day. Like most people who experience arbitrary and absolute exclusion based on body size, I thought I would try to let it slide off me as much as possible. But I'm actually grateful for the double whammy of that day because I couldn't shed the outrage and it made me realize what Audre Lorde said so wisely, "Your silence does not protect you."

All my life, I had avoided the subject of my weight and tried to succeed in other, non-weight-related realms. But obviously, I was still vulnerable to social and institutional discrimination. So I decided to speak out, because my Really Bad Day made me realize that I totally disagree with the idea that I (or anyone else) should be excluded from anything in life based on the number on the bathroom scale.

I was a journalist, it was the mid-90s, so I started a 'zine. I don't remember the moment when I came up with the name FAT!SO?, but I know I was playing with words that had been used to hurt me on the playground, with the idea of turning those words back on themselves, for their own undoing. I still adore the name FAT!SO? and think it does most of my work for me. Also, I find it very helpful to make things fun for people. Otherwise, why should they bother? Plus, I just enjoy coming up with conceptual twists that undo fat hatred...the Little Lb. O'Fat that tours the world, the Venus of Willendorf paper dolls, the Heroes and Villains of Fat History trading cards, the fat celebratory flipbook, the Anatomy Lesson photos of body parts.

After I created the first issues of the 'zine, I might have been satisfied, having expressed my rage and my rebellion against fat-based prejudice. But I started getting cards (and subscription checks) from fat women in the midwest (and all over) who wrote heartbreaking notes about their experiences being fat and their joy at finding something (FAT!SO?) that made them feel okay for the first time. "Shadow on a Tightrope" had been that first contact, for me. I keep doing Fat Lib work, 11 years later, because I still thrill at the chance to introduce Body Lib to new people. And I still enjoy being a rebel against a stupid, hateful form of prejudice. I admit that I am often exhausted by my repeated and ongoing exposure to all of the big and small examples of fat hatred that happen these days. At such moments, I feel like a unicorn with a lightning rod for a horn. But I'm still at it, because I can't imagine anything I'd love to do more.

If you had to describe fat acceptance to someone totally new to the concept, how would you describe it?

I do this all the time! Each time, I try different tactics, whatever I think will be the most fun for the audience. Here's my BFB-style take on an intro to Fat Lib...

Mainstream America's beliefs about fat being bad are a big lie. [insert disbelief and shock at heresy, here] Every year, the lie helps sell $40 billion of ineffective, often dangerous, weight-loss products. With that money, we could feed the hungry or house the homeless or put one-third of high school grads through college! Anti-fat propaganda distracts people from the truly bad things in the world (and thus offers a toxic form of comfort, kinda like self-medicating with heroin). The lie that fat=bad and thin=good creates a carrot/stick system in people's minds; they (and most of the people they know) become so full of their desire for carrots and their fear of sticks that they forget life is possible (and preferable!) without them. People also fail to see that carrots -- which may *seem* nice -- are actually a kind of stick.

Fat Liberation (or Body Liberation) is about refusing to buy the lies. Refusing to believe that when someone attacks you because you're fat, they're showing concern for your health. (There are plenty of practical ways to support the health of fat people...access to insurance, to diagnostic equipment, reduction of anti-fat bias among healthcare providers...none of which are on the agenda of people who nag about the allegedly dire health status of fat people. Such that their claims start to sound like threats, or wishful thinking.) Body Liberation is, instead, the common sense notion that people naturally come in different heights and weights, that we each deserve respect and equal opportunity in life, that people of all sizes can enhance their health through good nutrition, regular exercise, and thorough delight in their own unique bodies, that these behaviors are ends in themselves, *NOT* a means for weight loss. It's also common sense that the goal of weight loss is counterproductive (and hate-mongering) because it poisons a health-enhancing relationship to food and to fitness for people of all sizes.

Living one's life by the number on the bathroom scale sets people up to lose...their civil rights, their good health, their self-esteem, their uncomplicated relationship to eating and exercise, their ability to feel at home in their own skin, but, ironically, *not* to lose weight! Living weight-neutrally sets people up for all of the good stuff (health, fitness, self-esteem, equal opportunity) and none of the bad stuff (discrimination, internalized oppression, risky behaviors, being at war with one's own body).

As I've always said, "Life is just too short for self-hatred and celery sticks!" Be cool, be yourself. Never apologize for your size!

Thanks for the incredibly great answers to Three Quick Questions, Marilyn!