I’m sorry. I can’t win at life. I can’t even lose at life. I can only just barely life. I was to depressed last week to post Lady Links and pretty much too depressed today, too. But seeing as how my other option is studying, have some links.
I am the worst right now. I’m so sorry.
~TIAW on Tumblr and Pinterest.
~Maria Kang is the woman who posted a picture of herself with her three kids and her socially-accepted-idea-of-perfect body with the caption “What’s Your Excuse?” Now here’s the thing. GOOD FOR YOU, MARIA. Living a healthy life that makes you feel good. Awesome! I love it! However. By representing her happy life with pictures of her body she is, perhaps inadvertently, equating her body shape and size with happiness and insinuating that this is what we all strive for or should be striving for. By asking her readers what their excuse is, she is implying not only that we are making poor choices that are inferior to her choices, but that we all have the possibility of looking the way she does if we weren’t so lazy. Which is, of course, not true. But – and this is really the crux of everything related to fat-shaming – IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT EXCUSES THERE ARE. IT DOESN’T EVEN MATTER IF THERE ARE EXCUSES. It is none of anyone’s business what anyone else looks like. NONE. No. It’s not. Nope. Still not. Here’s a post I shared earlier this week with SOAM’s facebook page (which got me accused of fit-shaming and OH MY LORDY REALLY? If you think I am fit-shaming, you need to reread this until you, like, actually understand what I’m saying here). ANYWAY. This is the best response I’ve seen to Maria’s statement. Read it. Let it open your mind.
~I love this woman.
~On little girls and body image.
~This is the worst thing ever. Go find some bunnies to look at to cleanse your brain before you read it.
Maybe it’s all the dairy I’ve had lately, but I’m feeling like I’m not making much of a difference in the world here with these links. I don’t know. Let me know if there’s a point to me continuing or maybe I’ll focus on other things.
/emo (only, if I’m being honest, it’s probably not actually the end. I’m so sorry.)
I love your posts, Bonnie. I’m sorry this is suck time for you. I read nearly everything you post on here and on FB. I don’t always comment, but I always read it. I think you’re fabulous, and I wish we lived closer to each other so we could meet in real life.
Someday we will meet in real life. You’re not THAT far. :)
I came across The Shape of a Mother when I was pregnant with my daughter two years ago, and I have continued to visit it regularly since. Reading other women’s stories and seeing what other mothers’ bodies look like under their clothes has given me more confidence in my own body and what it’s done, and helped reduce my own fears about my body changing post-partum.
I only found this blog very recently, but I already find myself looking forward to your Lady Links posts. And since I just made a Pinterest account a couple of months ago, I started following you there and I love, love, love your posts on your “This is a Woman” board. They’re empowering, and thought-provoking, and help me feel good about being a woman, as I am, and to see the beauty in myself and other women. So please, never think you don’t make a difference. You have made an enormous difference in my life, and I’m only sorry I haven’t said so before now.
I’m very sorry you’re having a difficult time right now.
Oh, Molly, thank you.
I also vote to keep going; I have learned and grown a lot in the years I’ve followed TSOAM and TIAW. The work you do *does* make a difference. (And I’m so sorry life is hard right now.)
I just read a different post of yours about broken bodies and it made me cry (because my daughter’s body is broken, but that’s another story). I’m sorry you’re struggling right now. It sounds like things have been terrible for you for a long while. But please don’t stop believing that you’re making a difference! I love Shape of a Mother and Lady Links and Zebra Belly. You have such a great, rational, TRUE perspective.
Whether to keep blogging is up to you, but please, if you are going to stop, do it because you are changing direction or whatever but not because you don’t feel like it makes a difference. It does.