So there was a recent post of some right wingers standing next to a ballot box to intimidate voters. This is clearly bad. They also made questionable aesthetic choices, like wearing dad cargo-shorts and growing goatees. This is also clearly bad.

So, what did Chapeau.Chat focus on? The weight of these men of course!

Let's start with the basics:

--Everyone has a range of weights their body is comfortable at. If you try to go too low or too high in this range, your body will start sending your hunger and satiety signals to keep you within that range. While you can go higher or lower in that range by manipulating Calories-in-calories-out, this range is fairly fixed without medical intervention. In other words, some people are just fat.

--There are other uncontrollable factors that effect weight. In Texas, for example, there are fewer walk-able neighborhoods and more access to fast food than here in Portland where there are more new-seasons than mcDonalds or Manhattan where it's easier to take the train than to drive.

--Socially, weight is co-constructed with fitness and self-control. In the protestant value system (the dominant one in the U.S. even among atheists), self control is one of the most important virtues. Fat implies unfit implies poor self control. Thin implies fit implies good self control.

Protestant morality is, here, at odds with reality. Weight here is co-produced by environment, hormones, eating habits and movement habits. All of those things are only partially under our control, and a Portlander is always going to have an easier time being thin than an Austintonian. Moralizing weight the way this community did celebrates protestant morality over basic reality.

As communists, we are better than that.

Call them fascists, make fun of their ugly beards, offer to shoplift them better shorts, but don't fat-shame them.

  • Catherine_Steward [she/her]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Sure, you can just decide to call something "overeating" when everyone involved in the discussion knows that what you're describing is not overeating, and then you're exempt from people going :jesse-wtf:

    They're just describing eating a healthy amount of food but misusing a negative word to describe it.

    • Nakoichi [they/them]M
      ·
      edit-2
      2 years ago

      You're completely derailing this post, it isn't about semantics it's about not saying things that are harmful to your comrades that browse this site, and body shaming has been a consistent problem here for a long time.

      Why are you so invested in defending body shaming? Fascists aren't going to see those comments only our comrades, and to some of them this is actually harmful.

      "Fat" in the context of the OP just means not conforming to entirely unreasonable western beauty standards.

      • Catherine_Steward [she/her]
        ·
        2 years ago

        I'd say OP derailed the post by throwing in anti-science silliness that people like me feel necessary to counter. I'm not defending body shaming, and have never defended body shaming, and have not engaged with any part of the post or comments which discuss body shaming in any way whatsoever.

        • Nakoichi [they/them]M
          ·
          edit-2
          2 years ago

          So they maybe didn't word it perfectly but that isn't the point.

          You are seizing on a semantic issue and ignoring the substance.

          have not engaged with any part of the post or comments which discuss body shaming in any way whatsoever.

          Yes I know you just came in to argue a point irrelevant to the problem that OP is pointing out with the community that body shaming is a problem.

            • Nakoichi [they/them]M
              ·
              2 years ago

              I'm not going to engage with you further on this because you aren't here to address the problem at hand and just want to argue over something that is barely tangential to the substance of the post.

                • Nakoichi [they/them]M
                  ·
                  2 years ago

                  I guess this is just funny to me because I never claimed to be.

                  Then you should probably stay out of the discussion.

                    • Nakoichi [they/them]M
                      ·
                      2 years ago

                      The problem is bodyshaming that is prevalent on this site.

                      Try to keep up.

                        • Nakoichi [they/them]M
                          ·
                          2 years ago

                          It was the entire point of the post, and yes some people do have different natural body shapes and that "fatness" in the context of this post (which is different from obesity) is a product of western beauty standards. I'm going to need you to step out of this discussion because you're just shit stirring and derailing the point of the post.