When I was a seven year old girl and just learning to hate my body, a group of women were choosing to stop hating theirs. Today is the 30th anniversary of the book Shadow on a Tightrope: Writings by Women on Fat Oppression and some bloggers on the Fatosphere are celebrating with a blog carnival. More than ten years later when I had the idea that I could maybe learn to actually like my body, I found amazing support in the fatosphere and books like Fat?So! by Marilyn Wann and Health at Every Size by Linda Bacon, and finding and reading Shadow gave me a connection to the history of the movement that continues to be really important to me (it was a big part of the impetus for the Fat Activist History Project). My copy remains a prized possession.
I was and am so moved at how these women came together – without the internet, the fatosphere, facebook, or smartphones - how they rose up from a society that was fully entrenched in fat phobia, and helped to start a movement from scratch. This book and the amazing women who wrote it inform my activism everyday. I want to live up to the example they set, I want to honor their work and sacrifice. So today’s blog is a thank you to the women who rose up from societal shame and stigma, called it what it was and is (oppression,) and put another option on paper that I was lucky enough to find. From the bottom of my big fat heart, thank you:
Lisa Schoenfielder
Barb Wieser
Vivian Mayer
Sharon Bas Hannah
Kelly
Marianne Ware
Joan Dickenson
Kate Allen
Lynn Mabel-Lois
Terre Poppe
Leah Pesa Kushner
Lynn Levy
Susan Norman
Veronica Hubbard
Judith Stein
Doris K.
Judy Freespirit
Sue McCabe
Cynthia Riggs
Elana Dykewomon
Betty Shermer
Kathleen Hagen
Robin Goldner
Mona Hudson
Martha Courtot
Laurie Ann Lepoff
Karen Scott-Jones
Nedhera Landers
Judith Masur
Marjory Nelson
Sandra Tyler
Kate Allen
Like my blog? Here’s more of my stuff!
The Book: Fat: The Owner’s Manual The E-Book is Name Your Own Price! Click here for details
Become a member: For just ten bucks a month you can keep this blog ad-free, support the activism work I do, and get deals from cool businesses Click here for details
Interviews with Amazing Activists!! Help Activists tell our movement’s history in their own words. Support In Our Own Words: A Fat Activist History Project!
Dance Classes: Buy the Dance Class DVDs or download individual classes – Every Body Dance Now! Click here for details
If my selling things on the blog makes you uncomfortable, you might want to check out this post. Thanks for reading! ~Ragen
