so about that "skinny shaming" thing...

some people are individually insulted for being skinny. none of us in fat politics are denying that that occurs. the question is, what is the heft and meaning of it?

it can be personally painful to be mocked. this includes being mocked for being skinny. nobody's body should ever be mocked and nobody's body should be taken to imply that they have an ED. you can't see an ED of any type by anybody's size or shape.

skinny people are sometimes told "eat a sandwich!" it can be said in a very hostile tone.

but besides the tone, i ask you to consider: what's are the layers of being told to eat?

yes, "eat a sandwich" is, on the surface level, framed as " you should eat because your body is currently mockable."

but think about what being told to eat means at the deep layers.

it means you deserve to eat.

fat people are mocked with hostility and told we don't deserve to eat.

don't DESERVE. to EAT. think about that.

so that's one of the reasons why mocking a person for skinniness, while unkind, never can and never will be the same or comparable or parallel to mocking a person for fatness.

and then there's the other difference, which i am going to roughly frame right here as a "single" other difference, but it contains multitudes:

the power difference between fat people and skinny people -- the profound discrimination laid on people for fatness. this doesn't happen for skinniness.

(note i'm not saying skinny people are never oppressed -- they are -- but not for skinniness. for other marginalizations.)

what are the myriad types of discrimination and oppression laid on people for fatness? too many to list here. but i'll start a list.

hiring discrimination. wage/salary discrimination. discrimination in adopting -- or in parenting kids you already have.

discrimination in not being allowed to keep and raise your kids.

discrimination in renting or buying a place to live. discrimination in getting a loan. discrimination in applying to schools or for grants or other funding.

discrimination in other people's assumptions about your potential guilt of a crime. discrimination in their assumptions about whether you tend to lie.

blame for global warming (really). blame for the viles of capitalism (really).

being turned away from medical care -- from doctor's offices, from ambulences, by EMTs and surgeons and specialists. dying because they won't give us medical care.

every marginalized person is treated worse if they're fat. racism, antiblackness, transmisia, ableism, antiseminitism, disfiguremisia -- every one of these oppressions hits you harder and different if you're fat too.

adults on surveys often choose that they'd rather die than be fat.

toddlers choose thin friends. they learn it early.

so about whether skinny shaming "exists"... it exists in the sense that sometimes humans roundly mock a skinny person. it's not okay and it can be individually very painful.

but there is NO system of oppression UNDERLYING it.

being skinny doesn't materially hurt your chances of going to school, having a job, feeding yourself, having a home, being warm enough, having health care, staying alive.

whereas being fat? systemically hurts your chances at all of those. deeply.

THAT'S why you'll hear people say 'there's no such thing as skinny shaming."

on a technical literal level, there is. but the comparison is a grain of sand compared to a vast desert.

it matters individually. it does not matter politically. it matters as a form of bullying, but it does not need its own label or category under the bullying umbrella.

if you want to do fat politics -- if you even want to NOT HARM the goals and values of fat politics -- don't use the term skinny shaming. just call it bullying or body mocking, which are always bad.

you can't say "skinny shaming" without implying a parallel to fatmisia.

read jay's thread here. they're explaining the difference by sharing their personal experience. https://twitter.com/jaythenerdkid/status/1000225654128820225

read kivan's thread on this too! skinny shaming can be part of other systemic oppressions. (it is still not, and will never be, its own systemic oppression.) https://twitter.com/KivanBay/status/1207306991007191041