Being blonde is not the same as being fat
Wednesday, March 18, 2009 at 9:50AM So there's this recent dust-up between Meghan McCain, Ann Coulter, and Laura Ingraham. Meghan doesn't like Ann so Laura came to Ann's defense and called Meghan "plus sized" (among other things) which is as PC as you can get right now for calling someone fat, still a viable insult in the U.S. Meghan McCain, by the way, is a size eight and admits that she went up to a size ten during the campaign. Most women I know would be remarkably happy to be a size eight and I'm glad that Meghan McCain has said she is fine with how she looks.
Ingraham continued:
The left's indignation in this instance is manufactured and totally phony. If any off-the-cuff remark about a woman's size was condemnable, then where was the outrage when President Obama made a passing reference to Jessica Simpson's "weight battle" during his Super Bowl interview with Matt Lauer? And of course they look the other way when obvious personal attacks are levied against conservatives. Remember when Al Franken was the toast of all media for his book "Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot"? Last month The View's Joy Behar called him a "fat guy"; and when I was a guest on The View a few years back she ridiculed Ann Coulter and me as "peroxide" blondes on Fox.
1. When Obama made that remark, he was commenting on the gossip magazines making a big issue out of how Simpson's high-waisted jeans looked on her, NOT on her alleged weight gain itself. It's called metacommentary, sweetie; you might want to know that.
2. Rush Limbaugh IS FAT. He IS. Whether or not he's an idiot, each of you can believe what you wish, but you can't deny he's fat. You also can't deny that it's entirely different for a woman to be fat in this country than it is for a man to be fat. Did you see any women of Limbaugh's size speaking at CPAC recently? No. Is it a coincidence that both Coulter and Ingraham are very thin, blonde women? I don't think so. The double standard is alive and well (I won't even get into the comments and coverage of Hilary Clinton; it's too early to boil my blood).
3. Calling you a peroxide blonde is barely an insult. If anything, I'm insulted that Behar couldn't come up with something cleverer. Women dye their hair blonde because being blonde is still considered enviable and desirable. At what point in recent history has being fat been considered enviable and desirable in our society? Oh, that's right, IT HASN'T. Being fat is still considered one of the worst things a woman could be. In nearly any women's magazine survey I've read since I was ten years old, at least 60% of readers would rather [fill in the blank with terrible event like losing life savings or a limb] than gain TEN POUNDS. That's right, TEN POUNDS is usually the standard bearer for horror. Ten pounds? I gain that when I PMS, please.
I am, by far, no expert on the fat acceptance movement. In fact, I struggle with the idea a great deal. I can't shake the feeling that my life would be significantly better and I would feel significantly better if I could lose 40-50 pounds. The thing is, the reason I feel this way is because my life DID feel better and I DID feel better when I was that weight. So maybe the truth of it is that you really do have to do what feels right for you, within reason. Maybe someone else would be overjoyed to be my current size. That's great and I would have absolutely no judgement for them. I know for a fact that many women would be horrified to be the size that I wish I could be - that, even if they gained the weight while pregnant, they would feel like horrible failures of womanhood because they weighed so much, even though it was all in the service of creating and sustaining life. Okay, for them I have a little bit of judgment.
But I don't want to concern myself with judging others and their weight battles or issues or concerns. I don't want to, but I do - it's an endless source of fascination and thought for me, which is probably what happens when you are obese most of your life.
I know what it's like to be the grossly overweight person who gets stared at, pointed at, and called names by strangers. I know what it's like to be the "acceptably" overweight (but still obese) person who is basically invisible to strangers. I also know what it's like to be the newly "thin" (i.e. acceptable weight) person who suddenly has doors held open for her and strangers smiling at her and saying hello. The funny thing is that none of these scenarios is comfortable. Negative attention, lack of attention, or positive attention that has a painfully clear cause - it's all uncomfortable. What have we done to women in our society so that they can't just rest in their bodies, no matter what size they are?
Reader Comments (3)
I enjoyed your post. And sometimes I want to punch Ann Coulter in the face. Not because she is thin or blonde, but because she just seems like a jerk. Just my two cents.
Ditto. I've been a blonde (and a redhead and a brunette) - I have nothing against blondes or thin people, for that matter... but I do have a problem with jerks and bullies.
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