“Underlining in the Bookstore” Series: Aubrey Gordon’s What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat
By Dalli
Published Oct. 14, 2023
Translated by Marilyn Hook
Series Introduction: With a strong conviction that women's voices, whether in writing or speech, deserve a more resonant presence in the world, I carefully curate books for inclusion on the shelves of my bookstore, Salon de Mago. By underlining words in these selected books through this series, I aim to impart their essence and flavor to readers.
This
Standard Called ‘Thinness’
“For
me, my body isn’t good or bad, it just is. But for the rest of the world, it
seems, my body presents major problems.” (Aubrey Gordon, What We Don’t Talk About
When We Talk About Fat, p. 1)
 |
| “If you hate it so much, lose weight.” An advertising image for the Korean translation of What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat. The book was translated by Jang Halla and published by Dongnyok Publishers in 2023. |
The scale disappoints me again today. No, I’m disappointed in myself again. This disappointment, which no one else knows about, has been accumulating for decades, since puberty. I’ve never in my life felt ‘thin.’ I considered myself chubby even when I wore a size 55. I always wanted to lose five kilograms, or rather, I thought I had to in order to feel some relief. Now, at a size 66, I feel that the distance between me and beauty was grown wide.
But
when I come to my senses and look back, I see that I haven’t had much interest
in improving my appearance and it hasn’t been an important part of my life. So
why have I still deeply internalized the pressure to lose weight and become
smaller? Whom do I want to appear thin for? When did I start feeling this
insatiable desire and apply this unnecessary standard to my own body? If it
came from this society’s collective desire, to what extent does this beauty
framework called ‘thinness’ imprison us?
“I had
never seen a fat woman in love—not in life, not in the media. I had never seen
fat women who dated. I had never seen fat women who asserted themselves, whose
partners respected them.” (p. 112)
The
multi-faceted meaning of ‘fat’
As
someone who’s interested in gender equality and human rights issues and teaches
about those subjects, I’ve said things like, “Let’s not judge people by their
appearance.” But actually, I’m secretly disappointed in myself when I see my
appearance and weight always falling short of my expectations. This
contradiction is shameful and the hypocrisy is embarrassing, increasing my
disappointment in myself tenfold. To stop this frustration and endless
self-division, I’m always consciously whispering to myself, ‘Accept yourself as
you are. There’s more to you than your appearance.’ That’s not what the world
tells me, though.
Recently, while I was teaching a
class about gender equality at a middle school, one of the students said, “To
tell the truth, I think that looks are also an ability[1].” For a moment, I was
speechless. When I finally replied, “Then do you think that it’s OK to judge
people by their looks?” all of the students answered, “No.” In the gap between
what we know in our heads is right and what happens in reality, which is
completely different, everyone is experiencing division and conflict. In a
society in which good looks and a thin body are respected as ‘self-management’
abilities and are resources for success, it’s nearly impossible to swim against
the tide alone and not yearn for those things.
Slogans
that are shouted without consideration of the context of society’s
discrimination toward bodies, such as “love yourself” or “body
positivity”—rather than filling me with self-esteem, they only add to my sense
of emptiness. Can self-love overcome having a body that no one else loves?
 |
| The Korean translation of What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat on display in Salon de Mago. (Photo: Dalli) |
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.” (p. xvii)
In her
book What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat, American author
and activist Aubrey Gordon (@YrFatFriend on Instagram and other social media)
discusses in detail the discrimination and stigma she has experienced as a fat
woman, and incisively analyzes society’s hateful views toward fat people. The
book also points out the omissions and mistakes of the popularization of body
positivity. Namely, a movement that “presumes our greatest challenges are
internal, a poisoned kind of thought about our own bodies [...] cannot adapt to
those of us who love our bodies, but whose bodies are rejected by those around
us,” and fails to solve the problems of discrimination and exclusion from
others.
A
fatphobic society: weight stigma, ‘the obesity penalty’, and fatcalling
In a
society where fatphobia is widespread, Gordon has experienced constant
rudeness, mockery, and interference in her daily life. Strangers come up to her
and recommend diets, take fruit out of her shopping cart ‘for the sake of her
health,’ curse at or threaten her on the street, and angrily demand a new seat
if they are seated next to her on an airplane. Gordon gives the name
“fatcalling” (inspired by “catcalling”, a term for verbal sexual harassment on
the street) to “strangers’ interjections about my body, my food, my clothing,
and my character”, a phenomenon she has experienced her whole life. She defines
fatcalling as “the unending stream of comments, judgments, and commands that
inundate the lives of fat people, invited only by our bodies passing into a
stranger’s field of vision.”
Why can
so many people act so rudely toward utter strangers? It’s because they view
fatness as the fault or failure of an individual, and so believe that
individual deserves criticism. We live in a society that tolerates ridicule and
disrespect toward fat people. No matter how much some people complain about
being fatigued by excessive political correctness, the use of fat or
larger-bodied people as ‘glutton [meok-bo]’ characters or the making fun
of such people’s appearance is still common on entertainment programs. Celebrities
who have succeeded in dieting to become thin receive ‘praise’ like “you were
like an unscratched lottery ticket before”, and are rewarded with advertising
contracts and television appearances.
“[Diet
culture] mandates weight loss as a way of increasing social status,
strengthening character, and accessing social privilege.” (p. 12)
 |
| “People who say that everything is my fault—in any situation, no matter what someone has done to me—because I’m fat.” An advertising image for the book created by the publisher of the Korean translation. |
But are
our bodies and appearances something we can really control with will and
effort? According to a Cambridge University study referenced in What We
Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat, there are 59 types of obesity and
at least 25 genes that can contribute to it. If any one of those genes is mutated,
a person is quite likely to become obese. Another study says, “Researchers say
obesity [...] is caused by interactions between the environment and genetics,
and has little to do with sloth or gluttony.”
Gordon
was healthy enough to become a student coach of her neighborhood swim team, but
was pressured by her parents to diet because of childhood obesity. From a young
age, she “attended kids’ weight-loss programs, kept food diaries, [...] counted
calories” and even took diet pills. But what she gained from all of this was
not a thin body and better health but wounds from weight stigma and a ruined
metabolism. Gordon criticizes that one weight-loss program she tried “taught me
that fat people were incomplete, that food was to be feared and mistrusted,
that my body was a failure, and that a life in a body like mine was no life at
all.”
The
‘war on obesity’, a preoccupation of the American healthcare system in the
2000s that has become a nationwide campaign, appears to be about seeking a
healthy life, but in reality it has only helped the diet industry grow. Weight
Watchers, the company that runs the weight-loss program Gordon participated in,
saw a significant jump in its share price after announcing it would offer free
initial memberships to teenagers. While harmful diet drugs and other products
are selling like hotcakes and large corporations are growing in size, prejudice
and gender discrimination due to weight stigma have intensified.
Recently, the British publication The
Economist reported that research from various countries generally finds
that, while body weight makes little difference to men’s wages, the wages of
overweight women are about 10% lower than those of their non-overweight female
colleagues. A Korean-language Asia Business Daily article on the Economist
article summarized: “This ‘obesity penalty’ incurred for not being thin is
a key reason why women and girls are pressured to lose weight.” (“Obesity Makes No Difference to Men, But
Being Overweight Reduces Women’s Pay, Promotion Opportunities”, Oct. 2, 2023)
“A 2013
Yale University study [...] found that men were more likely to find a fat woman
guilty of the same crime.” (p. 26)
Fatness
is not a failure, thinness is not an accomplishment
How
could we end this discrimination against fat bodies, which has taken over our
consciousness and industries? While teaching a class on lookism and gender at a
middle school a few years ago, I asked the students to come up with ideas for
fighting against judgments about bodies. When someone suggested, “Let’s say
that all bodies are beautiful,” the next person said, “It’s OK to not be
beautiful.” The other students clapped, and in that moment I was moved.
“That fatness
is not a failure and, subsequently, that thinness is not an accomplishment.”
Our bodies are not failures, and no one can call them that. “There are no
prerequisites for human dignity.”
“We
deserve to see each other as we are so that we can hear each other.” (p. 70)
About the
Writer: Dalli is the author of the essay “I Write What My Body Speaks” (2021).
She organizes programs and groups at Salon de Mago, a local bookstore and
cultural space in Namwon, North Jeolla Province. She continually engages in
reading and writing activities with women in the region.
*Original article: https://ildaro.com/9743
[1] Translator’s note: The expression “looks are also an ability (oemodo
neungnyeogida)” has become something of a maxim in Korea, and basically
means “[it is natural that] good looking people have an advantage over others”.
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