Oppressing the overdog

[Ebony]

Tabouli (I think) wrote:

> Sorry, just felt the urge to comment on this...
> 
> >As well as being stridently opposed to homophobia in all its 
horrid guises, I am also opposed to oppressing the overdog.   Hence 
my comments about >physical beauty being a mixed blessing for women a 
few months ago.
> 

Yeah, people have this really nasty attitude towards pretty girls.  
That's why I'm extremely glad I'm in the average category... but my 
youngest sister came home in tears for a good two years of high 
school because of wanting to be accepted by her (popular) female 
peers, but facing all kinds of resentment because "she thinks she's 
cute".  I always have to hide a smirk whenever I listen to her woes--
her crowd wasn't the kind I favored when I was her age--but her 
concerns are valid.
 
I really think it's jealousy, plain and simple.  And really, there is 
no excuse for it.


> >The same goes for savaging men on the grounds that it's their turn 
to suffer for a change (for God's sake, doesn't female chauvinism 
come under the "two wrongs don't make a right" category?), being 
horrible to thin women (um, isn't the issue we're fighting about body 
image?
> 

I know that a lot of African Americans and Hispanics feel as if they 
have the perfect right to say and think whatever the heck they want 
about whites/Anglos.  This "right to prejudice" actually extends to 
every single other ethnic group in America that in our view is not as 
oppressed as we are.  The prevailing view is that if you are on the 
bottom of the barrel, you *can't* be racist.  Yesterday in chat 
people seemed shocked when I said that I was raised to be a very 
prejudiced person... but I was.  I was taught to believe certain very 
erroneous and wrong things about whites, Jews, East Asians, Indians, 
and people from the Middle East... and even other blacks from the 
Caribbean!  Many are the times where I've had to mentally slap myself 
to get a stereotype out of my head.

NO ONE is free of bias.  We all must unlearn.

Ali wrote:

> *sighs*  Well, living in New York City, I am constantly bombarded 
with armies of thin, perfect women as I walk down the street.  And 
being a college student, most of the girls my age are thin, perfect 
girls.  Personally, I'm what you'd probably call "comfortable" - by 
no means fat, but not thin either.  5'9" and a women's size 12.  

*goggles*  Wow.  I'm 5'9 and I wear a 10-12.  And I'm not considered 
comfortable by anyone I know... I'm considered skinny around here.  
At my last job I learned that a group of co-workers were calling 
me "that black Barbie Doll" because I always dressed well at work and 
tried to present a professional image.  I love my new job because it 
seems as if my colleagues are too busy teaching to worry about what I 
wear... they wear t-shirts and jeans, the most casual I'll EVER get 
on the job is a nice school logo polo and khakis (and that, only on 
the occasional Friday), but we're all there to teach.  I like that.

I really think the weight issue is all a matter of cultural 
perspective.  Our aesthetic standard tends to be more voluptuous than 
mainstream white society's... it's only now that eating disorders 
like anorexia and bulimia are hitting our community, and to be quite 
honest, it's really those of our girls who don't live around a lot of 
other blacks.  Now, I can say quite honestly that I never fit the 
mold of traditional black beauty... I'm a tad too dark, my chest and 
my hips aren't generous enough, and my hair has to be either lyed or 
fried to lay straight.  I used to have semi-major issues related to 
this... my mother and my youngest sister are much lighter than I am, 
and the other sister has naturally wavy/curly hair.  Both of my 
sisters have smaller noses, too, and in college I was told by my best 
guy friend "you would be the most beautiful girl I know if your nose 
wasn't so big" in all earnestness.  So I spent a great deal of the 
first couple of decades of my life loathing the way I looked.  (Don't 
most girls?)

Anyway.  What pisses me off the most is when people don't think that 
thin women have just as many body image issues as larger ones.  I 
remember crying every day for a month in sixth grade and overeating 
for most of my adolescence... all in a vain attempt to gain weight 
and get curves.  But I was and am fighting nature... no one on either 
side of the family is overweight, and by gorging on junk food I did 
nothing but set myself on the road to the chronic health issues I 
have now.  (Having quick metabolism is NOT always a Good Thing.  In 
my case, it was a Very Bad Thing Indeed that's landed me in the 
hospital quite a few times since I've reached adulthood.)

Just like people compliment larger women on losing weight, I get 
complimented whenever I gain it (this has only happened twice--the 
summer my father died I gained 30 pounds, and this summer in England 
I think I gained a good 25 because they stuffed us so!).  And 
whenever I lose it, people tell me I'm starting to look sickly!

Conclusion:  really, people ought to leave women the heck alone and 
realize that our beauty is more than skin deep.

And women need to realize that all the divisiveness is unnecessary, 
and counterproductive to our aims.  No matter what we look like, what 
our sexual preference is, what our socioeconomic status is, or where 
we live in the world, the fact remains that we are all women... more 
than one-half of the human population, and still so very subjugated 
and oppressed in much of the world.

--Ebony AKA AngieJ