Happy Love Your Body Day

Today is NOW foundation's Love Your Body Day. A day to fight back against media representations of women and men, to fight back against body hate of all kinds, and to even, or maybe especially, fight negative thoughts from yourself. The way we see women depicted is often streamlined to fit a very narrow type of beauty ideal that typically includes being super thin, having perfect hair, teeth, and eyes, being white or fair skinned, cis, able bodied, being tall, and having the perfect breasts, ass, hips, etc. It's an unfair, degrading, and harmful scam to make you buy products and sell yourself like they sell these women as if they were objects. And men, more and more, are having a hard time too. We're seeing a rise in eating disorders among young boys for example. Though women are two and a half times more likely to develop an eating disorder, about one million men in the US suffer from some form.

The point is that none of us are immune to body hate. So take a moment out of today to stop trash talking your body and other bodies. No matter what kinds of bodies they are- thin, curvy, gangly, chubby, fat, dis/abled, cis, trans, male, female- all bodies are good bodies. Push aside your self doubts and all of the things you hate about your body and take a second to just appreciate it and all that it does for you. Take a second to just Love Your Body. And please don't forget to visit the NOW foundation's website!

PETA: human rights not as important as animal rights

How did I miss this? Possibly because when it came out in October of 2010 I hadn't discovered body acceptance yet. That and the ad was rejected by Southwest Airlines although not for any noble reason. Apparently they sited the ad being too provocative but a swimsuit model is just fine. But the horror of this ad isn't directed at the airline so let's get back to PETA. Their sexist, body shaming, and fat hate ads are well known and this just adds another to the pile, but, in my opinion, it goes a tad further by playing into the intrusive violation of rights that are body scanners.

The ad features an photo of a thin woman, neck down, in just her underwear which reads "be proud of your body scan: go vegan". Did everyone else just facedesk? Yes? Okay good, let's move on. Ignoring the fact that we should be protesting body scans, not being proud of them, we're going back to the same 'ole argument that vegan = thin and thin = good. Not only does thin = good but apparently it's the only thing that matters when it comes to body pride. Couldn't someone still hate their body scan even if they're thin? If they didn't like their hips or their belly button or their breasts? Or what about men? Body scans show quite a bit of detail (and, unlike the ad, they show you naked, not with undies)- enough to make out your junk anyway.

So while you're being completely and utterly violated by the TSA, all the while worrying about whether they'll make you buy an extra seat or give you a hard time, maybe you should remember next time that going vegan makes you look like the girl in the PETA ad.

See how svelte I became?

The other twitter

One of the trending hash tags on twitter right now is #fatpeoplenightmares. The idea is posting things that fat people are, apparently, terrified of. Such as walking up stairs, fast food places shutting down, having to exercise, or just always being fat. I don't know about you but my worst fear is a zombie attack or if we're talking about things based in reality I'm pretty fracking scared of the type of world that these assholes create. Anyway, if you have a twitter, log on right now and throughout the day and post anti bullying, pro body or pro fat messages and be sure to include #fatpeoplenightmares. We won't be able to balance it out, but hell, it feels good to protest these types of ignorant and hateful messages.