Worth your weight

"I propose we read books by amazing authors who are reframing the idea of living in bodies that do not confirm to the mainstream acceptable shape and beauty standard." And so it was that our summertime book club decided to focus on books written by larger women this year - a personally relevant topic for many of us after a year of sedentary lockdowns.

After a few emails about the topic (which everyone was keen about) and which specific books or poetry or podcasts to select (trickier to agree about with so many options), we decided to start with Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman by Lindy West. I cheated and just refreshed myself on the TV series. Shrill is a bit of a hero's journey. A young, plus-sized journalist is insulted by a personal trainer in her local coffee shop, humiliated by her boyfriend who expects her to leave by crawling awkwardly over the back fence so that he doesn't have to introduce her to his flatmates, and belittled by her boss. After a life changing circumstance and the encouragement of her flatmate and work spouse, she finds her voice and power. In standing up to her boss and setting clear boundaries with the boy she’s dating, she finally earns the respect she is due.

My online copy of Hunger

Next we read Hunger by Roxane Gay, whose life changed immeasurably when she was gang raped as a 12 year old by boys she knew. Gaining weight as a protective mechanism, she offers insights into the experience of living life defined as a super morbidly obese person. Roxane doesn't allow the reader a reprieve from the daily humiliations of her lived experience; from chairs cracking, to gym bullies, and the challenges of air travel we gain some understanding of the ways in which fat people are denied a dignity, and how one incident can change a person's life trajectory so significantly. Decades after the event, she searches online for the boy who, with his friends, raped her all those years ago; the boy whose face she sees in her minds eye every single day. She learns that he is successful in the business world and has used his privilege to build a good life for himself.

Both of these talented and brave and ultimately powerful women feature on an episode of This American Life podcast entitled “Tell me I’m fat” where they share about their journeys. Also on the podcast is Elna Baker who, with the assistance of drugs and surgery, transitioned almost overnight from being Fat Elna during the first 20 years of her life, to become Thin Elna thereafter. Fat Elna had wondered whether her unlucky-in-love status and lack of success in her career were attributable to her size. “Don’t be paranoid” she had told herself, “of course it’s more complicated than that”. Sadly, Thin Elna had to admit that it had been 100% due to her weight. Recently married, and with her career moving forward in leaps and bounds, she had achieved the success she yearned for, yet found herself missing “Fat Elna” who she describes as happier, less inhibited on the dance floor, and a generally nicer person than Thin Elna. I, too, felt incredibly sad about the loss of Fat Elna. 

Just the other day, an aunt shared a photo of two young women at the beach, circa 1960. The dark haired one on the left, stunning in her white two piece swimsuit and polka dot head band and smiling broadly, turns out to be my mother aged around 16. Never having seen photos of her younger than about 23, I peered inquisitively at the young lass in the beach scene, taking in the details and finding the points of likeness to the petite, now grey haired woman I have called mum for more than 4 decades. Those were the tail end of her “fat years”, apparently, and so she didn't ever show us photos of that time. I'm glad to see that “Fat Lyn” is happy and carefree.

Two sisters, circa 1960

In contrast, my teenage years were inhabited by Thin Aletia, and there’s a photo somewhere of me, also carefree in a black and white two piece, all limbs and hardly any curves. In those days I moved through the world confident that I was valued and my contributions worthwhile. I believed the narratives expressed indirectly - "those" people are lazy, they just don’t have any self control, and they are so unattractive. I’d never end up like that. As the kilos gradually piled on, seemingly unbidden, I had to examine my own prejudices, and those of folks around me. I began to move through the world with less of the entitlement and confidence of Thin Aletia. Lived experience has me reluctantly agreeing with some of Thin Elna's conclusions.

When I was about 10, we all had "autograph books" where the people in our lives wrote messages to us. Some people wrote silly poems, some shared affirmations or declarations of love, some offered advice, and some just drew pictures. Mum's message to me was a bit of all the above: "A caterpillar's heart still beats in every butterfly, Inside you are always you. Inside you are always you". Staring at a moth in the bathroom at a campsite the other day, the fluff of the caterpillar head still visible beside the adult wings, I thought again of mum's words. Yet, if we are inherently the same, regardless of any physical change, why does it feel as if our worth is inversely related to our size?

As opposed to Elna and me, Lindy and Roxane don’t go through any chrysalis-like transformation. Although Lindy considers surgery, she eventually decides against it. Both women have only dwelt in the fat camp, with Lindy becoming a trailblazer for the fat acceptance movement and Roxanne an advocate for fat friendly clothing and accessible spaces. While I’m here in this camp, I’m enjoying supporting Australian-based clothing designers who make attractive, colourful, garments for women of a wide size range and helping otherwise tentative women to find clothing that makes them feel great. 

But with some size-related health issues rearing their ugly heads, I'm seriously considering making an attempt to work off those COVID kilos. There's a part of me that, like Roxane, is afraid of being thin again. What if doors are opened that were previously shut? What if I am faced with evidence that society really is that shallow? What if I turn into one of those women who tut tuts when fat people reach for another piece of cake? But whatever my size, I'll still be me, and I'll always have the richness of my wider life experience. I hope I also have Fat Elna's uninhibited approach to dancing and Fat Lyn's broad, unapologetic smile.