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Is it because I’m fat?

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I was walking down the street here in Cape Town the other day, minding my own business and enjoying the sunshine. I felt good. Maybe even great. I was smiling at random strangers (which they might have thought was creepy, but whatevs), and looking at all the pretty things in the shop windows when an older gentleman walked past me and said: “I think I just walked past your sister down the road. She’s just as fat as you are.”

What the actual fuck, dude?

I wasn’t harming anyone. I wasn’t screaming and ranting in the middle of the street. I wasn’t dressed inappropriately or being violent. I was just, well, being. I exist. And so does my fat ass. And this man obviously didn’t like that.

And for a split second I was shocked. Shocked that someone would just say that. But then I remembered that this is what happens. This is what happens to people who look like me in a size 40 dress. We’re shamed.

And, right about now, most of you are probably rolling your eyes at yet another fat girl thinking she’s been wronged by the world because she can’t lose weight.

And that’s the reason it’s taken me two years to write this. I was too scared of what other people thought, and too scared of what I would feel writing about something that happens to me every day of my life.

Because this wasn’t just a once off. This happens all the time.

Some of it might not be as blatant, or even meant badly, but it happens.

It happens when I’m shopping and I get funny looks from other women who are obviously thinking ‘She’ll never fit into that’. It happens when I’m in a club with friends and the guy at the bar ignores me because I weigh more than he does and wouldn’t dream of wearing a crop top.

It happens when people assume that I must be lazy, or stupid. Or both. Because a smart girl would know that you can’t be fat. A smart girl would watch everything she eats all the time, and never go over her calorie limit for the day.

It happens when people think I should be wearing a tent because I shouldn’t flaunt my fat rolls in public.

It’s when my heroes like Adele, Lena Dunham , and Melissa McCarthy are all judged by the way they look instead of the fact that they’ve made it big (no pun intended) despite society’s depraved idea of the female body.

Why can’t big be beautiful too? Why does there need to be shame around being too fat, or too skinny? Or being a slut? Or a prude? Why do we feel the need to judge constantly? Is it so that we can be distracted from the trainwrecks that are our lives?

Look at Thandile Sunduza. A pregnant woman who decided to wear a lime green dress to the SONA 2014, and was basically told by the internet that she looked like a fat, green caterpillar and she shouldn’t wear what she feels comfortable in and/or pretty in because IT IS WRONG.

And it’s not just random strangers on the internet who are mean and body shaming. It’s our friends and family too. Just ask Cath Jenkin. She was fat shamed, and she’s (according to those daft BMI things) only 10kgs overweight!

It’s when skinny teen models are Photoshopped because the gap between their thighs isn’t wide enough.

Why? Why are we doing this?

I’m not saying I’m innocent. I’ve judged other women. And I’m ashamed to admit it. But now I’m owning up to my behaviour, and calling out others who do it too.

For all the fat girls who comfort eat because they’re fat, and think they deserve all the emotional abuse they get. For all the skinny girls who starve themselves because they don’t want to be like us. For the boys who won’t take their shirts off at the pool because everyone will stare.

Because fat shouldn’t be a swear word.

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