Lynne Murray says:
Laurie and Debbie were kind enough to invite me to chime in from time to time and I wanted to mention some of the great things Laura Frater, author of Fat Chicks Rule has posted recently, which include:
June 12, 2006, News of the death of Judith Moore, editor and essayist whose 2005 memoir Fat Girl: A True Story was noted as a frank assessment of the pain of growing up overweight. (On a personal note, when I read about Moore’s book, I grieved for the amount of eloquently described body disgust in it. You can see her luminous prose and incendiary anger in “Why I Wrote Fat Girl.”)
On June 5th, Frater posted an awesome picture of a fat bellydancer tea pot by Karen Portaleo–if I wasn’t totally sure it was out of my price range, I’d want that very badly.
Frater’s May 29th post entitled Freedom to Move, has a link to Sister of Size’s wonderful blog entry on the politics of healthism from the point of view of a very wise, diabetic fat activist, including the quotation below (long, but I love it!):
… Fighting against the body’s standards is close to impossible, and leads to a perception of impotence in this culture, as we are groomed to believe that not only can we, but we should be in total control of our physical beings.
…ALL women, and increasing numbers of men are coerced into focusing on physical appearance because it is politically expedient for the powers that be that we remain self-obsessed and wallowing within our perceived powerlessness …
There is no way a self-fixated population (or even a self-condemning one) is going to be capable of enacting positive and expansive change. Women have long, if not always, been the keepers of the connections within a culture, the bonds of community, the ones who gift us all with care. We are moving farther and father away from community and care.
…
The truth is that we are a very unhappy society, on the prowl for things to acquire to fill the holes in our souls. Some also use drugs or pornography or gambling or even god to plug these holes. But what really works to fulfill our lives? Connection, caring, giving in the selfless sense that mothers give to children, not to receive but to relish the giving-to-needs — THAT is the filling that heals our souls, and fulfills our needs, and makes life worth living.