Utne Reader sticks toe onto the HAES bandwagon

[firecat]

Wrongly or rightly, I think of the Utne Reader as one of the voices of the upper-middle-class self-righteous "progressiver-than-thou" movement, which has so far been more of an enemy of fat activism than an ally. So when I found out that they published two articles that are critical of current rhetoric around fat and obesity, I felt like maybe the message was getting through to some people who are usually anti-fat.

"The Food Police: Why Michael Pollan makes me want to eat Cheetos by Julie Guthman, from Gastronomica has this important comment:

In a course I taught, Politics of Obesity, I was not surprised by the number of students who wrote in their journals of their hidden “fatness” or eating disorders. The number of entries that stated how the course itself had produced body anxiety and intensified concern over diet and exercise, however, was shocking, given that much of the material was critical of obesity talk. The philosopher Michel Foucault might have called this the “productive” power of obesity talk—naming a behavior as a problem intensifies anxiety about that behavior.

This is really true for me and it's why I limit how much I read about fat and obesity—even the positive fat-activist stuff makes me feel uncomfortable sometimes. Every once in a while I'd like to just get through a day without thinking about how my body is at the center of a huge cultural debate about Good and Eeevul.

The article also does a good job getting at the moral angle behind "obesity rhetoric", how fatness has come to stand in for sin and thinness for moral superiority, without reference to how anyone actually behaves. So does this one: Shame on US: How an obsession with obesity turned fat into a moral failing by Hannah Lobel. Excerpt: "We continue to treat obesity as if it’s either an original sin we’re born with and must repent or a cardinal sin we choose to commit."

I did not read the comments on either article. Articles like this tend to attract some fat-hating comments, so approach at your own risk.

Comments

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

I dislike all tendencies to frame things as moral issues when they...aren't. Besides this one, I think the most common current one is clutter.

I mean, it's not as if there aren't enough real moral issues to deal with.

[firecat]

And don't forget gardening.

[dawnd.livejournal.com]

Wow. This subthread has just clarified why there is so little for me to talk about with my mother -- a thin, conservative Christian woman who spends an inordinate amount of time cleaning and organizing, and thinks that everyone should WANT to garden. No wonder she's obsessed with "saving" me -- and if she can't save me, she'll try to save my children instead. *sigh*

[firecat]

Wow, all of the modern virtues in one person! I'm sorry the relationship is uncomfortable as a result.

[prairierabbit.livejournal.com]

Gardening I can live with, but the obsessive mowing of my neighbor, and his incursions into my yard when he thinks my grass is too long--3 inches tall!--and his comments about liking a "nice yard" make me want to mow him. *fans self*

The clutter=immoral idea is one I hadn't pulled out and looked at before. It's definitely enlightening--virtue=appearance (thin, tidy, mowed) avoids all that pesky actually getting to know someone time investment. One can move directly to judgement. *sigh*

[firecat]

One can move directly to judgement.

Ex-act-ly, pre-cise-ly

[innerdoggie.livejournal.com]

Wow, I hadn't known that people were turning clutter into a moral issue. I thought they were turning into a psych disorder (I bought a self-help book on clutter, for example).

I suppose housekeeping has always been something similar to a moral issue, but maybe it was closer to manners than morals.

Recycling is a moral issue, but it sure conflicts with clutter as a moral issue. If I am a Good Recycler, then my house is full of ugly clutter from all my recycling bins.

[firecat]

I think clutter might be not so much something that people pass judgement on other people for having (unless it's at the psych disorder level) but something that people feel virtuous for not having, or for reducing.

(See flylady.net. Which is one of the places where you see clutter shading into housekeeping and both of them shading into morality.)

And personally, I feel that if I don't reduce my clutter by recycling it instead of throwing it out, I am morally bankrupt. :/

[innerdoggie.livejournal.com]

You're right that people pass judgment on housekeeping, but I don't think it's moral judgment. It's more like class judgment or "you're not a competent grownup". On the other hand, if we feel virtuous when we do our housework, that is a moral judgment in itself. Complicated!

But I also think people (usually women) worry that others are going to be more judgmental than they turn out to be. I know I don't care about somebody else's mess or dirt unless it goes to fairly extreme levels.

I have complicated feelings about housework and clutter. I don't like being surrounded by clutter, since it reminds me of my relatives who have *bad* clutter problems and makes me feel depressed. But I don't like doing housework, because it makes me feel like a housewife or a slave. I can only deal with housework if the system feels fair (e.g. at work, we each sign up for a week where we are in charge of cleaning the kitchen.)

As for recycling, I feel that God will smite me if I don't recycle. It's a very "primitive" kind of morality. The "beginning of wisdom"? To keep The Lord and me both happy, I'm trying to figure out a system of recycling that doesn't look ugly and depressing, but I am not there yet. Suburbanites put this stuff in the garage, but I live in a condo in a city and ain't got no garage.

[firecat]

It's more like class judgment or "you're not a competent grownup".

I think that for women there's also a gender-based judgement ("you're not a proper woman if you don't keep your house looking nice"), which does feel moral, especially if children are involved ("look at the bad example you're setting; your children are growing up in squalor").

I hate housework and I'm lousy at it. The OH and I tried to do it ourselves but we squabbled over it. I hire someone to clean the house, and pay them pretty much as much as I get paid for work I do, which feels fair.

I've seen systems in catalogs that have doors/lids so you can hide the recyclables. Of course the systems themselves aren't exactly attractive, but I guess the idea is that they are less unattractive than the cans sitting there in a paper bag or something.

[innerdoggie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, housework is quite the feminist issue, even today. Paying somebody to clean the house is a good idea. It gives somebody a job, and if the pay and conditions are decent, a decent one at that.

I might not mind housework if I got *paid* and it wasn't my own mail I had to sort/shred/recycle!