aboutmaleprivilege:

did you know, when childbirth switched from the hands of midwives into the hands of obstetricians, midwives were ostracized from society and heralded as dirty, incompetent people successfully silencing generations upon generations of knowledge.  this also successfully trained women not to trust their bodies, that they need to be delivered, rather than do the delivering.

this is important to place as male privilege.  male privilege, in many ways, is the medical birth community.

And SO MUCH of the way women are told they MUST give birth in Western medicine is disingenuous and can be worse for them and their children. This is changing, thankfully, but generally women are also only aware of one or two options for childbirth, as opposed to the variety that there are.

(via fatbodypolitics)

• Tags
• privilege
• male
• submission

fatbodypolitics:

gogotoastyeah:

brownfatowl:

I realize privilege blogs fuck up… but I need people who hold those privileges to not make fun of real issues. I.E if you thin, you don’t get to make light out of thin privilege. You wanna say this problematic? You wanna call-out intersectionality fail? All good, but I don’t need yo thin ass making fun of my problems as a fat person. Please and thank you. 

Two issues.

1. The suggestion of weight based challenges in a person’s life is “privilege” is incredibly laughable when you compare it to real issues like race or gender.
2. Illogical vitriol and narcissism lends to being ridiculed. As long as things like #thin privilege exists, I’ll have an interest in ridiculing excessive complaining of first world problems.

I’m always confused at what makes an issue real. The idea that the issues I face as a woman are more real than the issues I face due to my body is ridiculous. At what point does fat discrimination become real? Does it happen when fat women make $10,000-20,000 less than their thinner counterparts, fat people are less likely to be hired / promoted, fat girls are less likely to have parents who contribute to their college education, fat women are more likely to be revictimized after being sexually assaulted because people think we are too ugly to be attacked, fat women are denied maternity care,  fat people face street harassment, fat people are denied healthcare, fat people suffer weight bias in the doctors office, fat people are dehumanized in the media…need I go on?

At what point do we decide that these issues are not real enough? What this is really about is people not wanting to admit that fat discrimination is real. If you take time to notice fat discrimination does impact communities of color, women and certain classes of people disproportionately more than other groups. So even the idea that fat discrimination isn’t real ignores the way it intersects within other forms of oppression.

Seriously though, there is enough literature on this topic to disprove any person that tries to say fat discrimination isn’t real.

I was going to add something but then I realized this is perfect as is, so I just bolded the parts that resonated particularly with me and tried not to bold the whole damn thing.

(via redefiningbodyimage)

• Tags
• fat discrimination
• privilege
• discussion

crashbangboom:

khaleesi:

Ok thin people I get being told you look anorexic sucks but i was physically bullied and badly for roughly ten years straight and I get semi-regular rape threats telling me I should be grateful so uh

Pretty sure thinness and fatness and the kinds/intensity of bullying thereof is pretty fucking different

Like yup all body policing is bad but let’s not pretend it’s all created equal, thanks, bye

Yes, because your experience is representative of everyone elses experience anywhere in the world ever. And dismissing other people getting bullied, rather than building relationships to change a culture that cares more about our bodies than our brains legitimizes you…how, exactly?

So here’s the the thing - I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately, and this kind of sentiment is actually the worst. I’ve been reading a lot of popular radical queer thought (spec. regarding marriage and why it’s not important to their movement), so it’s not the same thing, but the similarities are there. Mainly, people who could be building bridges of understanding and solidarity are instead ripping apart people who could be allies, and telling followers what to believe/think.

You should probably never listen to anyone who tells you what to believe/think.

The worst part is, their divisive speech serves no purpose at all. Take the radical queer anarchist movements. By talking about how marriage is oppressive, and wanting to be married is stupid, and there are other causes that are infinitely more worthy of time/energy; what do they accomplish? The people who think like them will just agree, some more vehemently than others, but will act the same. The mainstream queer activists (aka HRC marriage-folk) will be shunned and less likely to align with them/stand in solidarity with them in the future. The views of mainstream media/outsiders remain the same.

So basically, activists are grandstanding instead of building solidarity that could be used to accomplish ALL OF OUR GOALS. 

AND IT IS FUCKING STUPID, YOU GUYS. WE NEED TO STOP. 

We face enough divisive pressure from the outside without turning on one another.

how is it dismissing other people getting bullied to say that generally, weight-related bullying for fat people is significantly worse? I did not say all bullying. I did not even say that thin people don’t get bullied (I don’t think that). I’m saying that body policing and weight-related bullying is significantly more intense & violent when you’re fat, especially when you’re a fat woman. some girl posting pictures of her thin, cis, white body and saying “fuck you, people who say I’m not good enough!” is great for her (seriously, the more power to people who decide to taken control of their own self-esteem) but when she follows it up with “body policing against thin people is just as bad! and people who are working for the empowerment of fat bodies are being jerks because they’re not paying attention to thin bodies!” she’s not only wrong but using her place of privilege to erase the voices of fat people. which isn’t fucking cool, and I’m allowed to be angry about it and I’m allowed to point out it’s problematic as hell.

also, word of advice? telling people when they should be angry or how they should feel always makes you an entitled, self-aggrandizing asshole. especially when you tag it with “GUYS SERIOUSLY WE ALL NEED TO JUST GET ALONG” or whatever bullshit. like, really? 

(via timetogotochurch)

• Tags
• fatphobia
• privilege
• body policing

(via redefiningbodyimage)

• Tags
• health
• privilege
• quote
• words

thisisthinprivilege:

Thin privilege means going to any doctor you want and actually being treated for whatever ailment you came in with.

Thin privilege means getting a wellness check-up where your doctor does not immediately start questioning a borderline high blood pressure, and is willing to excuse it as “white coat” jitters. Thin privilege is not having “white coat” jitters.

Thin person, you are blessed enough to be able to go to any doctor in this country and not have the first question out of your chosen medical professional’s mouth be about your weight and what you’re doing about it. You don’t have to fear LONG, epic conversations on what you do eat, what you don’t eat, how much you exercise, what kind of exercise you’re doing, what you’ve tried, what you haven’t tried, and your complete lack of willpower. You don’t get to listen to your doctor drone on about how your weight caused/contributed to/is more important than the medical complaint you came in with.

You will never have a doctor assume that something with “congenital”, “early onset”, or “juvenile” in the name (congenital liver disease, early onset dementia, juvenile diabetes) happened because you are currently fat.

You will never be refused treatment for an issue completely unrelated to your size until you lose weight. Some real life examples include seizures, broken bones, psoriasis, and weak dental enamel.

You will never be denied a diagnosis because you cannot fit inside of the testing equipment.

You will never have to worry about a doctor being afraid to touch you because of your size. The “no touch” approach to gynecology means that fat women are way less likely than our thin sisters to be receiving life saving screenings and treatments.

My thin sister, you will never be forced to have a trans-vaginal ultrasound (a rod that goes inside your vagina) because the equipment is too outdated to get a good image of your uterus and ovaries in any other fashion. You will never feel the technician’s angry glare because he or she is forced to touch your genitals. You will never be fat-shamed (and physically violated) due to ancient, useless imaging equipment.

Thin privilege means not hearing nurses gossip about “that whale in room 4” because you passed the nurses’ station to get a drink of water.

Thin privilege means you are less likely to be receiving public health care, and more likely to have access to size positive doctors.

Thin privilege means not paying extra for private insurance.

And thin privilege hurts thin people, too. Society, and our doctors, tend to see thin people as healthy. Doctors may neglect to order further testing for thin patients with symptoms of illnesses that are traditionally seen as “obesity-related” (e.g. diabetes, hypertension, thyroid conditions, heart disease, high cholesterol).

Thin privilege is bad for everyone’s health.

(submitted by Stephanie de Haven)

(via fatbodypolitics)

• Tags
• Thin privilege
• privilege

dumbthingswhitepplsay:

Saying that you don’t go through the absolute worst of oppression is not:

• saying you aren’t oppressed
• saying that nothing bad ever happens to you
• belittling the shit you do go through

What it is:

• asking you to realize that there are scales and some people might need more immediate help than others, and to PLEASE not compare them, appropriate them, or conflate them

(via onceuponanotsolongtimeago)

• Tags
• word
• privilege
• privilege theory

angstiosis:

quelola:

tierracita:

Sometimes the amount of space that white queer fat femme women take up drives me up the wall. 

Like I get it, you are oppressed. No question there. 

I’m not even upset at those white women I’m frustrated at the folks who make them tumblr famous when there are a lot more folks of color on here that are doing their thing and it’s all crickets. 

And it’s like this overwhelming narrative of white fat women saying that they are claiming space and taking back their bodies and I just don’t get how more white folks saying hey look at me is really helping out anything that is possibly intersectional. I guess I am thinking of one blogger in particular with a large following that acts like they OWN this identity and community (referring to folks as their’s in a hierarchical manner) and gets accolades for simply posting images of them blowing snot and if a brown queer fat person did that well everyone would be like damn, gross and move on—not send accolades of presenting fat femininity as nuanced and inclusive of the “ugly.” Maybe my frustration stems in reclaiming ugly only works if you are presumed as anything but—just by being white. Hard to reclaim ugly as a brown queer fat person when you are invisible to start with and ugly by default. 

A rant and an unpopular opinion but I don’t care.

Girrrrrrllll, you know that I use ugly and reclaim that shit but you just dropped some knowledge on my like I don’t even know what I’m doing anymore. Hell yeah it is hard.

Thank you for this post. And I agree with quelola — you really put into words what I have been feeling as true, but couldn’t eloquently express. Esp. at the end. 

This is some important shit.

(via therotund)

• Tags
• racism
• privilege
• white privilege
• gender presentation

blsq:

queerer:

While we both fall under the queer umbrella, our experiences differ greatly. Perhaps this challenges the idea of a queer umbrella to begin with—do we really have that much in common?

But that’s beside the point.

There are troublesome trends in the gay cis community that should be noted. Here’s a checklist. Gay cis dudes, spot these trends and stop it. To my followers: if you have items to add or I slip up, let me know!

• It is not okay to poke fun at vulvae or describe how much they disgust you. You’re mocking my sexuality by doing so. You’re mocking some trans* folks’ body parts by doing so.

• Being gay does not absolve you of other privileges.

• Speaking of racism, it’s awesome to be feminine. It isn’t awesome to joke about how you are secretly a “sassy black woman” when you are actually a white cis dude. It feeds into stereotypes about women of color.

• Being gay does not mean you may touch my breasts without asking. I am uncomfortable being touched without given permission, and I suspect it may trigger others too.

• Make sure your friends are okay being called sluts, whores, bitches, and so on. Not everybody is comfortable with historically misogynistic terms, however fondly you use them.

• Gay is not the new black. Queer rights are not comparable to the civil rights movement. To make these comparisons implies that racism is over, which is far from true.

I really wish someone had stapled this to my forehead when I first came out. I was a terrible human being. 

(via fatbodypolitics)

• Tags
• Privilege
• lgbtq