It is the idea that a woman’s ONLY value in life is as a sex object, therefore, any woman who is not sexually appealing is worthless — whether she is fat or old. Further, it has now become acceptable for men to treat women who are not valued as sex objects with hostility and violence, as if they are not even human.

But what is the most troubling is that women feed into this practice.

At the moment, it is acceptable to treat those of size as nothing more than trash. It used to be the same way with women and people of color as well. Somehow though, they persevered and are now getting to the point that you cannot treat someone like trash because of race or gender…finally there are laws in place. The system isn’t perfect…but I do believe it is a start is teaching the younger generations that you can’t treat people that way.

To me, Fat Acceptance is a Civil Rights issue…just like racism and feminism. Just like the black guy down the street has the right to walk down said street without being humiliated, harrased, etc…just like the woman has the right to hold or not to hold a high paying job and choose what she wants to do with her body…Fat People deserve the right to walk in public without harassment, without shame, and without humiliation. FA like Homosexuality is one of the newest CR issues that we are struggling to get off the ground and educate people.

It doesn’t matter if fat is (or isn’t) healthy…smoking isn’t healthy and yet you don’t see smokers being threatened with rape and murder because they choose to do it. Fat isn’t a choice…why should fat people be treated as such but smokers aren’t? Because smoking is accepted. Fat bashing is accepted. Gay bashing is accepted.

The only way to change things…is to work (like the FA movement is already doing!) to make it UNACCEPTABLE. You have to hit society where it counts and pass laws to make it unacceptable and make it a hate crime for such things so people will be less likely to open their big mouths or actually injure someone mentally or physically. Pass laws against cyberbullying/harrasment so people may not be as willing to let their fingers fly across a keyboard willy nilly.

It will take a while…just like all CR movements…but it can be done. It may not help US out…but it will help out the future generations.