"Notes from the Fatosphere" via Fat O'Sphere in Google Reader

Nobody Loves a Fat Woman on Film

2009-07-05T02:18:21Z

Finding fat men in film was so much fun that I thought I’d blog about fat women in film. Not so much fun. After all I’ve seen about fat women being excluded, I should not have been surprised to find that there are so few. The golden age of film from the 1920s to the 1950s coincided with and contributed to the crystallization of the idea that a woman’s body type should fall within a very narrow range–and getting narrower.

Here’s a picture of Ethel Waters, one of the few exceptions I talk about in this essay.

These fat-hostile restrictions applied to men as well. The fat men in film I celebrated in my last guest blog here were not leading men. Even the genius, Orson Welles, moved from leads into the character actor realm when he gained weight. But fat women barely showed on the radar at all. From the first recorded (anonymous!) fat leading actress in 1912’s Nobody Loves a Fat Woman until the present Age of Anorexic Actresses with Implants.

In his appreciative essay on fat men in the golden age of cinema, which I discussed here, Dana Gioia imagines a banquet attended by 25 luminaries of the classic silver screen.

The hefty heroines heavenly banquet would not be nearly so well attended. Only Hattie McDaniel could meet the weight requirement to sit at the Big Guys table at the celestial Brown Derby with W.C. Fields and Charles Laughton.

There are no female equivalents in that period to the irrepressible fat comics like Oliver Hardy or the Three Stooges and no visual language in film where fat in a woman suggests expansive wealth or a huge capacity for evil. We have to wait for decades before women could demonstrate physical power in a film as Shirley Stoler did in The Honeymoon Killers or Seven Beauties and Kathy Bates did in Misery in 1990.

I had to stretch the definition of fat to find even six more fat character actresses to attend an afterlife banquet. (Mae West would have made it seven, but she was so elaborately corseted and over-the-top sexually aggressive that I doubt anyone thought of her as “fat” in her heyday and she would have rejected an invitation to a fat women’s celebratory banquet in the afterlife.) With the exception of McDaniel, most of these women would be considered simply “large or voluptuous” by any standards other than Hollywood’s–but then the movies have moved into our brains and blinded us to what is normal.

For me it is a pleasure to look at a picture of Hattie McDaniel, because she is first of all exuberantly comfortable in her own fat body. She is the first African-American (and the second fat woman, after Marie Dressler–see below!) to win an Academy award. She won in 1939 for Best Supporting Actress playing Scarlett O’Hara’s Mammy, a slave, in the Civil War epic Gone with the Wind. The number of roles she play has never been accurately counted, and may be as many as 100. She received criticism for playing maids, in fact a film about her life, Beyond Tara details that her actual contract with producer David O. Selznick, restricted her to “mammy” roles.

McDaniel worked against this stereotyping, but from within the system, investing her versions of such characters with “humanity,” or sometimes even a bit of “subversive” attitude (shrewd line readings, suggesting some measure of righteous anger directed at her white “employers”). By the time Selznick cast her in GWTW, Goldberg reports, McDaniel had “enough clout to insist on certain script changes,” excising the word “nigger” from the script, along with Mammy’s own references to “De Lawd.”

Most of the time, however, McDaniel had to put up with indignities in order to work. And work she did. Born in 1895 in Wichita, Kansas, McDaniel was earning money early in her life, as part of a family performance troupe, made up of her brothers and sisters and managed by her ex-slave father, who, Goldberg tells us, “didn’t want his daughter to be a domestic.” Later, responding to criticism of her choices, McDaniel would echo this sentiment, famously saying, “I’d rather play a maid and make $700 a week, than be a maid for $7.”

The African-American connection to fat women on film echoes the situation in vaudeville in the early 1900s. In an insightful 2006 essay Nobody Loves a Fat Woman: Portrayals of Female Obesity in Early American Cinema, Joseph Kerr talks about how the transition from stage to screen did not include fat performers.

Kerr suggests that, “Visibility is permitted on stage, but a permanent visibility on celluloid is more problematic.” He discusses how even before films, fears about fat women’s sexuality intersected with stereotypes about race.

[Sophie Tucker] began performing on stage at age sixteen, around the turn of the 20th century…. She was persuaded to perform in blackface by vaudeville managers in New York who apparently felt that, because she was a large woman, the audience would warm to her more easily if she took on the ‘Mammy’ role so familiar with the minstrelsy tradition.” … [T]hey were leery about showing a fat white female performer. In fact, Tucker performed in blackface for a number of years at the beginning of her career to disbelieving audiences. … “Tucker enjoyed pulling off a glove at the end of a performance ‘to show I was a white girl’ to a presumably shocked audience.

Tucker only appears briefly as herself, singing in front of a band in a few films, but, although it’s a little off-topic for fat women in film, but I can’t resist including the campaign song for Tucker’s 1952 run for the White House, “Sophie Tucker for President”

The photomontage that accompanies the YouTube clip references Hillary Clinton, although I’ve never heard any Clinton campaign promise that offered women voters nightly visits from Clark Gable “with a big long Kosher salami and a bottle of Manischewitz Wine.”

In the early 1900s, while Sophie Tucker was singing suggestive songs on stage, American Mutoscope & Biograph and Thanhouser were releasing a few films, all comedies, featuring fat women, and in some cases fat men in drag portrayed fat women. Where there are cast lists, the men’s names are listed in the credits, the women’s are not. Nobody Loves a Fat Woman, the only Thanhouser film to feature a fat female in a leading role played by a female actress, was released in 1912 and the actress who played the role was not identified by name. The parallel with anonymous porn actors seems clear to me.

In Bodies Out of Bounds, Jana Evans Braziel and Kathleen LeBesco suggest that “[T] obese woman is an unruly woman, a paragon of outrageousness and transgression.”

The road to respect for fat actresses was rough. One who finally made it at the end of a long theatrical career was Marie Dressler, who won an academy award as Best Actress in 1931 for her performance with Wallace Beery in Min and Bill.

Her biographer writes:

[S]he soared to late life stardom with a string of hits …. But she was then past 60, large and ungainly, and had the self-described face of a “mud fence.” How did she become the darling of the movie world? Her earthy warmth, well-practiced humor, and fantastic charisma were sweet medicine for audiences devastated by the Depression. …

Even before her triumphs of the 1930s, Dressler was a social activist and feminist who fought for women’s suffrage, co-founded Broadway’s first actors’ union, and toured the country selling bonds during World War I.

Marjorie Main is another actress from that era, who may not really qualify as “fat” anywhere but in Hollywood dress size. I remember her with fondness because I grew up watching the Ma and Pa Kettle comedies on TV.

Then we come to the unforgettable Margaret Dumont, a statuesque woman usually seen in black evening dress with a long rope of pearls, being accosted by Marx Brothers, particularly Groucho. As a Marx brothers fan, I’ve heard interviews where Groucho maintained that Dumont never understood the jokes. But some material suggests that Dumont faced a tougher dilemma.

As the frequently humiliated victim of the Marx brothers anarchy, in public as well as on screen, my guess is that Dumont was trying to hang on to her job by not fighting back. Even a battle-scarred stand-up comic of the present day would hesitate before entering into a full-scale, public practical joke war with the Marx Brothers. It also seems like the brothers were most adept at dishing it out, and perhaps might not have been so amused if one of their targets shot back. Dumont had no power or leverage and could easily be replaced as a foil. I’m guessing she put up with a certain amount of humiliation, even when it drove her tears, in order to keep the best acting she ever had, and indeed the main reason we even remember her name today.

Fifth on my list, and impressive in her accomplishments, is African American Oscar nominee, Ethel Waters. A biographical website explains that Waters began as a singer and became a stereotype-shattering actress,

Appearing in nine films between 1929 and 1959 … Waters transformed the image of the older black woman from that of the servile “Mammy” to the self-sufficient Earth Mother.

Sixth and last, specializing in ditsy old lady roles such as Miss Prism in The Importance of Being Earnest (1952), is Britain’s Margaret Rutherford, who won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for The V.I.P.s in 1963 but is most known as Miss Marple in the MGM movie series from 1961-1965.

Although this is hardly a golden age of fat women in film and television, I have to conclude with some irony that television and some films have made fat women actresses much more visible. Women’s role in writing and producing these shows is a major factor. Roseanne’s excellent television series was a great breakthrough and in 1990, Dolly Parton and Sandy Gallin’s Sandollar Productions gave us a season’s worth of size-positive situation comedy featuring Wendy Jo Sperber, Susan Peretz and Lesley Boone as three sisters in Babes, Parton even guest starred as herself in episode #14 entitled “Hello, Dolly”.

The basic standards now for actresses are more draconian than ever, as a 2008 dialog with a casting director and an actress demonstrates:

“Without a glance at my head-shot or resume, and not even a decent introduction, this stranger looks at me, all 5 feet and 2 inches, 125 pounds of me and says, “You need to lose twenty or gain thirty because where you are right now, I can’t do anything with you.”
The young actress was a little shaken by the information as well as a bit confused. Not wanting to be rude, she asked; “Can you elaborate on that?”

To which she replied,

“Your face says ingenue but it wouldn’t quite work, and I can’t put you as fat best friend because you’re not *exactly* fat.” (— Katy, Broadway)

Blogger Dr. Robyn at kissmyassets asks, “Have we gone mad?’

My answer is that we’ve been mad for quite some time. We’re simply upholding and deepening a longstanding tradition.

And yet, the list of fat actresses in the past two decade or so has become long enough that I am sure I will leave some out when I list in no particular order: Esther Rolle, Nell Carter, Dawn French, Marianne Sägebrecht, Darlene Cates, Patrika Darbo, Camryn Manheim, America Ferrara, Queen Latifah, Mo’Nique, Jennifer Hudson, Nikki Blonsky, I know there are more. I have hope, but that just could be my own madness kicking in.

US Independence Day

2009-07-04T17:58:56Z

Many people are going to kick back, maybe have a party or do something on the grill, and watch fireworks.

Unfortunately for me, my holiday is going to be a bunch busier than that. There will be the grilling, but that comes after tackling the shower with Barkeepers Friend (TM). See, we have three people using the downstairs shower now, and no matter how hard I try to keep it clean, that much steam in a small, ill-vented room, creates mildew problems.

So I’ve got the Barkeepers Friend (TM), the toothbrush, and my MP3 player full of songs that’ll (hopefully) keep me energized.

Once that’s over, I’m going to make a peach pie, with the last of the peaches I froze last year right after they’d been picked off the tree. MMMMMmmmm. Western Slope peaches picked when ripe. Almost as good as South Carolina peaches picked that morning when they were ripe. We have less than one jar of peach marmalade left out of the batch I made last year with the peaches. I wonder how heartbroken Conall’s going to be when that jar is gone.

It looks like the rumors are true: There won’t be a firework display put on by the City this year. Yes, there’ll be displays all around the City, but the City sponsored firework display is the biggest of all of them. It really brings home how bad things have gotten when the City doesn’t even have the funds to have the traditional fireworks display.

I know, not a very interesting Saturday Fluff piece, but that’s all I have today.

Hope you all are having a good day. If you are in the US, how are you celebrating Independence Day? If not in the US, how are or have you enjoyed your Saturday? Let me know the fun you had, so I can live vicariously through your lives!

The State of Independence.

2009-07-04T16:01:00Z

It's the Fourth o' July here in the United States, marking the day we said "hey yo, we don't think so" to the British and threw down stakes on our own joint. Of course, because I'm having people over for dinner and had planned on grilling...the weather has taken a big dump on the Midwest. THANKS, WEATHER.

But I'm not here to talk about my grilling plans (or how they've been pooped on) - I'm here, instead, to declare independence and hope you might join me at whatever comfort level you're currently residing.

My self-worth is not determined by the size of my ass, the span of my belly, the jiggleliciousness of my upper arms, my stretch marks, or how this might determine how attractive or unattractive I am to others.

The food I eat doesn't change my morality. The chocolate Frosty shake I had yesterday didn't make me bad. The mixed green salad with balsamic vinaigrette dressing I had before it didn't make me good. The pork tenderloin I'm cooking tonight won't make me bad. The fruit salad I'll be having along side it won't make me good. I'm a decent person because I'm not a raging douchehole. (Okay, some might disagree, BUT WHATEV.)

My weight also doesn't affect my morality. The size of my thighs is not an arbiter on the Good/Bad Scale. I will not be a better, finer, smarter, more charming, or more delightful person if I'm thin. I am a fine smarty charmer, period.

My weight doesn't determine how worthy of love I am or how much love I'm capable of flinging out there.

I will not hide myself. I will not sit in a corner and behave like I'm "supposed to" because I'm fat. I will be true to myself in all respects and accept and embrace the consequences of being me. I will be loud, I will be honest, and I will gleefully work to upend every single bullshitty message that is being sent to women, to men, to everyone about what makes them worthwhile.

I will be defiant to the very end, and goddamn, I will have a great time.

Happy Independence Day, everyone.

July 4th — Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness

2009-07-04T14:42:00Z

This Independence Day is a good day to read the Declaration of Independence, signed by our Founding Fathers on July 4, 1776, and remember what this day means. Most importantly, to teach our children. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit

Teething pains

2009-07-04T13:41:54Z

It’s been a slow news week. That is to say, a slow news week in my personal life. In the greater world, of course, stars seem to be dropping left and right, as do planes, which is beautifully reassuring for someone with a mild flying phobia who is on FOUR planes later this [...]

I eat, therefore I’m fat

2009-07-04T04:48:04Z

The Fatosphere and various fat communities like to point out how active they are, how balanced their diet is, how they were fat children that grew into fat adults and their corpulent physique is not something they can control or change even if they wanted to. I understand why this is, and I’ve no doubt that for many people this is the case.

But I am not one of those people. I am fat because I eat too much.

I’ve never been small person; I think I was at my thinnest when I was around 17 and 65kg/140 pounds. But I know that if I were to exercise a bit more and eat a bit less, it’s probable that I could lose around 10kg and a dress size.

But I don’t want to do that. I love to eat.

For me, eating is an almost hedonistic experience. When I eat something truly amazing, like a beautiful cut of steak or a simple margherita pizza, my face beams. I dance unconsciously in my chair (my boyfriend calls it my ‘happy food dance’). And I like to eat a lot, because the feeling and look of fullness is so pleasant.

I am not fat because I eat ‘junk’; I don’t eat much processed food, not because it’s unhealthy, but because it tastes like crap and makes me feel gross. In fact, my body craves all manner of things: pesto pasta, opor ayam, wholemeal tuna sandwiches, pho, wood-fired pizza, rare steak and homemade chips, soft boiled eggs and toast soldiers, cake, porridge and stewed fruit, roast chicken, laksa, unadon, absolutely anything covered in garlic… I end up eating a reasonably balanced diet, just a lot of it.

While my growing belly is a consequence of my over-eating, it’s a happy one. I love being fat, and not in a ‘This is what I’m stuck with so I may as well love it’ sort of way. I genuinely think I look better now than when I was 30kg lighter. I’m certainly a helluva lot happier.

I wanted to make this all very clear because so far I have not found anyone in the Fatosphere that I relate to on this matter. Of course I’ve found people who enjoy food, but none who publicly love it as much as I do and none who identify it as a cause of their fatness. I am sure I am not the only one. I wanted to make this clear because I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it.

When the media is full of reports that FAT IS UNHEALTHY AND YOU WILL DIIIIIEEE, it’s natural for fatties respond with statistics proving that being obese does not automatically equate to unhealthiness and that the active fatty will outlive the inactive skinny. And that’s all very good; we should not allow misinformation to parade around as fact. But what I want to stress is that I am not ashamed for being one of the inactive fatties.

I do some exercise; I go to dance class and I swim at the beach in the summer. On the other hand, I also wish the whole world sloped downhill so I’d never have to walk up another incline again.

My point, in a roundabout way, is that we should not have to prove ourselves to be one of the ‘good’ fatties in order to be seen as people. We should not have to divulge our eating and exercise habits to family/friends/strangers/journalists in order to justify our fatness. Whether we happily overeat or happily run marathons, we all deserve respect.

Posted in Fat, Food and Drink, It's all about me

LaDan's Closet

2009-07-04T01:56:00Z

I know most of us are busy enjoying the sunshine and the last thing on our minds is outerwear, but I have to share another designer I just found out about. LaDan's Closet is launching their first line this fall and just got done shooting their outerwear collection. We all know how hard it can be to find fashionable coats during the colder months, but so far these designs looks very promising! I'll definitely give you more info about this line as I hear about it.

Listen in . . .

2009-07-04T02:45:00Z

. . . to a fabulous radio show hosted by Susan Barnett of 51%, on body image, dieting, and anorexia. Barnett held a roundtable with four contributors from Feed Me, and then graciously gave me some airtime for a commentary as well. Good stuff.

The Carpenter's Daughter

2009-07-04T00:43:00Z

I was super excited to discover the New Zealand plus size brand, The Carpenter's Daughter. Obviously, since the seasons are reversed, right now they're selling their Winter Collection (which was inspired by a New Zealand native bird, the Tui), but I hear the Summer Collection will be released shortly. I can't say I dig everything they offer, but there are definitely some gems. I'm totally loving this feather bolero:

They carry sizes 12-24, and yes, they do ship to the US. I can't wait to see what their summer stuff looks like. In the mean time, check out some amazing images from their winter collection:

A Question for the Ages

2009-07-03T23:28:16Z

An obese child 6 to 9 had a 37 percent chance of being an obese adult if neither parent was obese. But if at least one parent was fat, the child’s change of growing up to be fat nearly doubled, to 71 percent. The work fits well with current thinking about adult obesity, medical experts say. [...]

Weird foods you like/Friday Fluff

2009-07-03T18:55:00Z

The Fat Nutritionist has broken my artists' block, and I am working on a poster saying "I put meatballs in the vegetable soup, just for you!". In the meantime, I'm thinking about food (as I sometimes do near a holiday) and I was wondering if, should I have many readers, they like some weird foods? Or if you tried cooking different foods that "shouldn't" taste good together, but do? What are your "secret ingredients"?

I once made up a recipe for "sweet guacamole"- it involves mixing mashed raw avacados with sugar, cinnamon, and chocolate, and adding salt to taste. I still love that stuff, only now I have a food processor, and don't have to mash by hand.

I've also recently discovered turnips. Before now, my experience with turnips had been a disgusting, bitter, overcooked mush. Now I am discovering how, when only cooked until firm, turnips are extremely delicious (you won't die if you eat them raw, but they taste better cooked). My veggie soup had two or three turnips, eggplant, avacados, and Romaine lettuce, in a tomato base.

As for my secret ingredient, I'll probably do a post in fall about how much I love making vegan pumpkin cake, and how my boyfriend (Bernie) doesn't believe that it's vegan.

Have a great 4th of July!

-Angie

Appreciating Brahnamin!!!

2009-07-03T17:04:35Z

In our series of self-appreciation, next up we have Brahnamin. I tried to find something in your fav color that wasn’t all girly. I hope you enjoy the waterfall. Apparently, wordpress doesn’t let you bold a plus sign… I tried to bold them myself to no avail.

Here’s Brahnamin:

I’ve been debating on whether to leave a comment on this thread . . . but I really dig it and I really love the idea of self-appreciation . . . not by way of self congratulation, as it so often becomes, but as you are using it here, as a tool to really take stock of yourself, find the positive, deal with the negative, and most of all just to accept that you are you.

To be able to decide that you are a total dork and that you think that is totally cool.

(BTW – I’m fine with you publishing this as a post if you’d like to).

So, yeah – here goes ::
+ My favorite color is blue. I thought 8 1/2 years in prison would make me come to hate the color, but as it turns out, not so much.

+ I don’t often look people in the eye in casual passing (that is something that did stick from prison) but in one on one conversation I always look people in the eyes, and if I can get away with it, I look deeply. This disturbs some people, but more often than not seems to reassure or intrigue them. That’s not why I do it, though. I do it because unguarded moments are rare and I like to catch people in them whenever I can.

+ I am not proud of the crimes I committed or the hurt they caused. I am proud of surviving prison and coming out a better man than I went in.

+ Nevertheless, I sometimes mourn my childhood, or perhaps my innocence. They did not die together, but I miss them both all the same. Not that I’d have the patience for either one right now, mind, but as memories they are favorite friends.

+ I like it that after two years of living anonymously on the internet I am finally at peace with who I am and what I’ve done in this life and even where I’m going with it all. We are only as weak as our deepest secrets. That’s why I regularly post mine.

+ I am proud of the fact that the fat kid who used to wear a t-shirt in the swimming pool to try to hide his boy-boobs has grown up into a man who isn’t afraid to post his “before” pictures on the web for the weird wide world to see.

+ I’m also right fond of all the hair I’ve managed to grow. My wife wishes it were otherwise and wears makeup in retaliation.

+ I feed my kids well, make sure they have time to play, and teach them as much as I can about making good choices in life. That they won’t always do so is irrelevant. That’s part of growing and living. It is enough that I give them the tools to use when they want to.

Proactive Friday

2009-07-03T17:08:15Z

I have this big meaningful post worked up about eating disorders and being fat - that’s why I didn’t post yesterday, actually. But you know what? And I also want to talk about the value of compliments when you’re trying to pull yourself up out of the pit of self-loathing. But it’s Friday now and why don’t we save the big topics for Monday?

Right now, there’s a really interesting conversation going on in the Liz Jones post.

I’m not really familiar with Liz Jones. I don’t know much about her history of writing so I think that definitely colors my response to her piece. But having an eating disorder and being aware of how screwed up it can be does not mean someone isn’t also fat phobic.

I mean, we can hold all sorts of contradictory things in our heads at the same time.

And, for me, this goes back to the way that women - especially fat women - police each other. The way we snipe and put down and create arbitrary rules that we’re all expected to conform to less we be deemed unacceptable.

What do you think is going on with that? (I have my own ideas.) And what can we do to nip that shit in the bud, people? I want to formulate some strategies here, things we can do as individuals (and, again, I have my own ideas) to stop this habit in ourselves and in our communities in the larger sense.

Getting Our Drink On

2009-07-03T15:52:39Z

Posting the next few days will probably be pretty light, as Sylvia and I celebrate the Fourth of July weekend the way our founding fathers really intended. Completely wasted. Please pray for our livers.

Any of you have exciting plans?

Parental Visit, Day One: Breakthroughs!

2009-07-03T15:44:15Z

It will come as no shock to anyone who reads this blog that I have occasionally imagined problems where there aren’t any. And I’ve also been known to anticipate and plan for trouble that doesn’t actually manifest. And I know this, and I enjoy the pleasant surprise. But I’ll tell you, right now, I am stunned. Mom and Dad arrived Wednesday night, [...]

Depressed? It’s your fat, lose weight and everything will be great.

2009-07-03T15:05:15Z

Amy writes:

In general, I have had extremely good experiences with my doctors. I
have numerous medical issues, and neither my GP, nor my gynaecologist, orthopedic surgeon, podiatrist or dermatologist have ever tried to blame a problem on my weight. I think I have been really lucky.
However, a few years ago I was suffering from pretty bad depression,
and had just broken up with my boyfriend. I’d been on Prozac for a
while, but it was having some unpleasant side effects, and had seemed to have stopped working. My psychologist recommended that I see a psychiatrist to get the medication adjusted to one that was better suited to me. She sent me to someone who had a practice just a few streets away from hers.
I don’t think I spent more than 10 minutes explaining what was going
on in my life, before he began with the fat hate. The first clue I
had, and it should have sent me running from his office, was that the
chair in his office was so small that I barely fit in it. I wear a UK
16/18, and I don’t usually have any trouble fitting in chairs – not
even airplane seats!
Basically he felt that all of my psychological problems were caused by
being fat, and that if I just lost the weight then all my problems
would be solved. I guess he never heard of the Fantasy of Being
Thin… He changed my medication to Zoloft, which is supposed to cause weight loss (it didn’t) and then told me that if I didn’t lose weight fast enough then I could come back to him and he would prescribe Topamax!
I have a friend who was taking Topamax at the time – an epilepsy drug – for migraines. Her side effects were pretty severe, and she lost so much weight (she was thin to start off with) that people kept asking her if she had cancer or something. Here are just some of the lovely side effects of Topamax: pins and needles in the fingers and toes, dizziness, lowered sense of feeling in the skin, difficulty with
language, nausea, diarrhea, forgetfulness, difficulty with
concentration or attention, difficulty in sleeping (insomnia),
anxiety, mood swings, depression, changes in taste and vision
disorders.
At the time, I just sat there and nodded and cried, and believed him.
Luckily for me, my mother recognises bullshit when she hears it, and
managed to convince me that he was full of it. Needless to say, I
never went back to him. I’m still furious with him. If I hadn’t been
in such a fragile state of mind I would have stood up and decked the
man. I wish that I had reported him for malpractice.

Rad Fatty: Bevin Branlandingham

2009-07-03T14:21:00Z

On those days when you're feeling a little wishy-washy about life in general, you could do a lot worse than to stop, wonder what Bevin Branlandingham might do if she were in your situation, and take note.

This queer fat femme icon is the convener of the excellent and free podcast FemmeCast, she's got confidence, courage and smarts coming out of her ears, is the perfect blend of frothy and fierce, and I bet she can tell a good cupcake from bad too. Bevin is usually to be found at the centre of things in New York and New Jersey, surrounded by her femme family, and it's hard to talk about her without using the word Fabulous. Check her out…

What does femme mean to you? I realise this could be a massive question, highlights are acceptable.

First, I want to acknowledge that Femme is something different to absolutely everyone who identifies as Femme. And I leave it as a self-identification. For me, being Femme is a lot of things:

Femme is a way of defining for me how I fit into my sexuality.

Femme means my feminism and my femininity walk hand in hand.

Femme means I look how I want to look and not how someone tells me I should look to be perceived as queer. You'll know I'm queer within about 20 seconds of talking to me.

Femme means I look how I want to look and not how someone tells me I should look because I am a woman. I am often far overdressed for everything I do, but when I look in the mirror and smile because I'm wearing a glittery necklace, feathers in my hair, lots of cleavage, that's what matters.

Femme means I stand in solidarity with every other self-identified Femme, Butch, and gender warrior out there.

I also identify fiercely as a Femme Shark, read the manifesto!

It is about finding a way to be a girl that doesn't hurt (This is from my friend Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha's keynote speech at the Femme Conference last year).

And another great quote from the Femme Conference (this one from my hero Dorothy Allison): "A femme can teach you how to run through broken glass in heels."

I'm intrigued as to how femme might be read or experienced differently across different cultures. I think the book Femmes of Power illustrates some of those differences, but I'm wondering if you have any thoughts about femmes in the US, ie what distinguishes American femmes from femmes elsewhere?

Well, that's really hard for me to say because most of the Femmes I know from other countries are artists and performers, and I think we are a different breed of people entirely. But of those artists and performers, I know them to be a lot more comfortable with gender bending and using elements of masculinity in performance, both of Femme in art. I see Femme in general moving towards the blending of gender and being much more than just the utilisation of tropes of standard femininity and playing with a lot of different presentations. I think that Femmes in other countries were ahead of the game with this.

Who are your favourite queer fat femmes, and why do you love them?

Beth Ditto is a longtime hero of mine. She has long challenged the notions of cute and fashionable. She was the first famous example of a queer fat femme I knew of (playing to a crowd of 50 in Philadelphia, not nearly as famous as she is now). I was in awe of her owning her sexuality and hotness, and never apologising for it. Seeing someone else do it who was younger than me only inspired me to hurry up and get through my fat shame and start making something of myself. Also have you seen the sweater dress with the face on it in her new line for Evans? That's enough to get my love right there.

Dorothy Allison is so amazing. She's got a gift with language and insight that is phenomenal. Her writing is incredible and if you ever get the chance to see her speak it will feel like she has fisted your soul. I got to interview her for FemmeCast about being Femme in the 70s and 80s and she used to code Femme in all sorts of interesting ways, like wearing a flannel shirt with a lacy bra showing, or studding a leather jacket with earrings she got at thrift stores.

Heather MacAllister is another one of my heroes. She was a fat activist, burlesque performer, founded the Fat Bottom Revue in San Francisco and was so fiercely in her body, unapologetic and had a deep respect for herself and other humans. She died a couple of years ago and I am working on an oral history project about her life and work because I think it's important to preserve our history as fat activists, queers and femmes and also because I find so much of myself in who she was and what she did.

Christine De La Rosa is one of the chairpeople of the Femme Conference, founded Butch-Femme.com, is a community leader and activist and probably one of the nicest and most dedicated people I have ever met. She moved to Oakland last year, decided that they needed an LGBT community centre and is now managing Velvet, a once-floundering lesbian bar, turning that into a community space while she works on the centre. I have so much awe for her drive, integrity and inspiration.

The rest of my favourite queer fat femmes are all of the incredible creatures that identify as queer fat femmes. To paraphrase my friend Sarah J on the first episode of my podcast: in a racist, sexist, mysoginist, fatphobic world, being a queer fat femme is an act of bravery. I feel blessed every day that I get to count many of the queer fat femme community leaders and artists in this world my personal friends and part of my femme family.

Why did you make FemmeCast a podcast?

A couple of years ago I was languishing in a law career that I wasn't loving and a friend of mine posted to her LiveJournal a quote about finding your golden skill – something that you love doing and should build a career around. My partner at the time joked that mine was talking. I took him seriously and decided that I wanted to do a podcast.

I had been a performer and producer for years, but the work I was doing (drag, burlesque and comedy) was a lot harder to stage in New York in a way that was financially accessible to audiences. I thought that doing something that was free and easily accessible to people who didn't live in big metropolitan areas and could affect the ways communities connected would be something fun for me and hopefully entertaining for my listeners.

I love the way that FemmeCast mobilises a mixed bunch of friends, and that not all contributors identify as femme. What tips do you have for other people wanting to do activism with their pals?

First of all, thank you for noticing that not everyone identifies as Femme! It was important for me to put a mix of folks on there (not all of us are fat, or female identified either) because I think Femme is enriched by our whole community, including our allies, friends, fans and lovers.

Well, what I do is I make it REALLY easy for my friends to participate. Producing one episode of FemmeCast takes me about 40 hours. But for my friends who are contributors, it takes them about 10 minutes per segment (and they're not in every episode). Unless we do a roundtable then it's maybe 20 minutes. The hardest part is usually scheduling.

I also think I try to work with people's strengths, so with some contributors we set it up as a conversation and with others it's a monologue where I give them prompts. And sometimes I just solicit specific pieces from writer and performer pals, like: "Hey will you record that thing you already worked on for the podcast?"

I use some of this philosophy in other community groups I am part of. I'm the Head Madam of the NYC Femme Family. I specifically set up the organisation with a leadership philosophy to utilise the energy and strengths of people who are coming to the table. So, for example, I didn't say, "we need someone to fill this specific role," I asked the people interested in organising: "What role do you think you'll be good at and what are you interested in doing for the organisation?" People are willing and able to give a lot more time and energy doing things they like to do, and are good at, rather than something they struggle with or find boring. And when you're doing something for free, which community organising often is (especially as you get into more and more marginalised identities not flush with cash), it's important that it be fun!

What else would you like to say?

My life's mission is to make the world a safe place for all people to love themselves, regardless of their marginalisations. My career ambition is to have a talk show.

Find out more about Bevin through her website, queerfatfemme.com, and make a date for Fat and Queer, a community conference in New York City this autumn. Right!

A Conversation About Creating & Publishing Fat Friendly Fiction

2009-07-03T13:18:34Z

Join me (Peggy Elam) and several Pearlsong Press authors in two free teleconference calls at noon Eastern/11 a.m. Central Wednesday, July 8 & Wednesday, August 12, 2009 as we discuss creating and publishing fat friendly fiction.

We'd love to hear from YOU as well! This is your chance to let us know what YOU want to read.

Featured Conversationalists will include:

Lynne Murray, author of the Josephine Fuller mystery series, whose new book Bride of the Living Dead will be published by Pearlsong Press; Pat Ballard, Queen of Rubenesque Romances and author of 10 Steps to Loving Your Body (No Matter What Size You Are); Frannie Zellman, author of FatLand and editor and co-author of Fat Poets Speak: Voices of the Fat Poets' Society; Charlie Lovett, author of The Program; and Ellen Frankel, author of Beyond Measure: A Memoir About Short Stature & Inner Growth and co-author of The Diet Survivors' Handbook & Beyond A Shadow of A Diet.

Topics to be discussed will include why these authors decided to write about fat characters, any challenges in writing fat characters, and reactions from readers.

If you don't feel comfortable speaking up during the teleconference―which will be recorded―then email your questions or comments to me at peggyelam@pearlsong.com.

Email pearlsongconversations@pearlsong.com for the details (teleconference phone number & access code) and call the teleconference line at noon Eastern (11 a.m. Central) to listen and/or participate in the hour-long Conversations. You can participate in one or both calls.

The line will handle up to 96 participants―first come, first served. There's no cost for the calls other than your usual long distance charges.

We are recording these Pearlsong Conversations and making them available for listening online or downloading after the calls. You can find links to the previous Conversation recordings on the Pearlsong Conversations webpage.

See http://www.pearlsong.com/pearlsongconversations.htm for more info. Request the call-in number & access code (which will be the same for both calls) by emailing pearlsongconversations@pearlsong.com.

I hope I'll hear your voice―or at least you'll hear ours―on July 8 & August 12!

In Joy,

Peggy Elam, Ph.D.

Psychologist,
Editor & Publisher,
Pearlsong Press

"A book, too, can be a star, 'explosive material, capable of stirring up fresh life endlessly.'"

Madeline L'Engle
in her acceptance speech for the Newberry Award
for A Wrinkle in Time,
quoting astronomer Fred Hoyle.

Authors & Publisher to Chat About Creating & Publishing Fat Friendly Fiction

2009-07-03T13:15:07Z

HTML clipboard Join me (Peggy Elam) and several Pearlsong Press authors in two free teleconference calls at noon Eastern/11 a.m. Central Wednesday, July 8 & Wednesday, August 12, 2009 as we discuss creating and publishing fat friendly fiction. We'd love...

Are fat people unhealthy? (part 2)

2009-07-03T11:25:46Z

Continued from part 1:

…For health practitioners, particularly those enamoured with biochemical indices and relative-risk reduction strategies, the notion of one, simple solution [weight loss] to a myriad of chronic diseases — and possibly to mortality itself — is eminently seductive.

Sadly, I also think it’s wrong.

Why is it wrong?

Because, first of all, weight isn’t equivalent to health. And therefore, weight loss isn’t equivalent to automatically improving health. But I think we all know that.

More complicatedly, weight isn’t even the most important factor in determining a person’s health. And this is an idea that I think might encounter some resistance. But I’m totally serious.

(And I’m sorry if this is all a little too “Public Health 101″ for everyone, but bear with me. All that theoretical crap I learned in school actually DOES, it turns out, have relevance.)

I propose that the insistence on “obesity” as a personal failing, and even the conceptualization of “obesity” as a disease, is actually an artifact of an individualist perspective of health. Which is to say, because we tend to believe (as Americans, as North Americans, and sometimes just as humans) that health is an individual issue, not a social or public one, we revert to blaming individuals for all kinds of conditions and illnesses that do not jibe with our cultural ideals of What A Person Should Be.

But if you start to look at health as more than just a personal balance sheet of good behaviours vs. bad behaviours, and even look beyond genetic underpinnings, or plain roll-of-the-dice random luck, you’ll see that there are broad, societal patterns of who gets sick and who stays well. And thus, we run smack-dab into the concept of Social Determinants of Health.

If fat people experience poorer health than other people — and there are stacks of epidemiological associations that imply we do, the lower mortality rates of “overweight” people notwithstanding — then maybe it would be useful to put down the keys to the blame-mobile for just a moment and consider one question:

Why?

Now, if “obesity” were one of those things that had a single cause, and a single mechanism, and, subsequently, a single, reliable cure — then maybe it would be fair to jump instantly to the conclusion that being fat, itself, is the problem. (And, naturally, losing weight would be the magic-bullet cure.)

Except it doesn’t work that way.

At present, we’ve got so many hypotheses for why people get fat that you could drive yourself crazy trying to read it all. There’s, you know, adenoviruses, and some kind of woo-woo social transmission by which your being fat tacitly encourages your friends to get fat, and there’s the leptin-deficiency hypothesis which turned out not to apply as easily to humans as it did to specially-bred mice, and the whole food addiction thing, the obesogenic environment thing, the evil-carbohydrates thing, and then the genetic component (which, in itself, seems to implicate so many different genes that I don’t think you’d be able to find a police station long enough to accommodate a line-up.)

Fatness, it turns out, is a many-splendoured thing.

And, as a result, we’ve never found that wonderful magic-bullet cure I mentioned, even though people will swear up and down on their life, on their Bibles, on their mother’s-mother’s-mother’s grave, that we have.

In that case, I have only to ask: then why are so many of us — most of whom desperately don’t want to be — still fat?

Because there isn’t a single “Cure.” Because there isn’t a single cause or mechanism. And, not least of all, because fatness isn’t a disease.

A quote I love:

My definition of a disease is a categorization…that has predictive power and, in some cases, enables causal inferences to be made. There remains the difficult but not insoluble problem of distinguishing disease from social deviance.

-Ian R. McWhinney, CMAJ, VOL. 136, APRIL 15, 1987

I’m preeeeetty sure that the whole OMGBESITY CRISIS!!!! is actually more about policing social deviance than it is about concern for our health.

And even if fat people are at higher risk for certain diseases, I still contend that fatness itself isn’t the problem.

So what is?

I posit that the problem is social inequity. To wit: marginalized people have poorer health outcomes.

Are fat people marginalized? You betcha.

Does it affect our health? Quite possibly.

As always, let’s hash it all out in comments.

Chorizo, Pea and Goat Cheese Risotto

2009-07-03T07:35:43Z

Second, a faithful rendition of what I made for dinner two nights ago – because you know you wanted to know!

Chorizo, Pea and Goat Cheese Risotto*

3 chorizo sausages
1 leek
2 sticks celery
1 cup water
¼ cup pearl barley**
1 ¼ cups Arborio rice
1 cup white wine (optional)
4 cups salt-reduced chicken stock
150g parmesan cheese, grated
1 ½ cups frozen peas
1 block goat cheese feta, cut into small cubes (around 150-200g I think)

Slice the chorizo into bite-sized pieces and brown in the bottom of a big pot. Remove and set aside.

Add finely sliced leek and celery to the pot and sweat for a few minutes. There should be enough oil rendered out of the sausage – I didn’t need to add any extra.

Add the barley and combine with vegetable mix. Add approximately 1 cup of water (or enough to just cover the mix) and cook at a simmer for 10-15 minutes until quite dry, stirring regularly.

Add the rice and stir for a minute or two, then add the wine (if you’re using it!). Stir for a few minutes, then add the chicken stock.*** Simmer uncovered for about 15 minutes, stirring regularly to stop it sticking to the bottom of the pan, until the rice is cooked and risotto has the desired consistency.

About 5 minutes before the rice is done, throw in the peas and the chorizo to heat through.

When done, stir in the parmesan and feta. Serve in a bowl with a sprinkle of grated parmesan.

This made about 6 serves for us – it’s great to take to work for lunch too, and if it’s a bit gluggy after you reheat it, just add a bit more water!

* I do another version with the same base but instead of the chorizo, peas and goat’s cheese I use poached chicken breast, roast pumpkin and regular feta. The Husband likes the chicken version best. You can really put any combination of stuff in that you want!

** This is the first time I’ve used barley in a risotto (another sneaking in the wholegrains thing) and at this level, neither of us could even tell it was there. Next time I plan to use more barley and less rice, until I figure out what is a palatable level for the two of us. Also, I toasted the barley in a dry pan first, but I don’t think this was really necessary.

*** I know you’re supposed to stir a risotto continuously and add the stock gradually, but I’m lazy, and I haven’t noticed a significant difference doing it either way.

Easiest Bestest Bread Ever!

2009-07-03T07:15:25Z

This is one of those never-ending Fridays, when the weekend is just hours away but it never seems to get here!

So to pass the time, I thought I’d post a couple of recipes for you.

First, my absolute best-ever bread recipe. If you like bread—even if you’ve never tried to bake your own before—you have to try this recipe. It’s delicious, and has a delicious crunchy crust that I’ve never been able to get with any other recipe. It’s easy, almost fool-proof, and makes great toasted sandwiches, if it lasts long enough! I like it with cheese, salami and homemade tomato salsa (I’ll post the recipe at some stage!). Ours usually disappears in no time – its to die for fresh out of the oven with nothing but butter.

Its basically this recipe from Jim Lahey of the Sullivan Street Bakery, only I’m even lazier with the preparation method than he is.

Awesome No-Knead Bread

1 5/8 cups water
¼ teaspoon instant yeast
1¼ teaspoons salt
3 cups all-purpose or bread flour*

Pour the water into a large bowl. Sprinkle yeast over the water, add salt and stir.

Add flour – I generally add it one cup at a time, I find it easier to mix this way. The dough will be very sticky when you’re done.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it sit at room temperature for at least 12 hours, preferably about 18.** I usually put mine in the microwave so its out of the way.

Dough is ready when it’s huge and bubbly-looking. I use a spatula to scrape the dough from the sides of the bowl and fold it over itself a few times, still in the bowl. This is called “punching the dough down” and will knock a lot of the air out of it.

Let the dough rise again for around 2 hours.

At least half an hour before you want to put the dough in the oven, put a cooking pot /casserole dish/some cooking thingy in the oven and heat to 230 C (450 F). ***

When the dough is ready and the oven is hot, scrape the dough out of the bowl into the hot pot, cover tightly and cook for 30 minutes. You don’t need to oil the pot – it won’t stick, I swear (I didn’t believe it either). Then remove the lid and cook until the crust is as brown as you like it. Cool on a rack.

* This recipe is now being used in my quest to include more wholegrains in my diet, in a form that The Husband will also eat. I generally don’t like wholegrain bread, but my first experiment with this recipe was a success. I replaced 1 ½ cups of the flour with ½ cup each of wholegrain spelt flour, wholemeal flour and rye flour. The result was browner than I expected but still tasted pretty good. So feel free to experiment!

** I’ve left this for almost 24 hours and it was fine, but a friend of mine left his for 36 hours and it wouldn’t cook through, so more is not necessarily better. I have also left it to rise and then put it in the fridge for 24 hours after punching it down, then let it rise again before cooking, and that was also fine. This recipe is hard to muck up.

*** I’ve used a big steel pasta pot with aluminium foil for the lid, but my favourite thing at the moment is my casserole dish – it has a proper ceramic lid and makes the loaf a better shape. I don’t think it really matters what you use!

“Free For Chubbies”

2009-07-03T04:37:51Z

free for chubbies
Originally uploaded by mo pie

It’s an old-timey Lane Bryant ad! One of the Creepiest Vintage Ads of All Time.

Personally, I think the creepiest one is the Love’s Baby Soft ad. But a case could certainly be made for “is it always illegal to kill a woman?” Or… most of the other ones, really. (”Douche with Lysol!” is also quite a winner.)

Of the Lane Bryant ad, Retro Comedy says:

Who needs self-esteem when you can have a free fashion book for chubbies? Also, proving that advertising weight representation has always been screwed up, the girl pictured is totally not chubby.

I also think that skirt, pointing out madly to the sides, is a little bit crazy. Also, I’m not sure what exactly is “free” for “chubbies.” Is it the “Chubby Style Book”? Yay?

Via Dan Chaon via aych.

Thankful Thursday

2009-07-03T04:51:26Z

1) Three-day weekend! 2) My in-betweenie friend, who makes me laugh and keeps me sane. her: why does all this spam offer to help me gain inches? me: because Penises are Even More Important than Dieting? 3) A fun evening catching up with friends. 4) New capris & walking shoes. 5) The man of the house brought home salt-and-pepper cashews [...]

Physical therapy is a bust

2009-07-03T00:28:00Z

Well, I gave it my best shot, but physical therapy just isn't doing much for my back. The two exercises I was given to do just made the back pain worse, and both of them were very hard on my knees. I am keeping up with the walking in the pool for exercise, however, because that doesn't make my back hurt worse afterward, and it's easy on my knees (and the hot tub helps a lot with that too).
I went back to see my doctor and told her the physical therapy didn't help. So now we're trying Cymbalta and Relafen for a month to see how that works for the pain (and there are other options she's willing to try if these don't work). She also said that there's a back and neck place in St Cloud that she can refer me to, maybe they would have some ideas on how to strengthen my back muscles without making my knees scream at me. I told her that I was considering buying one of those wheeled walkers with a seat. That way, I could go for walks and when my back cramps up, I have a place to sit until it quits hurting and then I can walk some more. She said to see if Medicare would pay for it, and if they will, she'll write me a prescription for it. She also asked if I had ever been diagnosed with fibromyalgia, I think because the Cymbalta is one of the drugs they give to people with fibro to help with the pain. I told her I hadn't had a formal diagnosis, and she said that fibro was difficult to diagnose, but that could be something to look into also.
Seems like now that she's seen I'm willing to make an effort to follow her directions/suggestions, she's more willing to come up with more ideas on how to manage my back pain. I can get on board with that. I also think it helps that I let them weigh me today (and I wanted to see where I was at too), and I haven't gained any weight since February. I'm maintaining, which is fine with me. Maude knows I don't want to gain any more weight, but I don't think I will as long as I continue to eat the way I have been eating - eat what I want, when I want, take my time, and stop when I'm nearly full (if I eat until I'm full, then in about half an hour, I'm uncomfortably full).

Racism Rears

2009-07-03T00:04:37Z

I had a very interesting situation happen to me today. I just recently started playing an online game, and as I tend to do I was browsing the forums trying to discover tips and get to know the people there. There was a particular thread where folks could post item “wishlists” for the game. One poster was posting their list over and over again, about twice per page. This was annoying some people who made pissy comments. Then someone notified the members that the “spammer” didn’t speak very good English, in fact Spanish was his first language, and then asked if anyone knew Spanish so the etiquette rules could be explained. One gentlemen, we’ll call him GG, said: ……………..donto posto every pago…..???

See what he did there? Funny, right?

No, not at all. There were several people who laughed. I posted that I thought the comment was racist. The backlash was not pretty.

GG: ha ha…..ok….im jewish with a big nose ok????
Me: Then you should know better.
Becks: hey yoou are beautiful…………..nose sizes and culture dont even come into it…..anyway the man in your picture doesnt have a big nose!!!!!!!!!!!
Mary: I’m sure it was meant as a little joke..no racists here…. :thumbs:
GG: we are all good ppl here….just kidding…..calm down…..and i do know better….. *boggled face*
Kerry [in response to Mary]: Exactly! :thumbs:
Me [in response to Mary]: I understand it was meant as a joke. And I’m not saying that GG is a racist. I’m just pointing out that while the intention may have been innocent, it is still racist and perhaps more thought should be given before saying such things in the future.
Mary [in response to Me]: but if we can’t joke with each other here it’s no fun..we’ve “known” each other so long!!..how can anyone here be racist..we gift each other equally no matter where they’re from or who they are!!!
Me: I would say making a joke at the expense of another is no fun, especially when it insults an entire culture.
Scuba [in response to Me]: You guys, let’s just drop this ok? No one was trying to offend anyone, it was just a little play on words, I do it all the time too, and I have lived everywhere, seen tons of cultures, and love them all!! Let’s keep this thread nice and friendly please?
Becks [in response to Me]: the remark wasnt meant to be racist, or a joke on others behalf…….i think you are over analysing the situation,pople on here help others, we all know each other well, no harm was meant….
Mary [in response to Me]: no one was insulted but you..
GG [in response to Me]: ok now im upset…..u dont know me…and u dont know how many items i gave to arebs jews…spanish and americans….so just keep ur ideas for yourself…cause ur trying to look smart…but your not…………..
Mary [in response to Scuba]: exactly…someone needs to make a scene!
Pink [in response to GG]: IGNORE them adn they’ll go away hopefully
Becks [to someone who asked what was going on]: no love, some sad individual that is trying to make something out of nothing to make themselves feel better…………which to me is shallow!!! how are you?
Mary [to the same person as Becks] not at all hun..just someone wanting to cause drama for no reason!! how are you sweety??
GG: thank you the one who ruined my mood……………….im out

Queue bunch of folks begging GG not to go, remarking that ME didn’t know what they were talking about, etc., etc., etc., “You know it wasn’t racist”, ad nauseam.

This whole situation was really unsettling to me. I admit it, I cried. The kneejerk reactions, the patting each other on the back for not being racist while simultaneously insulting me and making passive-aggressive remarks just knocked me right in the stomach. A white male makes a racist comment, gets called out on it, and then is flocked to and fawned over by white females until it’s “all better” and he’s reassured he’s not really a racist. These are likely some of the same women who swear up and down they’re not racist, they’re colorblind, they never say a negative word about anyone. It just angers me, and frustrates me, and hurts me. Especially as a white woman. Can you imagine the backlash if I would have been a Latino person, or some other minority trying to speak out for themselves?

And people say that racism no longer exists. I left the thread without any more comments, unable to stand up and make more of a confrontation. I feel ashamed about that, I wish I would have been stronger in the moment. However, a friend of mine, trying to console me, said:

In other words, this guy (and this community), knows that what he said is racist. But, he didn’t really mean it in a racist or negative way. He was reaching for the cheap laugh. Sometimes…as a crusader, you have to take your lumps. You have to let the vitriol and irrational self-righteousness wash over you. You know, when you stir up someone, they feel like they got spanked, or slapped or something. Smacked down. That’s what he feels now. My suggestion is to drop it. You don’t want to turn into a drama loci. You just want the racism to stop. For people to be aware of the connection between their actions and the state of the modern world. I think you’ve probably done that. This guy won’t, probably, reach for the same cheap laugh again. He’ll be afraid, next time he’s tempted, that someone will call him on it and embarrass him in public like you did. I call that a victory. However, now, you have to let the children call you names, after you put them in the corner. That’s how it works. “Mom” gives the kid a timeout, the kid tells mom that he hates her and she’s ugly and stupid. However, the kid learns his lesson and doesn’t get put into the corner for the same thing again, because he knows if he does it again, he’ll be back in the corner. Effective parenting through superior firepower.

What do you all think?

ETA: As Meowser and Meghan pointed out to me, this isn’t necessarily racism since a native Spanish speaker could be any race. Thank you for that correction ladies. Yes, even I am not perfect and need to adjust my thinking. However, that does not mean that I believe the comments made were discriminatory, just that I put the wrong label on it.

An open love letter to my body

2009-07-02T23:28:00Z

Dear body;

I love you. I know you might not believe me, especially since I got that corset to wear to the Medieval Faire, but I do love you. I love the way you squish, the way you are warm and cuddly, and the way you make it possible to do the things I love to do.

I'm sorry, body, that I treated you irresponsibly. I understand that you were only making me pass out and weak to tell me to nourish you. You have low blood pressure, you need salt. You have anemia, you need iron. Neither of which I was giving you in sufficient amounts. I'm sorry.

You see, body, I was following a "healthy" diet. Low in calories, low in fat, low in salt. However, I forget myself, since you need your iron-rich foods, you need your polyunsaturated fats, you need salt.

So, are we back on track, body? Just for you, I put meatballs in the vegetable soup, so you can get the protein and iron you need.

Now that you're nourished, can you help me with my artist's block? Thanks so much.

-Fat Angie

July? What?

2009-07-02T22:38:19Z

So I’ve, er, lost a bit of time recently. I put my head down for a minute, looked up again, and it was July. Canada Day, to be precise, and also the first day of the month, which gives my husband the opportunity to sneak up behind me and shout, “PINCH, PUNCH, FIRST-OF-THE-MONTH, NO RETURNS!” Which always startles me and makes me swear I am going to pay closer attention to the date in the future.

Which never happens.

Anyhow. I have the follow-up post to my last thing pretty much ready to go — just needs a bit of editing. But I’ve been busy working at yet another hospital lately, and it’s been good. Lots and lots of patients to see, which is the finest part of the job, hands down.

I’ve got flowers growing on the balcony, and even though I’m pretty sure I interrupted some kind of shady transaction going on in my backyard today, it’s a lovely day and Toronto is colourful, almost beautiful in the sunlight…

…or that might just be the GIANT coffee I drank this afternoon talking. Either way, I’ll take it.

I baked some bread yesterday for the first time in eons. I stopped baking it when I moved into my current apartment, which has a kitchen the size of a Band-Aid. But with the help of my MONSTER MIXER (700 watts, baby) and its dough-hooks, I didn’t knead anything, and the bread was righteously awesome.

If I do say so myself.

I’ve also been playing with my cat’s diet lately. Because, what are pets if not your own personal biochemical experiments?

I’ve had a couple of emails about specific nutrition questions, which I love, because it gives me the chance to dig through my old clinical nutrition notes and textbooks and brush up. Or to remind myself of how, exactly we did things back in some old clinic. So keep ‘em coming, if you have any questions. It’s good practice for me.

As future plans go, I’m going to let slip a little something I’m planning to do here. There’s a certain training I want to take in the fall, and said training will allow me to feel confident in offering nutrition counseling/coaching/cheerleading/hand-holding/helper-ing to people, either in person or at a distance.

I could do it right now, actually, but what can I say? I’m conscientious-beyond-conscientious, to the point where I will be the MOST RIDICULOUSLY OVER-EXPERIENCED DIETETIC INTERN EVAR!!! when I finally get there, since I insisted on working my way up the nutrition ladder by volunteering in eating disorders, and then working in food service, and then taking a (bizarre and disastrous) detour into real estate, and then doing clinical nutrition. Because I am insane and can’t just settle down and focus on getting a damn degree like you’re supposed to.

And even though I’ve got the whole nutrition care process thing down, I want more specific training. A method, to be precise.

So, I’m going to git myself some training, and then I’ll hang out my shingle, right here on this little ole website. And all six of my readers will have the chance to hire me.

Exciting, no?

Yeah, that’s what I thought you’d say.

Oh, and I discovered I’m an inch and a half taller since I last measured myself. Will wonders never cease.

Party Pictures

2009-07-02T22:28:19Z

As most of you know, one of the reasons I’ve been largely absent from the blog recently is that I was planning my wedding reception — for 6 months after the actual wedding. In another state. WHILE IN THE MIDDLE OF A FUCKING BOOK TOUR. Boy, am I ever not going to repeat that mistake [...]

pindrop

2009-07-02T19:30:01Z

I’ve been quiet this week. That’s mostly because my life has been insanely busy, popping around to various appointments (missing one with the chiropractor inadvertently) and trying to be a productive member of society (highly overrated, by the way). Am restraining myself from compulsively clicking on the “Track it” link for the parcel containing my [...]

Girl Talk/A Cis and Trans Woman Dialogue

2009-07-02T18:01:30Z

Marlene says:

A couple of weeks ago, the National Queer Arts Festival hosted an event called “Girl Talk: A Cis & Trans Woman Dialogue.” Several queer cis and trans women spoke about their interactions, shared community, relationships, commonalities and conflicts.

I’ve been to plenty of queer speaking events and this one stands out both in its consistently high quality and its subject matter. I’ve been to events where trans women have spoken and some spoke of their sometimes difficult relationships with the larger queer women’s community. The most famous conflict between trans women and the larger queer women’s community is the issue of trans exclusion from many “women only” spaces.

As far as I know (and I think I would) this is the first time a group of queer cis and trans women have gotten together for the express purpose of speaking about our shared experience publicly. Listening to the show, I was struck by how obvious and straightforward much of it seemed. I don’t mean that in a belittling way, but rather I think it is a testament to the brilliance of the women speaking. For those of you with little context for this, it might seem like you’re hearing just another group of women tell what they have to tell about themselves and the world around them. That’s exactly right, but at the same time, until this night these thoughts had very little public airing. These things were mostly spoken softly between friends.

Gina and Julia (details below) gave the world something very special by curating this show. The .mp3 of the whole event is here.

The second to last speaker is Dorian Katz, my girlfriend. I am the Marlene she is talking about. While she is speaking, she is showing slides of her paintings. Here is a gallery of the images she showed while speaking.

Any one of these women’s opinions or work would be enough to be impressed by. Having them all in one place is shockingly good. This event is what originally sparked my recent post about holding back.

The speakers:

Ryka Aoki de la Cruz is all over the place doing everything. I’d swear she never sat down if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. She was recently honored by the California State Senate for her “extraordinary commitment to free speech and artistic expression, as well as the visibility and well-being of Transgender people.”

Tina D’Elia makes movies, writes plays, and makes the world a better place working at CUAV.

Gina de Vries curates events, blogs here, and here, teaches writing workshops for sex workers, and I hope that she doesn’t mind me declaring publicly that she’s a total sweetheart.

Dorian Katz makes me smile a lot and paints and draws and writes and makes mischief. Her artwork appears in The Human Pony and she will have illustrations and an essay in Morbid Curiosity Cures the Blues, which will be out in October.

Nomy Lamm is a total badass who does tons of stuff, including Sins Invalid, Homo-a-go-go, Make/Shift magazine, and Fist of the Spider Woman.

Julia Serano is the kind of smart that just makes you say “Damn!” If I say more nice things about her on this blog, I’m going to start sounding like she’s paying me.

Rose Sims writes online here as “little light,” serves on the advisory board of the Allied Media Conference in Detroit, and is a charter member of the Speak! Radical Women of Color Media Collective. Her writing makes me teary on a regular basis.

Lauren Steely knows hella stuff about rocks and sneaks up on you with how funny she is.

Debbie says:

I was in the back listening to this event (apparently quietly enough so that Marlene and Dorian didn’t even know I was there). I want to second Marlene’s recommendation of the whole thing, and especially to say that Ryka Aoki de la Cruz and Rose Sims, neither of whose work I was aware of before that night, blew me completely away. So did Gina, Julia, Nomy, and Dorian, but I expected those to be fantastic. Not to mention the other people whose work I didn’t know, who were also extraordinary. My only disappointment was that I wished the curators hadn’t called it a “dialogue,” because that left me expecting more interaction. What I got instead was wonderful, however.

Shopping tip: An important question

2009-07-02T15:55:00Z

I’m just going to say right off the bat that this tip isn’t my own. It’s actually from Tim Gunn’s book. Le Gunn is wise, though so we trust his advice.

Here’s a question to ask yourself whenever you’re tempted to buy an item that’s on sale, you have a coupon for, or the item is otherwise cheaper than full retail:

Would I be willing to pay full price for this item if it wasn’t on sale? Would I still want it as badly as I do now?

Now, I’m not saying to immediately drop the item and run out of the store if the answer is “No” (Incidentaly, Tim Gunn would say that but I’m nicer than he is, I guess). I am saying to stop yourself and consider why you want the item in your hands. Will it really add value to your wardrobe or do you want it because it’s cheap and you’re afraid to pass up an opportunity?

This question can be tough if you’re a bargain hunter like myself. In the case that I’m actively waiting for an item to go on sale before buying it, I don’t really ask myself the Big Question. In that case, it’s a planned purchase and I’m just waiting to get a good deal.

However, if I’m in a store or just putzing around online and come across something on sale and think “omg I need this right now or I’ll never be able to find anything like it ever again!!!”

I stop.

And ask, “Is this item so wonderfully unique that I will never find anything like it ever again at a similar price?” And the answer is almost always no.

The question isn’t intended to make you want to pay full price for everything you need. It’s just a way to measure how valuable the item is to you and whether you’d be willing to sacrifice a little more financially to have it.

Dieting, repackaged

2009-07-02T17:38:31Z

Self magazine isn't known for embracing body diversity, so I was semi-surprised to see the oh, so cleverly titled Self piece "Sip 'n Starve: Dangerous diets in disguise" republished on MSNBC today. Authored by Janelle Brown, who used to run the feminist 'zine Maxi in the 1990s, the focus is on LA trendsetters who "starve themselves skinny" via "socially acceptable quasi-anorexia." A marketing survey last summer found that the percentage of American adults on a diet has decreased by 10 percent since 1990, but those numbers might be disingenuous. As Brown explains, it's no longer trendy to be dieting, at least for women in LA, but that doesn't mean that they've abandoned their zeal to fit into negative number sizes, either. She writes: Read more...

Mixed Messages Matter – When Actions Speak Louder Than Words

2009-07-02T17:28:41Z

Random Quorum just wrote something interesting about Liz Jones and how thin just ain’t worth it. It is thought provoking and I highly recommend taking a read. The link is above.

Liz Jones is a Daily Mail fashion editor who has struggled with anorexia on the one hand and on the other hand has been:

…so vocal in campaigning for more diverse women on the catwalk, on the covers of magazines, and in adverts – encouraging women to love themselves as they are, not to conform to some outrageous, one-tiny-size-fits-all ideal of beauty

Random Quorum does a great job of pointing out the self-hate that oozes through even the positive messages that Jones tries for. Again, I recommend checking out the original post for all that. It’s thought provoking stuff. One of my specialties is using my personal experience to make a point and that’s where I’m gonna go with this.

My mother was a lot like Liz Jones. I hardly ever saw the woman eat and when she did, she used popular anorexic tactics to make sure she ate as little as possible. At the same time, she seemed to purposely overfeed me as a big “givin’ the finger” to the culture of adoration of thinness. She spent a lot of time telling me how the images on TV weren’t realistic. She saw other girls in my grade school who seemed to be underfeed by their weight obsessed mothers and felt compassion for those girls. She went so far as to make fun of starlets who spent so much time and energy to maintain the beauty ideal.

I didn’t hear what my mother said. I saw what she did… that is what I really learned from.

I saw a woman who would rather be frail and ill than eat enough food for her body to be healthy. My step-father made it clear that he was hugely attracted to her “smallness”. She was short and thin… she hardly ate. My step-father would go on and on about how he admired this about her. He would also go on and on about what a pig he was and what a pig I was and how disciplined and saintly my mother was for hardly eating… and what jerks he and I were for “living to eat” as opposed to “eating to live.” In other words, my step-father thought less of me and him, because we didn’t eat just enough to stay alive. Forget thriving. We should’ve been seriously ill often as my mother was from her “viruous” abstinence of nourishment.

Let’s review what nourish means (and a shout-out to whichever blogger – I’m sorry, I can’t remember which one, but feel free to name yourself!!! – who has the definition of nourishment at the top right of their page to remind us all what a wonderful thing taking care of ourselves is!). This is from dictionary.com:

–verb (used with object)

1.	to sustain with food or nutriment; supply with what is necessary for life, health, and growth.

2.	to cherish, foster, keep alive, etc.: He had long nourished the dream of living abroad.

3.	to strengthen, build up, or promote: to nourish discontent among the workers; to nourish the arts in one’s community.

Sounds like a horrible moral malady, right? Geez! Who would want to nourish themselves?! The shame! The horror! *headdesk*

The whole world (almost) around me was claiming the virtue of thinness and the vice of fatness – even my mother through her actions – and I was supposed to believe her words? Pluhhhleeez. Those words felt ridiculously hypocritical and hollow coming from a woman who sacrificed so much for thinness and seemed to revel in the thin complements she got from her husband. It seemed to my mind (when I was a child and teen) that my mother just wanted me to be fat, so she could lord her thinness over me like the women on TV seemed to do all the time. I became even more determined to be thinner and prettier than her and anyone else, because obviously it was a powerful way to all kinds of success and praise.

As a 30-yr-old looking back, I think my mother meant better than I gave her credit for. I think she was something like Liz Jones. She felt trapped in the thin ideal, but hoped that I would be free. But, lip service just wasn’t enough.

Unlike Liz Jones, my mother actually did give up the starvation and restriction. Her husband is in his 70’s and it looks to me like she decided that he’s too old too care so much about looks. She told me (and ew, I wish she would STOP telling me stuff like this) that his d*ck stopped working (that is just how she put it), so she was off the hook. She eats what she wants now. She doesn’t seem to feel any shame about her body. This has happened over the last 10 years. She is really happy that I have taken up IE and HAES ideals after years of starvation and restriction that I put myself though. She seems relieved that I eventually admitted that my quest for thinness had nothing to do with health and that health can be found at this wide range of sizes… not just thinness or average weight… and that doctor’s weight charts aren’t worth looking at in terms of measuring health.

I can’t say that my mother’s giving up the starvation helped me at all. It came too late. But, I’m glad she’s not suffering like she used to and is starting to practice what she so often preached. There is that…

I’m here today to say that mixed messages matter, especially between a mother and a daughter… or between women in positions of influence and the women who expose themselves to their work. Talk can feel so amazingly cheap.

As someone who has survived an eating disorder herself, I understand how difficult it is to recover. While I criticize Liz Jones and my mother, at the same time, I feel for them. Eating disorders are painful and a hell in their own right. It is possible that the best Liz Jones is able to do is to do the lip service thing. Maybe it’s the best she’s got and we cannot ask any more from her. I don’t know all her details and probably never will. I also think it is also really important to note that mixed messages matter and that Liz Jones is probably also influencing many women towards the direction of thin idealizing rather than in the other direction. There’s a sad truth for you.

This underlines the importance of treatment and working for recovery. If an eating disordered person thinks that lip service alone makes up for the influence they have on their children and others, IMO they are gravely mistaken. Actions matter. Words can ring very hollow, when the way we live our lives show that we don’t even buy into our grand ideals. If Liz Jones isn’t in treatment, I hope she gets into treatment. I think there is always hope, even after 40 years of anorexia.

As for my mother, I doubt treatment is ever going to happen. While she may be eating better nowadays, she obviously still carries so much of the self-hate that was a big part of her restriction in the first place. I believe a good therapist would do her good. Unfortunately, she thinks all therapists are scam artists and people who go into this kinda treatment just want to be victims and use their problems as a “crutch” to not take responsibility for their lives. She prefers to shop doctors for her “nerve pills” (generally valium) as she calls them and avoid looking at any deeper issues. When her neurologist told her that he would no longer medicate her and that she obviously needed to see a psychiatrist for psych meds, she dropped that doc and found another that will give her what she wants. Even the 15 minute average appointment with a pdoc to get some anti-deps or something is too far in the direction of “crutches” for her tastes. Her loss.

I wish self-love for all people… that includes Liz Jones. Like the blogger at RQ said, I wish I could give Liz Jones a big hug and maybe help her find some safe space to treat herself kindly. To all you folks who are struggling with eating disorders, I am sending you warm vibes – whether you are in treatment or not – no matter how horrible you think you are – no matter how unworthy of good things you feel you are… and, most of all, I hope that someday you find relief.

For those who are still struggling with body acceptance (and some days that includes me!), I highly recommend reading the awesomeness that April at RoundShape just wrote on why we are fat from a historical perspective. April rocks.

–AngryyGrayRainbows

SAAS (Sewing at Any Size): Shorten your jeans without looking like you have

2009-07-02T13:47:00Z

Welcome to my Series on Sewing at Any Size. You can access the rest of the SAAS series by clicking on the topic link on the side bar.

The series is a form of peaceful protest against the terrible, cheap, overpriced, ugly stuff that passes for plus size fashion these days. Anyone can make basic wardrobe elements to fit their body without trying to track down commercial patterns (a nightmare for anyone over a US size 24).

As this may eventually become a book, please do not reprint or republish this anywhere else. You may, of course print for your own personal use!

How to Hem Jeans (without looking like you've hemmed your jeans!)

Scenario: The jeans fit perfectly, but are too short. Unless you have a machine that can go through four layers of heavy denim for a proper french cuff, you’ll be stuck with the dreaded “I can’t find clothes that fit me” look of a homemade hem.

Solution: You can hide the shortening seam right above the original cuff for a store-bought look.
Measure the length of the leg, then determine how long you want the leg to be. Subtract the latter from the former and divide by two.

For instance, if I have a 34” long pair of jeans and need it to be 30”, I subtract 30 from 34 and divide by two for a total of 2”.

We’ll call this number “A”.

Fold the bottom hem of the leg up with the right side together until there are “A” inches showing between the inside edge of the original hem and the fold.

Pin up, measuring every time to prevent the hem from becoming uneven. Stitch as close as possible to the bottom of the original hem line; the stitches should be almost right on top of each other if possible (Red dashed line below).

Right next to this line of stitches, run another line of zig-zag (/\/\/\/\/\/\) or overlock (____) stitches to prevent the denim from fraying.

Cut off the folded denim close to the zig-zag or overlock stitches, being careful not to cut the stitches themselves.

Fold the original hem back down over the stitches and iron flat.

Having a Bad Day?

2009-07-02T14:18:02Z

by sylvia

Whenever I’m feeling blue, or down on my luck, or stressed out at work, or cranky, PMSing, irritable or just plain sad, I take a little visit to my happy place, in the form of baby care, thanks to our friends over there at List of the Day.

This is why I don’t have children.

Endometriosis diagnosis & treatment nightmare

2009-07-02T14:01:06Z

Sophia writes:

I carry my weight very well. So well, in fact, that nurses often weigh me twice, and most doctors don’t comment on my weight until they sit back and look at my chart. I was a competitive athlete growing up, and although I am certainly overweight now, I still retain much muscle mass especially in my thighs. I am tall for a woman and even at my thinnest have never dipped below a 14/16 (and I was almost unhealthily thin at that point, subsisting on diet coke and cigarettes).
Toward the middle of ‘06 I began experience constant pain. Endometriosis had been bandied around as a possible diagnosis since i was 14, and I had been on hormonal birth control almost continuously since then. My mother had endometriosis, and so did many of her female relatives. I searched high and low, and finally found a specialist (a Reproductive Endocrinologist) who supposedly had experience in treating endometriosis in my area. There were not many, and he was the only one who would treat me for the medical condition, not for the infertility aspect.
The initial interview was horrible. Right from the start he told my husband and I we shouldn’t think of children yet, that we were too young and should be out of school (as if that’s his business at all). He took one look at the weight on my chart and said that my pain was probably psychosomatic and/or caused by my weight and that I was more than likely too fat to conceive naturally anyway. After I was nearly in tears, my very typically cool-headed husband told the doctor heatedly that he had lived with me for a good deal of time and that I was in so much pain daily that I could hardly function. Of course I had gained weight, my husband pointed out, I had been hardly able to leave the house for months. Finally the doctor agreed to take an ultrasound. I lay on the table holding my husband’s hand silently gagging from the pain. Only then did the doctor look down and say “does this hurt?” like I was some freak. I hardly croaked out a “yes”. The doctor looked sternly at me, then left the room for me to get dressed.
When we met him in the hallway, he said he was ordering a laparascopic surgery to examine my insides. He was ‘piggy backing’ me onto another surgery, and told me he would ‘order a laser just in case’ but he ‘doubted it would be used’. He told me again I needed to lose weight and see a shrink.
A month later I had the surgery. What should have been a 30 minute procedure stretched 5 times that length, much closer to 2 1/2 hours. My uterus was covered with spots, and the photographs he took looked like someone had taken a lit cigarette to my insides. Upon research, he only made 2 incisions, instead of the typical three, and never checked my other internal organs beside my uterus/ovaries. While I was in the post-op recovery room, the doctor came out to speak with my husband and my mother. He flat out told them the surgery was much more difficult because he had to work through ‘layers of fat’. He told my husband I was severely overweight, and the ‘amount’ of endometriosis he found was not enough to be causing the pain i was in (which goes against all current research on the condition). My husband almost punched him right there in the hospital. It was obvious he was trying to cover up his previous insensitivity and disbelief. It was obvious i had this disease, and he didn’t even have enough time or care to treat me fully.
I have not gone back to this doctor. My GP and my last ob/gyn were and are immensely supportive of my health, overweight or not. They are both convinced my weight struggle is related to a hormone imbalance from my endometriosis, combined with the difficulty I have in staying physically active. I know they would like me to lose some weight, but mostly manage my hypoglycemia and get some cardio worked into my life. They never push or are mean about it. I told them both what the surgeon said, and neither could believe or agree with what he put me through.
The absolute worst part is that this doctor trains Reproductive Endocrinologists at my local medical university. I hope they learn more compassion and better bedside manner than he ever imparted. The best part of all of this? The guy had to be 250 lbs himself, easily.

Transformers: Just a “Guy Flick”?

2009-07-02T13:20:24Z

Okay so this doesn’t really tie into being roundly shaped or fat rights. It is more related to my budding feminism awareness in the world around me. The hubby and I went to see the second Transformers movie on Tuesday. A lot of it was similar to the first film (aptly described here) While it [...]

Big Fat F for the USA

2009-07-02T12:02:26Z

This oh so enlightened and comprehensive report was released today in the US (can you taste the dripping sarcasm?) and was brought to my attention by the awesome Sociological Images website. Apparently “Adult obesity rates increased in 23 states and did not decrease in a single state in the past year… In addition, the percentage of obese or overweight children is at or above 30 percent in 30 states.”

But naturally, there is no consideration of socio-economic status, ethnic composition or age composition and no working definition of obesity etc etc.

*sigh*

It is good to see that most of the comments on this post at Sociological Images demonstrate considerable understanding of the moral panic surrounding the ‘obesity epidemic’. Although one poor soul seems to think that 11 year old girls with big boobs must automatically be obese. Seems this person hasn’t ever seen a fat woman with small boobs or a thin woman with big boobs. While I am personally in possession of a ‘rack of doom’, there are plenty of fat women with small breasts so it is erroneous to assume that big boobs = fat and vice versa. Hasn’t the blame for this phenomenon (young girls with well developed breasts etc) been placed at the foot of growth hormones in meat or some such?

Anyway, America - you score a big fat F.

Fat, fat, fat! Fantastic! Or should that be Fat-tastic?

Appreciating Aud!

2009-07-02T12:01:40Z

Thank you, Aud, for joining in! If you have your own blog or what-not, feel free to borrow this idea any time. I hope you like the frog. I’m very glad to hear that this lil thing made you feel spiffy. This kinda thing always makes me feel lovely as well.

Here is Aud:

This is an awesome idea! I wish I would have thought of it
Oddly enough, things that I admire about myself started flowing through my head faster than I could type them. Hope you are entertained …

*I am very proud of my hair. I am dark blond, a shade darker than my grandmother (well, she has white hair now, but it used to be blond!). It is full and thick and wavy – and at times hard to tame. Sexy!
* I look a lot like my mother. I know that is something that many women may not be proud of, but I am. My mother is 50, and still looks great!
*I have a crush on Keifer Sutherland! ;D
* I love dogs. I am a responsible pet owner – I spoil my Lab Mix, Loki, absolutely rotten! I also volunteer with the Humane Society for Southwest Washington as a morning dog walker.
* I love to learn. About almost anything. I envy those girls that enjoy math, and I wish I could! I also love to read…about almost anything.
* I am an artist. I draw, paint, cross-stitch, crochet, and write…among other artistic pursuits.
*I live over 3,000 miles away from where I grew up. I live in Vancouver, WA and was raised around Jacksonville, FL – and I retained my southern drawl!
*Even though my religion was condemned by my friends, family, and community where I grew up, I stood firm, and continue to strive to be the best person I can be, both within and outside of Asatru.
*I may not be a “who’s who” in the Asatru community, but I have definitely made myself a “someone to watch.”I am the ‘Arts and Education’ Director of the Falcon Kindred, my religious organization. (www.falconkindred.com)
* I am the first marine, and the first woman to go into the military in my father’s family. I am the first woman to go into the military in my mother’s family as well.
*I stood firm with the VA and now receive the benefits that I deserve for my injuries sustained during my military service.
*I’m a Dean Koontz nut. I think that I must have read everything he’s written!
*I fight BPD every day. And I am proud to say that I have continued to win – every day – for almost a year!
* I live with pain every day of my life – and I deal with it as gracefully and proudly as possible. I love myself despite – or maybe because – of my injuries. A small meniscus tear with knee pain morphs into muscle imbalance, weakness, and a painful, immobile lower back. I cannot stand, walk, or sit for long periods without pain. And now,compression fractures were discovered in two of my vertebrae, presumably from my USMC service. Although I can’t prove it. I’m proud of myself for knowing what my body can do, and trying my darnedest to be as mobile as I can possibly be
* I recently found out that my friends consider me a “strong” woman.
* Oh, and I’m the only girl I know of whose favorite color is green. And my favorite animal is the frog – imagine that!

OOOOOOOOO! Now I feel super! I am sooo AWESOME!

Thanks, angrygrayrainbows!

Being Thin Is So Not Worth It

2009-07-02T05:11:25Z

Liz Jones, fashion editor for the Daily Mail, has written about her 40-year battle with anorexia, bringing a face to the devastating belief so many women hold, that they would “rather be thin than happy or healthy”. (Warning – this may be very triggering for some people).

Her obsession began at age 11, and she has clear memories of her mother bringing her toast with butter and marmalade, which she hid, rather than eat. Despite being

…so vocal in campaigning for more diverse women on the catwalk, on the covers of magazines, and in adverts – encouraging women to love themselves as they are, not to conform to some outrageous, one-tiny-size-fits-all ideal of beauty

she admits

I certainly don’t practise what I preach and am in fact secretly proud that I’m still a size 8, a sample size. I love my concave stomach and I can’t help, despite my beliefs, but regard women who are fat, who don’t exercise, who gorge on things like Galaxy, as somehow lazy. They just don’t try hard enough.

I wonder how she reconciles these conflicting beliefs? Is it really possible to believe that women should love themselves as they are, while simultaneously believing that fat women are lazy and lack willpower? I do not think it is, but I also suspect that Ms Jones is too busy fighting her own body to really examine this hypocrisy. I don’t mean to judge her for this – I understand that this is a part of her disease, and I know that for many women this is a way of life. I think it is terribly sad that so much of her self worth is wrapped in this battle which she will probably never be free of. She writes

I might not have been good at anything else – relationships, sport, conversation – but I have been really good at being thin.

On the whole, I have this thin thing under control: I eat just enough to keep me stable, to avoid various people (my mum, a sister, a husband) interfering.

It is heartbreaking to me that forcing your body to be a certain size has become something that we strive for, to the detriment of everything else. If we as a society were not so obsessed with having to look a certain way, how much pain would be lifted from our collective psyche? Why do we accept behaviors such as “vomit[ing food] straight back onto [the] plate, in front of everyone” as being healthy and desirable so long as they mean that your body fits a certain—apparently healthy and desirable—mold? Jones admits that she has had her period “perhaps half-a-dozen times in [her] life” – a clear indication that her body believes it is starving, and is trying toprotect blood and protein reserves to keep her alive.

When Jones’ sister’s visit coincides with a warning from her doctor that she is heading for osteoporosis, she decides

… for three weeks, to eat normally. To see if my world falls apart and I become fat, and bloated, and lazy. To see if I can no longer think straight (I never eat if I’m writing, it slows my brain), or if I become happier.

Understandably, this creates feelings of both excitement and panic. For someone who can “survive on muesli, fruit, pasta with nothing on it, water, for weeks, months, years . . .“, and considers eating “a whole bar of chocolate, a whole banana, or even a whole avocado” to be pigging out, the thought of eating “normally” must be truly terrifying.

I admire what Jones’ sister was trying to do – I expect that after so many years of worrying about her, being given the opportunity to feed her anything and everything must have seemed a huge relief. I suspect that the sister was trying to get as many calories into Jones as humanly possible, while simultaneously trying to introduce her to the world of deliciousness that is food, in the hopes that she would be unwilling to give up such delights and return to her previous muesli-with-juice ways. I may even have done the same thing in her place, but I’m not sure it was the best way to go.

Jones goes straight from having nothing but black coffee for breakfast to having “three scrambled eggs made with cream, butter and salt and pepper on white bread with butter on it, …juice and two Dove digestives“ or “peanut butter on a home-made bap with a sliced (whole!) banana on top, followed by porridge made with cream and sugar”. She eats “two perfect scones with jam and cream, every day”, and her sister cooks “pancakes, apple crumble, rice pudding, and chocolate pudding and custard” for dessert, all in the first week. Jones comments “I feel incredibly fat, and lazy, and tired… [but] when I stand up, I don’t see stars and black clouds”.

The diet she describes as normal does not reflect my normality in any way. I love to cook, desserts especially, but I only do so occasionally, and my normal diet is much lower in fat (and volume) and higher in vegetables than this. If I ate that way for a week, I suspect I would feel unwell and over-full too. However, not seeing stars and black clouds when you stand up? That’s a GOOD thing.

Sadly, in the second week, despite enjoying the food, Jones is annoyed to find that not starving herself all the time makes her happier, and worries that eating is causing her to lose all self-control, saying

I find to my chagrin that I’m in a better mood, pretty much all day. I snap at people less, I smile more. I have found that if I eat eggs or some other form of protein in the morning, I’m much less depressed.
This whole gluttony thing has changed other aspects of my behaviour, too. Twice, I do not make my bed, which is unheard of.

Can eating really turn you into a slob? Or is this a self-fulfilling prophecy? Her life has revolves around the fact that if you eat too much you are disgusting and have no will-power, so when she begins to eat, she validates her own beliefs by not making the bed, since clearly not making your bed on occasion makes you a terrible evil person (I almost never make mine – must be because I’m fat! But then, The Husband doesn’t make his either (it’s the same bed!), and he’s thin, so…).

By the end of the experiment, Jones has noticed that her skin has become less dry (a sign of improved health?), and she looks less gaunt. She says:

I discover all sorts of activities that had been verboten: I take myself to a sunny hill and just sit, with a picnic. Pastry, I find, is pretty wonderful. I eat popcorn and ice cream at the cinema. I eat avocados – for so long my ultimate bete noir.

Unfortunately, for this woman who has never picnicked before, the pressure to be thin will always overwhelm everything else.

…on the last Thursday of my experiment, I weigh myself. I can barely look down at the little dial: nine stone, it says. My stomach is huge, like I’m pregnant.
…All this eating has proved what I thought all along: food makes you soft, lazy, undisciplined.
When my sister goes back to Australia, I know I will clear out the fridge. It makes no sense, but I’d rather be thin than happy or healthy.

And that right there is the ghastly truth. It takes guts to admit that straight out – and the scary thing is that while she knows that what she is doing is unhealthy, many people will continue to congratulate her for being so dedicated to maintaining a “healthy” weight, and will continue to insist that those of us who are fat should really aspire to Liz Jones’ level of self-control, so that we may save ourselves from the horrors of the fat.

I feel like this article was sincerely intended to be a warning, but at the same time it supports so much fat and body hatred. By the end of it I just wanted to cry, and to give Jones a hug, to try to relieve some of the hatred she so clearly has for herself. Through all the stereotypes and the confusion, the message I got is being thin is so not worth it, but I’m sure that many others will feel validated in their desire to be thin at all costs. For me, it was a reminder of why I decided to stop dieting – the cost of being thin is too high. I am not willing to subject myself to this obsessive hell just to be what someone else says I should be. I would rather be happy, fat and healthy, than thin and miserable. So let me finish with Jones’ final words, for anyone who may have missed them way down at the bottom of that article:

It’s too late for me, but if now the sun is shining and you are thinking of all the ways you can ‘Get that Bikini Body’, entering the endless cycle of guilt and recrimination, then DON’T.

Quotes to Think On

2009-07-02T05:56:27Z

“Since it has been established that the rate of metabolism, or exchange of food into energy, of the obese is normal, some physiologists have tried to account for the surplus of fat on the grounds of heredity…” — “Fatness May be Hereditary.” The Science News-Letter, Vol. 8, No. 260 (Apr. 3, 1926), p. 4, quoted here. “Most of [...]

OK, D00d Nation, THIS Is What I Want From You

2009-07-02T02:21:10Z

posted by meowser

Pursuant to the “fat women are only useful inasfar as I find them fuckable” BS that Marianne takes on with such aplomb here, I would like to add to that theme. And this goes double for all the “butbutbut you can’t MAKE me find you attractive!!eleventyone!” d00ds of D00d Nation too (or is that t00?).

I honestly do not give one falling space turd about whether you personally find me attractive or not. I’m set there, thanks. If you want to hold out for a woman aged 21 to 23, between 5′4″ and 5′6″ tall, with waist-length naturally red hair, weighing no more and no less than 120 pounds, with exactly five freckles on each butt cheek, and none on the face, and you would much rather spend your spooge allowance spanking it into a washcloth thinking about your fantasy babe rather than getting it on with me or any other real-life human standing before you…that is absolutely fine. It. Does. Not. Matter. To. Me. At all.

Here is what I do care about, and passionately. I care very much about how you treat my boyfriend.

If you are a stranger, what are you thinking when you see him with me? Are you thinking about what must be wrong with him that he has to “settle” for someone like me? Do you think I must be his pity date and that he’s just too much of a wimp to let me go, or that I must “have something” on him that prevents him from leaving? Or that I’m just a fast fuck and that he couldn’t possibly like me, because you think no “normal” man who digs women possibly could? Would you ever be rude to him because of me?

If you are his peer, do you refuse to really be friends with him because he’s with me? Or refuse to invite us over to the house or out to a meal (when you’d happily invite just him) because you think the sight of us together would gross everyone out, including you?

If you are his boss, do you refuse to promote him because his partner (me) isn’t enough of a trophy for you? Do you regard him as being less intelligent and less capable than he is because of me? Would you refuse to hire him if you knew he had a fat woman for a partner?

And in any of those situations, if he did or said something to piss you off, would a cheap shot at his partner’s body habitus and/or his liking of it be one of the first things to jump out of your mouth?

If you can answer “absolutely, positively not, never ever” to every single one of those questions, and really mean it, we’re cool.

And if you can’t…why on earth not? Does everyone’s taste have to match yours, or it’s “wrong”?

Plus Size Clothing (or ways to dress a garbage bag)

2009-07-02T00:25:20Z

by sylvia

Although I haven’t technically been “plus size” my whole life (not really sure how long that term has really been in use), “plus size” has come a long way. That’s not really saying much, considering where you shop. Some places get it. Most places don’t. Here’s a message I want to send to plus size clothing companies:

I’m fat. Wearing a garbage bag accentuates that. Putting a belt on a garbage bag makes it worse. And putting large, garish flowers on that garbage bag makes an even bigger point – I’m fat, and apparently you think I have bad taste and don’t care what I look like.

Some tasty examples:

HAWT

HAWTER

SUPER HAWT

Also, you know that old adage that seems to hold true – don’t wear horizontal stripes, they make you look wider – well, these “designers” think outside of that fat box:

HOT

SMOKIN’

Personally, I buy a lot of clothes from Lane Bryant because they get it more than some places, but I kid you not, I have tried on my share of major garbage bags in that joint.

This one violates on two counts:

MOLTEN LAVA

Another pet peeve is the notion that you can’t actually have fat people modeling your fat people clothing, because, well – that would be wrong, right? Fat people are disgusting, aren’t we? How dare we be able to relate to the models wearing our fat clothes that are so obviously pulled taut in the back with a clip so that we don’t see what garbage bags these clothes are on these “ideal” models….imagine if you were a model and the only gig you could book was modeling plus size clothing, and you weren’t a plus size model?!?!

WTF?!?!?

Seriously, WTF?!?!?

There is actually a section called “BIG SHIRTS” – no duh

Ok, and this – this doesn’t even look good on the model who is probably a size 3 or 5, can you imagine it on someone normal sized? The sizes go up to 5X, BTW. At least the stripes are correct.

There are a million more examples, and some of these aren’t even the worst of them. Shouldn’t you be allowed to feel good about yourself no matter what size you are? I think so, but these clothes remind us that people just don’t know what to do with fat people. Can they look attractive? Can they wear flattering clothes? Can they look presentable? Nah, we have to wear garbage bags with belts.

Beth Ditto for Evans Launch aka I taught Kate Moss how to do Donut Hands

2009-07-02T00:01:00Z

So the other day I wrote a post about the circus surrounding our beloved Beth Ditto and tonight I got a chance to see it up close at the launch of her Evans clothes collection in London.

The launch was held at Sketch. Look at the evil Flash-heavy website only if you have an hour to spend working out the navigation and waiting for the pages to load. Short version of the venue: ugly statue of dogs fucking, hideous seats made of egg-boxes, egg-shaped pods with toilets inside, no air conditioning, dull drinks menu, mini hamburgers, lots of paparazzi outside. Even shorter version: a monument to 21st century celebrity culture. Miraculously we got inside. I always think I'm going to get turned away, even when I know I'm on The List. Everyone was friendly and welcoming in a they're-paid-to-be-nice kind of way.

My girlfriend, Kay 'Butch Husky' Hyatt, and I wore our Chubster colours, our gang jackets. The first twenty minutes were spent standing, posing, having our picture taken, trying to snag vegetarian party food and drinking free booze. We watched people arrive. How to describe the punters? Club kids, mostly young, pretty girls in dresses, kind of straight-looking, gaymo lads, Nathan/Brace lookalikes, very few fat people, industry people. Then Kate Moss arrived with her entourage. It was like royalty entering the room, they moved in slow motion, like a procession, everybody's eyes were on them as they were ushered to sit in an empty corner of the room that was instantly cordoned-off.

Kay suggested we make a beeline for the karaoke room and our lovely pals, including Gina, Ana and Shirley from The Raincoats, Naz from The London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival and Tamsin and Ruth of Unskinny Bop, came along too. Smart move! It was empty at this stage, so we did what anyone would do and started singing. Ruth and I embraced the moment and sang Standing In The Way of Control, The Gossip's breakthough hit. Well, you would, wouldn't you?

The oddball and sadly departed writer Spalding Gray coined the idea of a Perfect Moment, a moment when nothing can be bettered, when you are in that moment completely. My perfect moment came when Kate Moss and entourage came in, cheered us on singing, admired our outfits and the party really started. Kay invited the most famous model in the world to join The Chubsters and Kate patted her tummy and said that she probably should. I showed her how to do donut hands. Kate Moss did donut hands and we flashed the 'nut at each other. Life is good.

Kate was hanging out with Philip Green. He mooched around. He is incredibly tanned. He had his own wine waiter and a special large wine glass. He reeked of power. His fortune has been built on sweatshops. People gravitated around him. He seemed really into the fatties in the corner, ie us, though he didn't say anything and we didn't say anything back. He tried to take the mics away from Naz and Ruth as they sang Listen Up but Beth stopped him. Kay overheard him tell Kate: "Those jackets they're wearing, very good, we must have some of those: Chub Busters." People, this is wrong in so many ways.

Some guy sang a horrid version of Life On Mars and everyone applauded as though it was the most fantastic thing ever. I much preferred Kate and Beth's version of Space Oddity, with Kay sandwiched between them, and Beth and Naz doing Hold On by Wilson Phillips. They were very cute together.

It was very sweaty in that room. People were straining to get in. Hannah and Nathan from the band were there too. It was weird being on the right (wrong?) side of the VIP cordon. I went out for a pee and came back to see Simon Cowell standing stiffly at the back. His hair is very neat and stiff, his shirt was open low, a medallion would have completed the look.

I haven't said anything about the clothes. There was no catwalk show or anything, just a rail and some goodie bags. The only other fatties there had been (hired?) to wear the clothes and be a part of the party. Beth wore the domino print dress and leggings and looked fantastic. I believe they're going to hit the shops next week.

It's weird thinking about the night, it was a pure celebrity experience, and therefore an evening that seemed to epitomise popular culture, it was like a cliché because it came complete with wanker hangers-on, famous people dabbing their noses, people desperate to be with the cool kids, even more desperate people outside trying to get in, photographers, people as commodities, wealth and power all rolled together. It was incredibly alluring and exciting to witness all this, like being the chosen ones in the spotlight for a moment, but it was disconcerting too, this is not my world, nor do I want it to be, though it's amazingly interesting to visit for an evening. As we left I was convinced the cool stuff was going on elsewhere, behind some other velvet rope.

I'm not really sure what I was doing there, other than to support and love Beth, and be with my friends, maybe that's all I need to do. I don't know what it means to be a fat queer in that context, but there was a feeling that we were representing our people in some indefinable way. Fat queers deserve to be part of things, we are pop culture. Tomorrow I'll go back to painting the skirting boards in my house, thinking about work, and tonight will feel like a dream.

Kay and I took the train home and talked to a sweet old guy who helped build London Fields Lido, where we swam this morning. There was a guy in tiny little Superman pants in the carriage making everyone laugh with his pretend pole-dancing.

Magical/weird night.

Please don't re-use these pics without permission

Sexist, Fatphobic Quote of the Day

2009-07-01T22:45:13Z

The monster was blocking the whole length of the entranceway to the building. His back was to me, his front facing the window-paneled door. (I guess so he could watch the traffic?) I say it was a he, but that was only a hypothesis. I just could not imagine any self-respecting female–monster or not–ever getting as pudgy as this thing was.

(From Death’s Daughter by Amber Benson. Which is actually a terrible book all around. I’m glad I picked it up for $.39 at the Goodwill so I don’t have to worry about actually spending money on this crap.)

Fried eggs, boulders, and spaghetti straps

2009-07-01T19:20:45Z

Via Jezebel, which has a sharp post on female confessional journalism: Christa D’Souza writes about her breast implant saga in the Daily Fail. D’Souza clearly had a terrible time, and her article highlights the ways in which the reality of implants differs from the promise of implants. The short version is: she’s dissatisfied with her [...]

Oh, Liz Jones Just Broke My Heart

2009-07-01T18:52:22Z

For 40 years I have battled anorexia - so what happened when I had to eat normally for three weeks?

Oh, Liz Jones.

I have discussed my issues with food before - the resentment of the time and energy it takes, the hatred of how ill it makes me when I haven’t been eating for a while. It makes this article difficult for me in more ways than just the unexpected sadness for a woman who cannot allow herself to, in her words, take part.

And at the same time, I recognize a life of mine that could have been. If I hadn’t found my own stubborn way to fat acceptance, there is no doubt in my mind that I would still be denying myself the world out of some misguided sense that I did not deserve it. I doubt I’d be thin - my body just doesn’t seem cut out for that. But the mind set? Oh, yes.

That manta - “I’d rather be thin than healthy or happy” - would be my watchwords and, from this distance, I feel a sharp pain for the me that might have been, for the other people who are still caught in that, for the people who, like Liz Jones, feel it is too late for them.

There is another anguish right now, too - it is the knowledge that, and I’ve already seen comments and posts to this effect, there are people who will admire her self-restraint, her “healthy” thinness (at 5′8″ and about 114 pounds). Because, you know, all fatties are fat because we live to eat and do nothing but and we’re all going to die after having limbs amputated due to diabetes. *sigh*

This is the world we live in, the world that views as admirably thin and healthy a woman who has clear and precise memories of the first time she refused to eat butter, who VOMITS up food that is not vegan on command and in public, a woman who herself exhorts people to stop being crazed about the beach bikini body. This is the world that ignores Liz’s voice and sees only what it wants to see - a thin woman who eats the way we are supposedly all supposed to be eating, a woman incapable of allowing herself even the indulgence of being happy.

ETA: One of the other things that immediately struck me as I read this article is how similar Liz’s experience with her sister was, in many ways, to experiences Harriet Brown has related, particularly the refeeding process. I have to wonder if Liz’s sister hasn’t read some of Harriet’s work. One can hope.

Happy Canada Day!

2009-07-01T18:45:18Z

My Cute Canadian Geek is celebrating his Canadian-ness today. Last night he was trying to convince me that he is what makes Canada great, and that his absence comes at a great price because we are denying Canada one of it’s national treasures.

Uh-huh…..

In other news, the CCG is on his way to becoming a REAL HONEST-TO-GOODNESS tattooer. He has made the next step in his apprenticeship, beginning to tattoo himself. Here is his first effort at the line work for a rose. I think it looks fucking awesome, and I’m so proud of him. Next step: shading!

SAAS (Sewing at Any Size): Sleeved Tee

2009-07-01T17:12:00Z

Welcome to my Series on Sewing at Any Size. You can access the rest of the SAAS series by clicking on the topic link on the side bar.

The series is a form of peaceful protest against the terrible, cheap, overpriced, ugly stuff that passes for plus size fashion these days. Anyone can make basic wardrobe elements to fit their body without trying to track down commercial patterns (a nightmare for anyone over a US size 24).

As this may eventually become a book, please do not reprint or republish this anywhere else. You may, of course print for your own personal use!

SLEEVED TEE

This basic pattern is assuming you’re using fabric with high lycra or spandex content, or knit fabrics with a lot of stretch but that spring back into shape well after stretching. Stretch fabrics are trickier to work with, so get a little extra to practice your stitches. See the Fabric section in Part 1 for tips on working with stretch fabric.

This is an excellent candidate for using test fabric (such as cheap fabric or old bedsheets) and making a practice copy before jumping into the real thing. Shoulder width, arm width, sleeve length etc. are all tricky things to fit individually and you'll want to do trial and error on fabric you don't mind throwing away if something comes out too small.

Also, if you made the Cami top or variations on it from this series, you already have the measurements for the body, and could even use your test fabric pieces from that to construct the body of the shirt.

First we are going to make some adjustments to measurements. I’ll give instructions based on a scoop neckline, but you can substitute other necklines if you'd like. Eventually I'll get around to posting some, but until then there's google!

· Decide where you want the neckline to be on your chest. This will be “Point A”. Either mark it on your skin somehow or remember where it is.

· Divide your chest circumference by 4 and add ½”. We’ll call this measurement “B”.

· Divide your Bust circumference by 4 and add ½”. We’ll call this measurement “C”.

· Divide your Waist circumference by 4 and add ½” We’ll call this measurement “D”.

· Divide your Hip circumference by 4 and add ½” We’ll call this measurement “E”.

· Measure the distance between “A” and “B” and add ½”. We’ll call this measurement “F”.

· Measure the distance between “B” and “C”. We’ll call this number “G”.

· Length from Bust to Waist: We’ll call this number “H”.

· Add ½” to your Length from Waist to Hips. We’ll call this number “I”.

· Measure the distrance between “B” and the top of the shoulder. Add ½” and we’ll call this number “J”

These measurements are assuming you’re using stretch fabric and want it to be fitted. If you’re using non-stretch fabric add an additional 1” to 2” to measurements B, C, D, and E. This will give you what’s called “ease”, otherwise known as “can actually move while wearing”. You may want to make your test garment with up to 2” ease on each of the four pieces, then cut it down to fit comfortably once you try it on. It will help to write all these numbers down.

Fold your test fabric in half so that the stretchiest part is running horizontally. Sketch out the following shape to the measurements you wrote down earlier. (Trace and cut on the bold red lines. Approximate the general shape; doesn’t have to be exact)

Cut out two copies of the shape you’ve traced. Because you’ve cut it on the fold you should now have two symmetrical pieces for the front and back of the shirt. Unfold them and lay them together with the right side (the side you want showing when you wear them) together.

Line up the corners and pin the sides together. Stitch the sides from “B” down to “E” (per red dotted lines below). Then stitch along each shoulder. If you’re using test fabric or you’re not sure of the fit, use basting stitches (long, loose stitches) so that you can rip them out later if needed.

Slip it on and check it for fit, adjusting as needed.

Now we’re going to construct sleeves. We’re assuming long sleeves, but to make them shorter simple adjust the length.

Sleeves have a rounded end that allows them to fit over the shoulder without bunching under the arm.

We’re going to use the following measurments:

Upper Arm circumference (where it joins shoulder, arm down at side), plus 1” (we’ll call this number “K” )

Middle arm circumference: (bicep) plus ½” (we’ll call this number “L”)

Arm length (Shoulder to wrist, arm relaxed at side) (we’ll call this number “M”)

The basic shape for a long sleeve is this:

If you’re working with a commercial pattern you’ll have a set shape to cut out, but if not then you’ll have to do some trial and error to make the sleeve fit the shirt. The rounded end should match up with the edge of the armhole on the shirt, plus 1” for a seam allowance.

My favorite method to find the right fit is to fold the right side of the fabric together, in half at line “M” in the drawing above. Lay the shirt as constructed so far flat on the table. Line the fold up with the seam at the top and use pins or basting stitches to attach the sleeve to the sleeve opening, using a ½” seam allowance on both sides. When you reach the side seam of the shirt, mark both pieces of the the sleeve fabric with a pencil or chalk where they will meet.

Unpin the sleeve fabric and lay it flat but still folded so that the marks are visible. Draw a line ½” below the mark, down the end of the sleeve. Cut along this line.

Draw another line at the mark itself. Stitch down this line to sew the sleeve into a tube.
Re-pin the sleeve back onto the shirt, lining up the sleeve seam and the side seam of the shirt. Use a basting stitch to attach the sleeve and check it for fit. Once you’ve adjusted it, stitch over the basting stitches, then remove the basting stitches.

Finish the sleeve with either a rolled hem (fold up 1/4" then again 1/4" to tuck the raw edge under, then stitch) or french hem at the cuff. A french hem means you'll have to add an additional inch onto the original sleeve length. Essentially you fold the hem under (to the wrong/seam side of fabric) 1 inch, then back over the top (right side of fabric) 1/2". This creates four layers of fabric but gives you a visible cuff.

Finish the bottom edge of the shirt with a rolled hem.

Finish the neckline with a rolled hem