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.

    • 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.