The Big Question: Hey! Fat Girl! You’re Fat!
I’m the first to admit that I have no idea what a holla back girl is. All I know is that it requires a majorette costume and a double-process bleach job. That being said, a friend of mine who could not be more alluring if she were a cupcake frosted in hundred dollar bills, recently got yelled at by a bunch of boys in a pick up truck who made comments about her weight. My girl managed to track their father down in the store and, with their dad by her side, give them a talking to.
Francesca and Plumcake want to know:
Have you ever been hollered at about your weight? Was it hurtful or did you just blow it off? What did you do? What would do in the future?
I know this is a touchy subject, but I’d like to get on my stylish soapbox for a second. I cannot recall a time as an adult that I’ve been taunted because of my size. Well, there was one time when someone yelled out “Fatface! Hey Fatface!” while I was walking my pooch but it turned out to be a guy who recognized me from the dog park and had a particular affection for my admittedly fat-faced Shar Pei, Dozer LeGrunt.
As much as I’d like to think that the citizens of the great Republic of Texas are just above that sort of thing, I’m not fooling myself. I don’t get taunted because I’m confident. I walk talk and proud and when I’m not as put together as I’d like…well, that’s when I serve it hotter and harder than ever! Should we HAVE to dress up and work harder just to avoid being hooted at by knuckledraggers? No. I shouldn’t have to wax and pluck my way out of mammal-dom just to get a date, either but I do. Life is rough, or at least stubbly, all over.
Amazingly, I’m not sure I’ve ever been name-called during my plus sized and somewhat proud stages. But then, being a big/fat/plus/curvy girl has never stopped me from wearing miniskirts and fishnets, and I think men like those, no matter what size.
I was once oinked at while strolling down the street, minding my own business (and an ice cream cone). Fortunately I was more amused than upset by the whole affair, and in general my response to being heckled for my size is amusement, which I think is the best response.
Being well dressed and stylish isn’t insurance against heckling, either. At one point a lusciously large ladyfriend and I were walking in downtown San Francisco and some guy started hollering at us in an unfriendly way which simply invited us to ignore him, so we did, and his response was “hey you fat (expletives), I’m just trying to be nice to the fat ladies, you should take attention where you can get it!”
I have noticed much less of that sort of thing in the American South. Perhaps dwellers of the South are more well mannered than us uncultured Yankees.
I’m still in that awkward stage between Teen and Adult, and as such, it definitely sucks. I’m 17 and graduating High School this year. On my first day of grade 11, I had a full pudding cup thrown at my back out, from somebody in a car.
Since then, I don’t think anything mortifying has happened. I have had one tormenter. A girl, who told(or asked) my friends, ‘Do you think she would actually be pretty if she lost weight?’ Now, I realize I am overweight but I never equated that with being ugly.
I find, though, that when I am at my most confident, and when I get the most compliments is when I have taken the time to make myself up. I think that the reason I get the compliments then is because I am at my most happy and comfortable and proud.
Whenever I see someone large holding themselves in such a way that they seem like royalty, I cannot help but admire their beauty. The confidence posessed, and shown, makes up for almost anything else.
By the way, I have been lurking here for months, but have visited every single day, and have not missed a post since about november. Thanks for such a cool page.
I don’t normally post these sorts of personal things, but I hope maybe it helps somebody out there struggling with their body image.
From the time I was 8, my family had me on diets. I should mention, however, that I never had a weight problem until I was 15 years old and had spent almost half my life on diets. So perhaps it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone that when I was in my early twenties I developed a hellacious case of anorexia (as if there’s a non-hellacious case of anorexia out there.)
While in recovery, creeping ever so tentatively up towards 100 pounds, with my hair finally growing back and my fur finally falling out, a neighbor said to me mockingly, “You’re putting on quite a bit of weight there. I think it’s time we put you on a diet.”
I had always borne the fat cracks silently when I was overweight, but for some reason a switch finally went off in my head and I said defiantly, “Don’t EVER speak to me again. Go f*** yourself.” I said it to her, but meant for every jerk who had ever made cracks about my body to hear it.
Now, at a happy, healthy, vibrant size 10 (don’t know what I weigh and don’t care) that moment of defiant indignation remains a source of strength to me.
Thanks for fighting the good fight on this web site, ladies.
I remember every single one of those public cracks about my size that I got when I was younger. Each one of them still stings, probably because I don’t always feel as super-fantastic as I imagine I would if I lost weight. At the time, I didn’t do anything. I was too mortified. I probably went home and cried. Now that I’m older and am actively working on accepting (and yes, even loving) my plus-size body, I’d like to think I’d respond with a healthy “F*** You!”
I will never understand what makes people think that shouting insults at another human being is acceptable behavior.
Once, I was out in Ybor City (a place filled with clubs and restaurants) and was walking to the restaurant with a DATE. We had to walk past a bunch of jerks hanging out trying to look cool by their motorcycles. Well, they just happened to be rating the girls that walked by them. I got “a little too much jiggle and a little too heavy in the middle”. I kid you not. I did not turn around and rip them a new one because I was with a date. He didn’t say anything to me about it (and not to them because there were like 12 of them). I blushed, but I also didn’t say anything about what was said. There are LOTS of a**holes down there hanging out thinking that they’re “cool”.
It’s been a few years since I was picked on in public for my size. The last time, it was a carload of teenaged boys. One of them leaned out the window while they were stopped at the light I was standing near and said, “You look like a big eater.” I met his gaze, smirked, and replied just as the light changed, “You look like a slow learner.” I could tell by the way the other guys in the car were moving as they pulled away that he was being declared the loser of the exchange.
The oddest time I had a public encounter dealing with my size was when I was stopped by a police officer looking for a murder suspect. The suspect was several inches shorter than me, had different hair, eyes, nose, and chin, but the resemblance was uncanny to the cop. I had three things in common with her: fat white female. He didn’t take me in, but the line of inquiry I was subjected to gave me a small taste of what they mean by racial profiling. It was pretty sad.
Lysana dear, that was a most excellent response to the uncouth lout in the car, and I have no doubt that his testicles had withered away to nothing by the time his “friends” were through with him. Well done.
Mine is a doozy. Nearing the end of a peace vigil on the first day of the war in Iraq, the chief of police approached me taunting me with “so, you are the crazy fat lady everyone is talking about”. That was followed by some cracks about me and fast food. (Weird)! It got even better when his comments made the front page of our newspaper. He then was quoted saying something like “I shouldnt have called her fat. She is extremely obese.” It was disturbing and hurtful but a great lesson. I learned to be poised in tough situations and try to show even the ugliest of people the respect I would want to see. BTW- The chief has retired and has Alzhimers.
I guess the hardest thing for me was being treated like I was dumb because I was overweight. That hurt more than anything, even being called “Tank” in band.
While walking down the street, stopped at a corner waiting for the light to change, I heard someone yell something from a car behind me. I didn’t quite make out what they said and had no reason to think they were addressing me anyway, so I didn’t bother to turn and look.
As the car got closer they repeated themselves to make sure I got the message: HEY FAT GIRL, HOW MUCH?
Yep, and sad to say it was a by a trio of airmen in uniform (my ex-husband and I were stationed on Okinawa at the time). They were right behind me, and made some rather pointed comments about my weight. Unfortunately for them, my husband was right behind them. He was in uniform as well and outranked them by about four stripes. He got their names and their command, and I got a written apology from the command by the end of the week.
No way *that* would have happened in the civilian world.
I posted about this in an entry in my new blog. Here’s what I had to say:
Several years ago, I was living in New York City and working in an office in Penn Station. Downstairs was a conveniently located K-mart. It was Halloween and the company I worked for sent me down to buy some candy for the reception desk. No big deal, really, until I got to the check out stand.
The cashier (who was thin as a stick, I might add) looked at the candy, then she looked at me, and back to the candy. “Is all this for you?” she asked with a distinct tone of disdain. Instead of explaining it to her (and I am sure she would not have believed me anyway), I snapped at her to mind her own business, paid for the candy and was brave enough to find a manager. The manger, at least, had the grace to act appalled. Maybe she was. I’d like to think so.
I’ve been yelled out of cars. “Hey fatass, go on a diet!” and “Look! A whale!” are the most memorable. I’ve also been serenaded with “Porky, porky pig,” heard “Ewwwww” from a teenage girl and been laughed at untold times.
Only once did I have time to fire off a quick comeback. Some college guys walking toward me and a friend said, “Heh heh, look at the fat chicks,” and I said, “What? Are we too much woman for you?” That shut them up.
But most of the time the drivebys happen too fast and I just end up fuming for days. I wish I could remember to smile and wave enthusiastically. Confuse ‘em, if nothing else.
I’m actually not a big girl now – as an adult, I’ve turned out to be (somewhat) slender. However, from about ages 11 to 14, I was somewhat overweight. I remember how awful some of the kids were! Making oinking noises and whatnot.
I’ve included a link to a web page which has suggestions for comebacks when people make comments about weight. I don’t love all of them. There are some good ones, though, including
“If you didn’t eat so much, you wouldn’t be so fat.”
“If you didn’t talk so much, you wouldn’t be so stupid.”
http://www.adiosbarbie.com/features/features_comebacks.html
When I lived in a city (I have moved to the country) and I would go jogging, I very often had cars full of men lean out their ride to shout “Fat Chick Running!” or similar.
Yes, Well spotted. I am fat. I am running. This may make me slender, it will certainly make me strong. You are an idiot in a car. Looks like nothing much is going to change.
There is something about the male mentality, when it happens upon an opportunity for mob mentality, that creates the phenomenon we’re talking about here. After almost half a century on this earth and a lifetime of experience and observation, it’s pretty clear men in a group will holla/comment/signal with their eyes and act in unity as a group, later, say, in a boardroom, no matter what you do, how old you are, how big or small you are, how well dressed you are, how beautiful/quirky/large/small/tall/petite or how confident you are. The only time they don’t do this is when you’re walking with another man–then they seem to perceive you as someone’s property, and they act accordingly. Not with respect to you, the woman, but with respect to the man who’s with you.
This doesn’t apply, of course, to all men across the board, but it’s one of those things our society indirectly instructs boys to do in order to be “masculine” (I concede: society doesn’t tell them to do it outright: but it sure does condone it). A lot of men learn not to do this just by thinking for themselves, and also by questioning whether or not being considered masculine and powerful should mean making ordinary women feel so violated and bad.
I’ve never been in a place in the world where this behaviour doesn’t take place, and I don’t think it’s ever been reigned in by economic class, culture, or even education. It’s done by wealthy and poor alike, schooled and unschooled, traveled and untraveled. It’s never discouraged or punished by authorities (though, I suspect telling a man’s mother that he does this to other women would be a good way to make a dent in the phenomenon’s prevalence).
Being the target of this kind of treatment is never something a woman brings on herself, and nothing she can do (other than respond by ignoring it completely or laughing to herself about it, which won’t change or stop it but might just minimize the length of the experience) will make any difference about it. This makes it easy to realize a huge truth: none of what these subintellects say or do should ever be taken personally.
What chachaheels said. And indeed, this can happen to women of any size. In college, I was quite thin due to my unhealthy lifestyle (18 credit hours, 2 jobs, 1 pack of cigs a day, and dinner in a shot glass) One saturday morning I walked to the corner store for some OJ without *gasp* putting on makeup. A kid leaned out of a passing car and yelled one word: “UGLY!” I’ve never thought that I was, but that type of thing can really cut you deep, even when you know it’s bullsh*t.
never about my weight because i’ve always been fairly thin, but i have large breasts and those have DEFINITELY gotten comments. when i was younger i didn’t exactly know how to dress them so i didn’t look like jail bait. one night when i was 18, some girlfriends and i went to a club in the city. it was a spur of the moment thing, so i borrowed a shirt from my friend at her house. she’s like a B cup and owned exclusively tiny little tank tops. i picked what i thought would cover me up the best. at the end of the night we were walking through the street to where we had parked the car, and a shitty camero slowed down as it went by, with a guy leaning out shouting TIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!! it echoed through the street and i wanted to die. another time, when i was in college, i went running in just a sports bra because it was really hot out, and a guy drove by and shouted/sang “bounce with me” (remember that song?). again, mortified.
i like my boobs now, but my god, they were a primo source of embarrassment when i was younger.
chachaheels, amen. I used to tell people that whenever you get a group of “those guys” together, you take the guy with lowest IQ, divide it by the number of guys in the group–and that’s how they are going to act. It hurts because it is both verbally violent and degrading–and yelling out of a car window is a cowardly thing to do.
I’ve had to deal with drive-by comments my entire life–when I was young and voluptuous the comments were different than when I was older and voluptuous. My favorite was when I was riding the bus with a bunch of guys from the halfway house next door and one was looking at all the college girls and saying “I wouldn’t mind some of THAT! No way.” And then he caught me giving him the evil eye and he said “Oh, but I would mind THAT ugly bitch.” I said, “oh darn and you’d be SUCH a catch, too.” I think it was lost on him. I’ve never been good at quick comebacks so I usually just ignore them.
I now get snotty comments on my student evaluations. “I thought she was a great professor, but she should lose weight.” It happens all the time. I was once on a panel of academics discussing career strategies for young women, and one of the commentators said, ‘well, you should make you are in shape. Being fat makes a poor impression.’ I felt like saying “You know, I’m sitting right here–and I think I make more money than you…”
Miranda, your story concerns me a lot. You’re entitled to better treatment than that, and I am sorry that happened to you. What appalling manners.
I think the yelling has slowed down now that I am an older woman. As an older woman, I’m not expected to be dick candy for the type of guys who holler out of windows or say stuff on the street. I am just invisible to them now. Whereas these jerks think they are entitled to police young women who are fat–get them doing what they ‘should’ be doing in order to fulfill their one important role in life–the object of somebody’s gaze.
PS: The insults also may have slowed down because I now live in functionally a Latin American city (Los Angeles) where people have a different standard for bodies and guys who do yell say somewhat appreciative things “Hey, Juanita, where you going?”
It’s been awhile since I’ve been taunted by strangers. The worst I have to put up with are the landmines I run into during visits with family. No one has said anything intentionally directed at me, but I have an aunt who always winds up making some off-the-cuff comment about obese people. For example, last Christmas she and another aunt were discussing donating coats and other warm clothing to a chairty for children, and how it was a little difficult to know what size to buy for a child of a given age because they grow so quickly, and age doesn’t necessarily indicate a specific clothing size. And then she said, “yeah, plus you don’t know if they’re one of those Obese Americans or what”. The condescension and the capital letters were palpable in her voice.
It seemed quite out of the blue. I know that obesity is a class issue to a certain extent, but we’re talking about people who can’t afford to clothe their children. And all logic aside… wtf?!? She makes these comments a lot. I don’t know if they’re meant to be an indirect jibe at me (the only obese niece she has) or if she just seriously doesn’t connect me as a fat person who might be offended by her condescension for fat people. I don’t know what her motivation is, so I never know what to say. So I just fume.
Other than a comment in summer camp when I was 8 or so, I really can’t think of any heckling from strangers. All the barbs have come from people I know: my stepmother (the worst offender), and teachers and coaches when I was working on my degrees in Opera. Living in a multi-ethnic neighborhood in New York City I’ve been more likely to get cat-calls of the positive variety. Sometines it’s annoying, but sometimes it just makes my day.
I’ve had my share of the driveby cowards in the past but thought that was done with.
Unfortunately, just last week, late in the evening, I was walking out of a hospital where I work. I’d had a horrendous day, but was wearing decent professional clothing, makeup, hair done. Two knuckledraggers were walking toward me. I heard snorting and snuffling sounds. It wasn’t until I was past them that I realized they were directed at me.
I am FIFTY NINE YEARS OLD, happily married nearly thirty years. I make over $100,00 a year doing important work.
When does it stop? Or at least, when does it stop hurting?
When I was younger and more conventionally attractive, I used to get hassled a lot on the street. For a long time I’d fume and ignore it, and then one day…
I was walking to my job at a bookstore. The guys who were working on a building next to the bookstore were even crasser and more obscene than usual, and I snapped. I scooped up a rock and pitched it at the nearest guy and hit him dead square in the chest–and from his reaction, it hurt. After that, the harrassment stopped.
From then on I got much more proactive. When a bunch of college guys would yell at me from a car stopped at a light, I’d go up to the car asking “WHAT? What did you say? You wanna say that again? GET OUTTA THE CAR!!” It was neither a smart nor a safe thing to do, confronting assholes in that way, but man, it sure felt good. And you know what? They always backed down. Every time.
Now that I’m pushing 40 and big, I get less crap from men on the street. I do, however, still have a hellacious throwing arm–and I’m big-muscular, so guys tend not to eff with me if I confront them. Occasionally some genius at the local bar/restaurant The Boyfiend and I frequent will say something to me if I’m alone, but the bartenders and waiters there step in quickly and inform the guy that it’s really not a good idea.
I find that a good Crazy Face preempts most close-up harrassment, and I’m not really prone to drive-bys any more. I think it’s a combination of age and bulk–the biggest thing that weightlifting and boxing has done for me is change how I carry myself.
There are still times, though, that I wanna paint my Honda bright pink and install a Stupid Person Targeting System and gun turret on the top.
Ok, so can’t remember an actually drive by but I once had some watch me pull into a parking, get out of my, then walk away. When I came back that person left a note on my car saying they would help lose weight. That hurt. Also, I had a bratty little teen who thought he was a hottie try to flirt with me and actually said he would give me cookies, he just knew I liked cookies. He was just trying to get me to turn off the filter on our public computers so he could look at porn.
I agree, to a point, with Plumcake’s assertion that confidence helps, though I wouldn’t have put it the same way (“I don’t get taunted because I’m confident”) since that seems to put at least some of the burden on us for fending off what is plainly disgusting and inexcusable behavior by others.
I’m plenty confident, and I’ve been mooed at, oinked at, and even barked at. I have had a very young child come up to me in a library and announce with scorn, “You’re fat!” — therefore showing that she’d been indoctrinated into fat hatred early, and heaven help her if she grows up to be a fat girl.
I have had the child of a friend announce that I was calling by yelling to her mother, “It’s big fat [Bridey]!” In my professional singing days, I had an accompanist write a note to his substitute that referred to me as “the fat woman” throughout. This didn’t bother me as much as it did my partner (I *am* a fat woman), but I don’t imagine the accompanist would have willingly shown the note to me. (And there were only two of us; couldn’t he have called me by, you know, my name?)
It does seem to, as others have noted, level off as one gets older, since the piggish young men who do these things don’t seem to feel that middle-aged and older women have as much of an obligation to provide them with material for their diseased fantasies — though Tanya’s dreadful experience clearly shows that we’re never really exempt.
And I don’t know that it ever does stop hurting, entirely. An attack based on appearance goes straight to the heart for most women (which is why we, and men, so often go there when we’re mad enough to fight dirty). That may be cultural, though I’m inclined to think we’re just wired that way, at least to some degree.
It would be nice to be so evolved and confident that we couldn’t be touched by jackass strangers, but blaming yourself for feeling it is like blaming yourself for getting cut when somebody’s flinging razor blades at you. It hurts because it’s meant to.
Have you ever been hollered at about your weight?
No, and I’m pretty fat. I am kind of oblivious to strangers who seem mean and stupid, though.
Jesus, everyone. These stories are terrible. I haven’t been teased about my weight since middle school. The only comments I’ve gotten as an adult were positive or cat calls (the cat calls were not mean or overly obnoxious.)
I’ve never seemed to get much of this. I do think part of it is because when I was very young, I was also very slender. I do think part of it is the confidence I carry myself with. Somehow people seem to notice confident or quirky before they notice fat or short on me. I also happen to think part of it is the fact that I can be quite remarkably oblivious to certain aspects of my surroundings. It’s probably also a help that I’m often with Mr. Twistie or another male companion when out in public, that I don’t spend a great deal of time in places where random crowds of young men tend to congregate, and that I have a gregarious way with me that encourages people to approach me in a positive way.
I have also been damn well lucky. Each of the above factors probably has contributed a bit to my situation, but luck has probably been the biggest single factor. I enjoy that luck. I don’t count on it as eternal protection.
And Bridey, amen to your comments about it hurting. Of course it hurts you to be insulted viciously, whether by a stranger, an aquaintence, or a relative. Trying to make it stop hurting when it happens just distances you from your emotions, your humanity. The important thing is to acknowledge the feelings without letting them cripple you. Hurt is part of being human. So is healing. If you don’t acknowledge one, you cannot do the other.
And Jeanette, I bet that cashier got a royal reaming for her behavior. Shaming and insulting customers is the single worst thing you can do in the wonderful world of retail. I’ve worked retail and seen people wind up fired because of less egregious failings in customer service.
I’ve not been directly picked on for my weight – however – I work with a woman who’s a size 12 (she makes sure to let everyone know) and she’s always on about “how fat she is” and how “she’s gained so much weight” and giving everyone all the details on why she’s never going to get a man because of this. Now, I realize that a lot of this comes from her own insecurities, and she’s never said anything directed towards me, but I still can’t help but feel just a bit like crap whenever she goes on and on about this (it’s her favorite topic of conversation) and I’m BIGGER THAN SHE IS.
On a different note, a couple of commenters have said things about how it isn’t as bad when you’re older b/c (as one person put it) you’re no longer expected to be “dick candy”. This is so, so wrong and sick, but so true. Being overweight has become one of the shorthand write-offs for not “sexy” or “appealing”. Men don’t want to f*ck us, and so therefore there is something wrong with us. Now, I’m not a terribly vocal feminist by any means, but this sentiment makes me so angry I don’t know if I can properly express it in comment form. It’s particularly galling when other women pick up on this same standard – when women pick on women because we aren’t good enough to have sex with a man, there’s something wrong there.
Anyways, my two cents. And thanks, Plumcake, for opening up this discussion. It’s sad, but it’s also “good” to read.
Since moving back to Canada 6 years ago, this hasn’t been an issue, but when I lived in Sydney (Australia) I’d get strangers calling me fat on a regular basis. Oddly enough, it was mostly young women doing so, usually after I turned down their requests for money. I’d say No & they’d say something to the effect of Well, you’ve got a fat ass. No kidding, I live in this body every day, I’m fully aware of its size. Why people feel the need to belittle others for their appearance, I have no idea. To me, it just shows that they have the self-esteem issue, not me.
Y’all have such sad stories! I haven’t been blatantly insulted since high school, and even then it was only a couple of times by people I was mean to on a regular basis. (I was in the In Crowd. We were not nice at all. I still feel bad about it.)
While chachaheels is totally right about it being a stupid caveman thing, carrying yourself well definitely has an impact. The weird thing is that it seems to make people think you’re smaller than you are. I don’t get it.
Oh hell yes. I’m not even going to count stuff that happened at school, or we’d be here for weeks. But since the age of 18, I’ve been yelled at from cars and across the street, told I’m a fat bitch while standing at a bar (well spotted, now do you have a point?), even told I shouldn’t be drinking beer by a complete stranger. Though the one that always gets me is the lady who came up to me in a shop in France and told me that I was way too fat for the coat I was looking at, and I’d never be able to button it. (I could, by the way, and I still have it too.) Who the hell do these people think they are?
Sometimes, they’re jerks with nothing better to do, other times they think they’re entitled to say something to us because we’re heavy, and other times, they think they’re “trying to help”.
It’s the latter that bug the hell out of me, personally. People with nothing better to do, who cares what they think, I’ve got places to go and things that need to be done, and maybe they wouldn’t be such pieces of turd if they did too. People who feel as though my size gives them the right to say anything to me are too stupid to deserve a response, and should be ignored or smacked down at all costs.
But people who are “trying to help” are the ones I want to smack. I know that I am overweight. I also know, better than they do, what I need to do to lose weight. I don’t need “advice” or “assistance” from someone who doesn’t know me. I can do it on my own.
Why do I not? Because I am happy with myself. I have an SO who thinks I am gorgeous, loves my body, and is slowly but surely convincing me that I am, in fact, worth loving. Does that make a difference? You bet. Should it? Of course not. I’m a vibrant, smart, intelligent woman with her head screwed on right, of COURSE I deserve love. We all do.
Just once. Right after some girl without auto insurance turned into my car, and there was no way it was my fault. Some jerk drove by yelling “It was fatso’s fault!” And he was fat himself! It was just so bizarre.
What a topic. I’m glad to know I’m not the only one still carrying around stored-up fury from my younger days, when I had to deal with asshats who felt they had the right to say whatever they wanted to me. The zinger is, I got abused for being too thin. I still remember going on my first-ever date with a senior in high school (I was a freshman) and when we walked past these jerks hanging out on the corner, they started laughing and yelling, “Man, I hope you’re taking her to dinner! You need to feed her! She ain’t got nothin’ on her!” My date was really nice about it and tried to reassure me but it ruined my evening. I always felt like such a runt, with no boobs and no figure, and the jerks on the street did their best to make me feel worse about it!
I guess the moral of the story is that IS NOT ABOUT US. It is about THEM AND THEIR TINY LITTLE BRAINS. We should remember that and feel free to speak up LOUDLY if we, or any other woman on the street, is dealing with this harassment.
I was in Jamaica, walking down the street with my then-sister-in-law (I was married to a Jamaican man) and as we passed a well-dressed mid-20ish young man, he looked me in the eye and exclaimed, “Fatty!”
I whipped my head around and yelled back, “IDIOT!” Certainly I wished I’d said something more clever, but there wasn’t really time. That’s pretty indicative of the culture there; women are absoulutely second-class citizens, and they just take whatever the men dish out. Sad, really.
Here in the US, although I’m not frequently targeted for harassment, I have a few standard comebacks. One is to paste a pitying look on my face, and say (with as much disdain as I can inject into my words), “I’m *so* sorry about your tiny penis!” That works best on the younger guys who are trying to impress their friends. Or, for the solo harasser, “Fuck off, you douchenugget!” Or something along the lines of, “Didn’t your mother teach you better manners than that?” or “How would you feel if some jerk said something like that to your mother, or sister, or girlfriend? Better yet, ask them how they feel. Then shut the fuck up.” Those last two are best done while looking the jerk right in the eye.
We take away their power when we refuse to slink away with our chins on the ground and tears in our eyes.
On Christmas day, I slid into a parking spot at the local supermarket and apparently cut a VERY irate lady off. She blocked my car, and honked and honked and cursed and honked until I got out. Then the real verbal abuse started…
I’m not sure how many times she called me a “fat, white cow”, but it was more than twice. Funny thing is that I’m a size 10. It did hurt. For a second. Then I was just pissed. Up until that point, I had done a decent job of ignoring her. But something in me snapped, and I turned around to say “Yes, I may be fat, but I can lose weight and you’re stuck with an UGLY SOUL”. It didn’t make her shut up, but I felt a little better.
Meh.
They always hurt. Always.
Last time I remember getting some sort of rude remark (to my face at least, I’m sure there have been others behind my back that I haven’t noticed) was when I was riding up an escalator in the shithole local mall with my mother (who is also fat).
Some assholes going down the escaltor were trying to cat-call me. I was ignoring them because I hate cat-calls. Then they yelled ‘Well go fuck yourself then you fat cunt!’
At this particular point in time, I had been attempting to lose weight through the oh-so popular method of starvation and I just broke down sobbing in the mall.
I fucking hate that mall.
I believe the last time I was really truly teased was elementary school, this boy used to sing I was a fat rolly polly, funnily enough that kid wound up at my high school where I told his girlfriend at the time that he teased me for being fat. She was kind of upset and said she thought he was better than that. I felt a little bad for ruining her perception of him.
However as I have grown up I really haven’t had to endure any of the incidents like what is mentioned above, for which I am thankful however I am incensed for everyone who’s ever had to endure the suffering of the mentally myopic.
I used to be the object of this kind of public taunting when I was a teenager, but as I’ve gotten older (and, ironically, fatter) it never, never happens. Perhaps I am just oblivious? But I think it’s because people don’t bother harassing you when they see my your Attitude you don’t give a fig what they (strangers) think… And that kind of confidence (and “f**k you” attitude) comes with age (hopefully).
Although I no longer endure public ridicule, I do occasionally into snide comments, usually in the form of backhanded compliments, i.e., “You’re pretty light on your feet for a woman your size.” I used to try to ignore those, but now I am more inclined to challenge the “giver.”
I haven’t really been yelled at on the street in a long while, but something I remember that really upset me happened almost 10 years ago. I was at a party at my brother’s house, and had just moved back to Chicago from Colorado. I was friends with most of his friends, but a new guy in his crowd was there. At the end of the night, there were maybe 6 women and 3 guys left. The new guy remarked to the other guy who was not my brother that there twice as many women as men (he’s obviously a genius) then he said quietly, “wait, not [my brother's name] cow sister”. He said all of this quietly, but I heard it all. It still bothers me.
They are still friends, and he actually isn’t such a bad guy, though he has always been vocal about being a fat hater. He was at my Mom’s for Thanksgiving, having had put on a lot of weight. I acted like a total jerk and told him I found it really amusing that he was fat now, after all of the shit he had given people over the years. He took it like a gentleman.
I was a 12 and v athletic until I had my son at age 27, now I am an 18/20 apple. I have never heard comments like this from others, but you bet I hear them in my head. I adore you guys and Kate Harding because it helps me be gentle with myself. Plus in my line of work, I wear a suit everyday and whether you are fat or average it’s easy to stand tall and be confident in professional dress.
I got teased when I was a chubby kid, and weirdly, when I was skinny in college.
Not so much now. I’m in a polite town.
One funny thing did happen last winter. I was jammed on a bus, standing up, and a tiny corner of my coat ended up touching a sitting girl’s leg. She goes, “I’m trying to read here, but I can’t with your fat ass in my way.” I rolled my eyes and went “oh excuse me” as sarcastically as I could. As I moved, I noticed she was reading a manual on how to give quality customer service – “treat the customer like you would like to be treated” was one of the chapter headings! Any upset I felt was kind of washed away by the hysterical absurdity of the situation. I’m figuring she didn’t last real long at that job.
Oh darling ladies, there have been times when I’ve simply lost the will to tweeze. Like one of the previous commenters my mother could not handle having a fat daughter so I was the only 12 year old on diet speed. Remember the fat doctor craze in the 80s?
Who can explain why one person would feel it’s ok to be a hate monger to anyone else? My best guess is people with huge inadequacies feel the need to point out other people’s faults to draw attention away from their own. I’ve had two instances that stand out over my 35 years.
1. In a bar in college I was sitting with girlfriends and I looked at some randome fella. His buddy nudged him and said “The fatty has the hots for you.” The fella gave him a “shut the hell up” look and I said loud enough for both to hear, “Yes, I’m just glad I still have taste enough to pick the one that isn’t a dick.”
2. Again at a bar in college with the girls… we walked in and some schmuck just looked at me and just shit out of his mouth with “sorry fat girl, I won’t be fucking you tonight.” My response was, “well now I’m just going to have to go home and cry myself to sleep over losing out on a big winner like you.”
All that being said… there are times I look at some of the girls who are following the ultra thin/heroin chic cult and think I’d really like to force feed them peanut butter sandwiches.
Dowdydiva – Your presence caused her to lose the ability to READ? Wow, she must not be very good at it to start off with, huh?
My best remark was one time while leaving the subway. I was climbing the stairs slowly (backstory: I am disabled, and walk with a cane), and evidently irritated the man behind me, who wanted me to move more quickly. He shouted at me that “maybe if [I] exercised, [I] could move [my] fat ass a little faster.” I turned around, smacked him “accidentally” with my cane, and said, “Oh, I’m sorry, is my disability interfering with your mobility? That’s irritating, isn’t it? I would try to move a little faster, but sometimes I find the lack of a major muscle in my leg slows me down. But no, that can’t be it, can it? It MUST be the ten extra pounds on my tummy, mustn’t it?”
He did look embarrassed, though, which was sort of gratifying.
Back in ancient times when I was middle aged — mid 40s — I was in a period of struggling to get off 40 pounds and to get in shape. I was out riding my bicycle alone on the empty roads of nearby semi-agricultural area on a lovely 75 degree spring day. Suddenly as if from nowhere I was buzzed by three youngish males in a pickup who drove past me from the rear, nearly brushing me off of the road. The pickup came to a screeching stop right after passing me, two of the occupants got out and, staring at me, one shouted “Get off the road you fat pig.”
I did. I put the bike away and didn’t take it out again.
Thanks, I never told that story to a soul. Scared the living shit out of me.
When I was in middle school (and tell me *that’s* not the start to a thousand painful stories right there, I don’t know what is.) I went from being 50lbs at the beginning of the year and flat as a board, to being 100 by the end and a C cup. None of my clothes fit me (all the uniforms we bought at the beginning of the year were now too small, especially the button down shirts *shudder*) No one ever said anything to me, mainly because I had punched two guys when they were being jerks, and at a private school it was the equivalent of being Ms. Rambo) But, oh how the guys stared. And stared. And stared. By the next year, I was wearing oversized clothes (partly because I was afraid of another such growth spurt and partly to avoid the stares.) The point of that is that when you put a tiny (I’m 5’1″) little girl with enormous breasts (the next year I was a DD and still growing) in a T-shirt, it doesn’t matter how tiny she is; she’ll look plus-sized. Also, my mom is plus-sized, so everyone at my school just kinda assumed I was, too. One of the most absurd moments of my life was when my drama teacher saw me in nice clothes (i.e. a shirt that actually fit) and told me that I looked so nice since I’d lost weight.
Nowadays I wear clothes that fit, and the funny thing is: I don’t notice people staring anymore, even though my chest is bigger than ever. The only reason I even know they still stare is that my friends occasionally point it out to me. Almost no one heckles me about my chest anymore (though I did have one really drunk guy come up to me and ask me, “Do you know that your chest is really big?” To which I looked down and gasped, “Holy crap! Those weren’t even there this morning!”)
A large part of that is the way I walk and look; a lot of what people mean when they say walking with confidence is learning to project the signals that say “predator” or at least “not-prey” to our lizard brains. A whole host of subtle signals, that might be there for reasons that have nothing to do with having confidence: looking down, shuffling, small steps, hunching shoulders, lack of eye contact- send a message to parts of the human brain going back to apes. If you don’t believe me, then read about how a lot of criminals select victims of the street. And when you get men in a pack, man, tons of crud starts going straight to the lizard brains. So when people suggest something like “walking with confidence” it doesn’t mean that you are inviting this sort of treatment, that you deserve this sort of treatment, or that anyone is justified in treating you this way. But just because I don’t deserve to get beat up, or raped, or killed, doesn’t mean I won’t learn how to use a gun and any other way I can defend or deter unwelcome attention towards myself. It’s amazing how many people back down when you display dominant behavior (eye contact, quick action, even invasion of personal space: see Jo’s comment on “Crazy Face”) I’ve backed down guys who are well over twice my size, because my behavioral cues go right past the ego part of his brain, and he’s sitting down before the rest of him catches up to what I did. But most of the time and with *most* but guys and girls just putting out those signals all the time slots you out of the “prey” category of their lizard brain and into “not worth the trouble.” I repeat this does not even have to be some sort of esteem issue; it is merely a set of physical indicators more or less hardwired into the human system. If it helps you can try my personal mantra, “yea, though I walk through the valley of assholes, I shall fear no idiocy, for I am the most badass thing around.” :)
People pick on what they think someone is going to be insecure about. For a lot of people (plus sized or not) it is their weight.
I was told this story by a secondary school (11-16yrs) teacher. A very slender girl ran in crying to the bathroom, and she went in to see what was the problem. It took a long time to get it out of her, and eventually she sobs out quietly
“They called me fat”
Bullies tend to pick on the insecurities rather than anything else. Or something that doesn’t conform, seeing as it’s likely that the person will be insecure about it sticking out.
My ex had bright red curly hair that came out afro style when it grew. Men in lorries (trucks?) would constantly beep the horn and make scissor motions at his head. Funnily enough never seemed to happen when I was about: perhaps people only pick on easy targets. At a festival people kept coming up and congratulating him on the coolness of his hair, and we often got comments at counters/shops etc.
People admire the ability to like who you are, including taking the comments from randomers.
As for me, I still go round with headphones on so I don’t accidently get some kid yelling insults… but that might be more my general anxiety :/