Fat

My first trolly comment I got was when a commenter called me fat. I wasn’t offended because this is par for the course for any woman who blogs while being female; I was expecting it. The label is meant to wound and silence and I suspect many times it succeeds, at least marginally.

The comment came on the heels of recent weight loss. I don’t know if I’ve ever been fat, but I think I probably mostly likely don’t qualify now.

My jeans are falling off me. Unfortunately, these are the jeans I bought to accommodate my weight loss. The problem is, they’re still too big because I’ve gone down two pant sizes and didn’t realize it.

Why am I telling you this? Because while Victoria’s Secret clearly won’t be asking me to model for them anytime soon, I’m really just an average-sized woman. But, really, it doesn’t matter what size I am or what I look like. As long as I keep insisting on speaking my mind, trolls are going to say nasty things about my appearance.

Every woman who blogs and has an opinion on stuff will probably be called fat or ugly at some point. And it doesn’t matter if she’s conventionally attractive or not. It doesn’t matter if she’s fat or thin or anywhere in between–she will be the victim of looksist insults.

Most of this probably isn’t news to this readership, but the thing I find interesting about it is that I think that men are often thought of as being clueless babes when it comes to the pressures women feel to be thin and pretty. I think that women are so often the target of looks/weight-based insults…and, indeed, that’s often the first line of an attack…proves that men are aware of this pressure, use this pressure, and actually revel in the power it gives them. Pretty sick stuff.