I very much agree with the points the author of the post has made.
Summary:"Are skinny women shamed as much as fat women?"
Not in the culture I live in.
Is shaming or insulting an individual skiny women just as hurtful?
Yes. Don't do that!
Everyone's experience, everyone's pain matters. Being singled out and told that something is "wrong with you" stings.
Judging someone else's appearance, or rather, judging someone else for their appearance, is presumptoous.
We need to remember at all times that we are talking to a human being, with a full-blown emotional life and vulnerabilities and that appearance or resemblance to one's own shape don't make any person more or less human.
But the fat shaming seems more consistent, though.
This does strike me as an important point:
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We have to recognize privilege as it exists, or we are doomed to live blind and biased. That’s all.
It is absolutely not okay to shame or insult anyone's body. To suggest there's an aesthetic standard - that just happens to be very close to my actual look - and measure the worth of a person through adherence to that standard.
I do think however that a thin woman has a better chance of countering such insulting messages. Maybe her own experience, being complimented on her shape - which is also likely to happen. If a thin woman turns on TV or opens a magazine, she can easily find material to reassure herself that she is fairly close to what is officially considered a "beautiful" body.
I even understand the hurt that may lead people to make up their own norms of what makes a woman attractive or "real".
But just creating a new standard by which we can judge and shame people is missing the point. And if we do that we're targeting and hurting people for simply being
who they are. Or rather for a superficial aspect of who they are. (Now, calling out people for body-shaming, rather than body-having, that would be a healthy reaction.)
We play the same stupid game and accept the same cynical rules that have hurt us so much in the first place!
Also, I very much agree with this statement:
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Now that I’ve stated that fat people have it worse, I recognize that it’s not all that helpful to pit one side against the other, and that’s not what I mean to do.
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This actually shouldn’t be a battle of who is more shamed, because the real victims here are women in general.
I don't want to subject myself to judgement and I don't want to enter a pointless competition.
I don't want to have my worth measured by anything as trivial as my seize or weight.
I don't want to antagonize people who are subjected to the same idiotic standards.
I don't want to disrespect other women and thereby tacitly respect the rules of the shame game. Tacitly approve of using beauty standards as a measure of beauty
at all.
I don't want to make up bullshit rules as to what counts as "beautiful" or... my favourite, even "real". (Suggesting, that two of my best friends or sort of figments of my imagination, because if they were "real", they'd have "curves")
Seriously, we aren't enemies. We should recognize that we're all being subjected to pointless judgement and refuse to play the shaming game. As was very truthfully stated in a now famous post on the issue: "There is no wrong way to have a body."
I believe we should accept and celebrate variety instead.
