My Facebook friend Julie posted today that someone had called her a fat bitch to her face in public. She said “I think that’s the first time I have been called that to my face… does this qualify me for the Fat Bitches Club?” Yes it does, and your official club jacket is in the mail!
The Fat Bitches Club is for those who’ve been victims of the sizeism and sexism that occur when people lash out at us with a phrase meant to let us know that we don’t look or act like they want us to. If you’re wondering if you qualify for the FBC, check out the qualifying events below, though please note that this is not an exhaustive list.
Just Because
This is how Julie qualified. She was talking to someone about something completely unrelated to her size. He didn’t like what she said, so he called her a fat bitch. He is hoping that she buys into the ideas that her worth is determined by her body size, that having a fat body is bad, and that she shouldn’t want to be a bitch, so that he can hurt her with name calling rather than having an adult discussion about the topic that she broached.
Online Troll
At least once a day I open my e-mail to read my new blog comments and someone has “fat bitched” me. Perhaps they’ve been only so creative as to type “fat bitch!” (or more likely “fat bicth!”) or maybe it’s part of a longer ridiculous rant. Either way, this is how these people spend their spare time and almost every fat person I know who has an online presence has experienced this – whether it’s e-mail, Facebook, YouTube, a blog, instagram etc. This is just blatant sizeism committed by people who are obviously not in a great place in their lives because we refuse to hate ourselves like they want us to.
Drive By
This happens when a fat person has the unmitigated nerve to exist outside their home. This might come from teenagers or, sadly, from grown ass adults – maybe they are walking by, riding a bike, or in a car. Maybe they just yell, maybe they throw eggs at us. either way, you have a chance to earn your Fat Bitches Club jacket just by walking out your door.
Self Selected
Some people choose to adopt the Fat Bitch label proudly. (Of course other people prefer not to claim the labels of fat and/or bitch and that’s fine too.)
This is about how we survive a world where people use our body size as an epithet, where the government is perpetuating a war on us based on our body size. Where people actually scream names at us out of their cars. The world is screwed up, we are fine and celebrating our entry into the Fat Bitch club is one way,out of many options, that some of us choose to show that.we are here, we aren’t ashamed, and we aren’t going anywhere. especially not because some people are still calling us names like it’s the first day of preschool and they don’t have any home training. Screw that. Fat Bitches Club forever!
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