People expect the ultimate direction of a couple is getting married and having offsprings, it helps the continuity of mankind. I think maybe enough people in our world already, do we need more?
Back to the discrimination, have you been in those situation before, maybe not involve any violence interaction, but the questions or 'look' make you uncomfortable already.
The subgroups like single, same sex couple, multiple-partnership, etc. Hope you get support from people around you, within or outside the group.
We don't have to live upon others standard. But we should be responsible to ourselves, sole, mind & body!
- Lilac
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Discrimination Against 'Fat' People: We're a Sizist Society
5/12/2010
Sarah Treleaven
Linda Bacon, author of Health at Every Size, says that fat people face discrimination in all areas of life - from squeezing into a seat on an airplane to buying new clothes off the rack. Here, Bacon explains why people discriminate against the fat and how we can start to change it.
Q: First of all, why is fat the preferred term, as opposed to overweight or obese?
A: If you think about the word overweight, it implies that you're over some weight that must be healthy for you. We know from the scientific research that there is no such thing, and there are plenty of people in that category who are living long, healthy lives. The term implies a bias that's not true. Similarly, if you think about the word obese, the etymology of the word implies that there's a large appetite involved. We know that's not true and we know that people who are in the obese category aren't eating any differently than people in the normal weight category. Furthermore, my larger complaint with both of those terms is that they pathologize having a certain body type, and that's not necessary or helpful. The reason the term fat is more commonly used is because it's a term that has been chosen by civil rights activists to define their own community. The idea behind using the term fat is to recognize that it's just a descriptive term and can be stripped of all of its pejorative connotations. People are trying to own the fact that they're fat and not letting it shame them or be used against them.
Q: In what ways are fat people most commonly discriminated against?A: The evidence is fairly overwhelming, and there is recent research that shows that discrimination against fat people is more prevalent than discrimination based on race or gender. They're noticing discrimination in many areas - whether or not people are hired for jobs, how much room there is for advancement, salary, college acceptance, the availability and price of fashion, attitudes in the service industry and airline seats. When you start to look at all of this, you see that it's tough to live as a fat person; there are so many judgments.
Q: It seems like people are less concerned about being perceived to discriminate against fat people. The word "racist" carries so much weight; "sizist," not so much.
A: There's a lot of cultural support for fat oppression. One reason is that we have different views of what causes fat. You can't change your race, but many people believe that weight is something that is personally controllable and that it's controllable through diet or exercise. People think that fat is about having bad personal habits and a lack of control. Also, people who are thin can get very self-righteous. Let's say you have someone who is struggling with their own weight but who manages to keep it in a place that's socially acceptable. They invest so much of their own time and energy into trying to stay thin that if size didn't matter, that would really deny all of the pain that they're going through in their life and would mean that all of the control they've exerted is meaningless.
Q: Does fat discrimination affect men and women differently?
A: It definitely does - and not just men and women, but also people of different social classes and races. We're still at an uncomfortable time historically where we judge women more on appearance and men more on performance. Women are much more vulnerable to fat discrimination.
Q: What impact does discrimination have on fat people?
A: It really weakens people's self-esteem when you hear the message so much that there's something wrong with you. You start to believe it and it's very painful. When you try to break out of it, there's a lot of resistance. You can't get your voice heard because no one trusts what you have to say. If a fat friend and I were to say the exact same thing about weight, for example that weight doesn't play as much of a role in our health as we've been led to believe, people would be far more likely to believe it from me than from my fatter friend. It gives people a sense of a lack of power that is really disillusioning.
Q: I've also read that pressure to conform to a specific body type can lead people into unsafe patterns of behaviour, like yo-yo dieting and other things that can have a very bad impact on someone's health overall.
A: Yes, definitely. First off, there are a lot of myths out there about how to get thin. Let's say they're getting some discrimination from their doctor who's telling them just to lose weight. They might try some of the methods that are suggested, like dieting, that aren't healthy and have no proven track record of success. They just contribute to people's personal sense of failure. We also know that there's a clear physiological root between stress and disease. I would expect that much of the association we see between poor health and high weight can actually be explained by the stress and discrimination people are receiving. If we could level the playing field and make it a more fair world, we would see much of the health risk associated with being overweight disappear.
Q: So what can we do to make the world an easier and more navigable place for people who are fat?
A: I'd like to work on several different levels. One, I would like to encourage people to enjoy and appreciate their own bodies. Two, people who are thinner and are given more privilege in the world have to learn how to respect that; we have to acknowledge that all of the advantages we've gotten - whether it's easier access to jobs or more success when we go shopping - aren't earned advantages and are often based on the fact that other people are discriminated against. When I'm given a forum to speak about fat acceptance, I think it's really important to point out that we should be giving fat people a forum to speak about their own lives. Three, we also have to make changes on an institutional level; it's not OK for insurance companies or airlines to charge fat people higher rates. We have to make it easier for people to be in the world in larger bodies.
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