The chubby canary in the feminist mine.

Cross posted from my usual spot


Most people have heard the ‘canary in the mine” thing, but I’m just going to quickly explain.  Back in the days before electronic testing, miners would carry a caged canary in the mine with them. If Carbon Monoxide built up then the canary would die before the man, and give him a heads up to get out of there a.s.a.p. So yeah, the canary was handy, but it got the rough end of the deal.

With all of this discussion of safe and unsafe male allies of feminism (or self-proclaimed feminists), I was interested to notice that several key figures were already not followed by myself and some friends. The news that someone had said something silly was met with “of course” eye rolls. Most of us had un-followed well before any safety issues, or arguments, simply because we hadn’t liked something they tweeted.
None of us could remember why we had un-followed, it was no major issue or insult, and none of us had interacted, we had simply quietly lost them off our feed.
Interestingly we are all body positive, larger sized women, older women, or trans.

I suspect that if you want to know who the effective allies are, look around you at the feminists on your feed that don’t fit the young, slim and cis bill, check who THEY are still following. I get the sinking feeling we may be the chubby canaries of feminism.
We might have a limit for what we won’t cope with that doesn’t bother other people  in the slightest.

But fat shaming isn’t actually that far from victim blaming. Feminism that doesn’t include trans women is a good marker of feminists or allies that don’t try to learn about issues that don’t directly affect them. Ignoring the voices of older feminists or those you find less attractive, is a pretty good indicator that you have unrecognized biases that need to be examined.

In short, it’s an easy fight saying that hitting women is bad, and women should be treated like human beings. As long as you stick to that line, only real jerks would openly debate, and they are fun to kick. It’s not exactly a high bar. I know this because I do it myself, and it’s the easiest part of being a feminist.
And when it comes to pointing this out, most canaries frankly, can’t be bothered. Let the young, pretty, healthy, cisgender, energetic feminists negotiate with the media savvy likable allies who think we are gagging for their help. I can’t be bothered. I have enough battles with people who are overtly unsafe to bother taking on someone who half the feminist community will back up.

It’s not worth the effort, the exclusion and the stress.

Because when you are a “good guy” you can go a long way towards behaving like a crap one, before anyone gets any support to call you out.

Most people are LOVELY people. Most people are loved. Most people in feminism do active work in an important area to help. This isn’t SPECIAL. This isn’t unique. And it isn’t an excuse for degrading women who don’t fit your rules or specifications to be valued or using slurs against women.

So if someone you love is awesome and working hard, and doing good work, and they screw up. Have a quiet word, remind them that we are only as good as our last action, and for gods sakes, resist the urge to shit on the person brave enough to call them out.

Ignoring the canary doesn’t end well for anyone.

'Attack on Obesity Starts Before Life': (At Least) 5 Problems

This is a guest post by George Parker:

5 quick-fire reasons why I have a problem with the public health approach reported in the New Zealand Herald today under the headline: ‘Attack on obesity starts before life’:

1.     The studies were based on animal experimentation (sheep) and there are still many questions about how or whether the findings of these studies translate to humans and human environments.  It is therefore way too early to use these studies as a basis for public health policy (this is leaving aside the ethics of animal experimentation that involves starving and/or force-feeding pregnant animals).

2.     The relationship between obesity and health is highly contested and we should question the very idea of public health interventions aimed at obesity prevention.  The study of obesity, the findings of those studies, their representation in the media, and their application into public health policies are all influenced by anti-fat bias – the socially constructed notion that fat is bad and that fat people are ‘lazy’, ‘greedy’, ‘stupid’, ‘out of control’ and ‘unproductive’. Anti-fat bias results in stigma and discrimination for fat people which is itself a health risk. For example, fat people report frequent dieting with both physical and psychological effects, avoiding recreation in public spaces, and forgoing health care because of the attitudes of health providers towards their fatness.  Variations in body weight should be understood as part of natural human diversity, and identifying and addressing anti-fat phobia should be a public health priority.

3.     Public health policies specifically targeting women as reproducers and mothers to improve population health are discriminatory on the basis of gender.  Such policies are a continuation of a long history of reproductive injustice that has resulted from the reduction of women to their reproductive organs, the elevation of the interests of fetuses over pregnant women, and the responsbilisation of women, particularly mothers, for social and health problems.  This in turn has justified, and continues to justify, the surveillance, regulation and control of women’s reproductive bodies including for example restrictive access to contraception and abortion, and policies and prosecutions aimed at foetal protection.  

4.     Public health policy focused on changing individual behaviour is influenced by neoliberal ideology that seeks to justify reduced state involvement in and responsibility for the population’s health and wellbeing by responsibilising the individual for health.  This is unjust - it masks and maintains vast and persistent social and health inequalities and other relations of power eg. racism, poverty and gendered social roles, that create the conditions for and determine poor health. It is no coincidence that the ‘attack on obesity’ by targeting women’s dietary choices before and during pregnancy is our dominant public health strategy at a time when solo parents welfare entitlements are being reduced; when affordable, safe, warm housing is difficult to secure; and when many families are experiencing food insecurity.

5.     Public health interventions targeting individual behaviours frequently translate, not into increased social support, but rather blame, guilt and punitive sanctions on those who fail to improve their health regardless of their material realities and social contexts. Not only is this unjust, it also fails as a public health strategy because it risks disengaging people from health and social services.  Women are especially vulnerable to anti-fat bias in health services and are already subject to increased surveillance and intervention because of their role in reproduction, particularly women marginalised by their socio-economic circumstances and due to racist systems of oppression.  The potential to disengage those women who could most benefit from health and social services is thus high and poses a significant threat to women’s and their children’s health.

(Related reading: Werewolf article: Policing Pregnancy, by Alison McCulloch)