We are bombarded with anti-fat and diet-culture messages and our systems have weight and size discrimination baked into them. And if you're a parent, you're familiar with the barrage of advice on how to be the "best parent" that permeate social media and our culture.
|
While the intersection of fat liberation and parenting can be an amazing counter-cultural, anti-oppression practice, it can also feel like a lonely place.
But you're not alone and you deserve community.That's why I'm creating a Fat Liberation Parenting Group. The Fat Liberation Parenting Group will be an opportunity to gather with other parents who *get* it; receive and lend support; and process the joys & challenges of raising resilient children.
|
Logistics
|
|
If you have questions or are interested in joining the Fat Liberation Parenting Group, please fill out the form below.
A note about language
I use the word "fat" as a neutral description of bodies and as a reclamation. I appreciate how Aubrey Gordon articulates this in her new book:
"Fat hasn't become a bad word because fatness is somehow inherently undesirable but because of what we attach to it. We take 'fat' to mean unlovable, unwanted, unattractive, unintelligent, unhealthy. But fatness itself is simply one aspect of our bodies--and a very small part of who each of us is. It deserves to be described as a simple fact, bearing little relevance to our worth or worthiness but a great deal of relevance to how we're treated by individuals and institutions."
Unfamiliar with the term "fat liberation"?
For me, fat liberation is grounded in the following ideas:
For me, fat liberation is grounded in the following ideas:
- fat bodies have always existed and will always exist;
- the size of someone's body does not determine their worth, value or health;
- we need to dismantle anti-fat bias and weight stigma in our systems, institutions and popular media to ensure access, participation and justice for all people;
- anti-fatness is intertwined with anti-Blackness and thus combatting anti-fat bias must also be grounded in anti-racist practices (see Sabrina Strings' Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia);
- fat acceptance movements started in BIPOC and LGBTQ+ spaces many decades ago and we cannot ignore the intersection of our other identities like race, gender identity, sexuality, disability status, neurodiversity, and other marginalized identities.