Facebook flog - Jan 1 2014

[blogfloggery.livejournal.com]

Link: Jan 1 2014, 12:16
Disclaimer: This blog entry is verbatim, as originally posted on LKH's Facebook. Copyright belongs to Ma Petite Enterprises.

It's New Year's Eve, time for us to take stock of the year, and plan for next. It's usually also the time when we make New Year's resolutions. A lot of our resolutions are going to be about physical issues. We'll resolve to hit the gym more, change our diet, start a diet, just eat better, fit into those jeans again, or put on enough weight to be healthy (yes, actually some people struggle to gain weight, and before you get all sarcastic about that problem, you can have just as many medical problems from being too under weight as over weight, just different sides of the same coin). I'll be doing my own gym and nutrition goals for 2014, but right now lets do something that doesn't usually go along with those kinds of goals - let's love ourselves just as we are. That's right, sure maybe my orthopedist has informed me that I need even more muscle around my joints to avoid surgery, but you know what? I love that I can walk, and run, and move. Would I like to lean down and see the abs that I've been working on in gym, sure, but not if it means losing all my curves. I'll be working this year to try and find a balance, but right now, this minute, I'm going to enjoy the roundness, the curves, the shape of me now. Just as, if you're thin and not so curvy you get to enjoy how lean and slender you look. It's all good! Setting our goals to be leaner, or more muscled, or have healthier diets, that's fine, but do it out of love, not hate. Too often I see people hating on themselves, hating how they look now, and never being happy with themselves no matter what size, or shape. Let's stop that, let's love ourselves right now, as we are, and then love ourselves as we work through the year. And while we're at it, no body shaming of anyone, okay? No snide remarks about people being too thin, or too fat, or too anything, be nice. Be nice to others and be nice to yourselves. Think what you like in your head, if you must, but out loud - be kind. Be kind to yourself and others, and lets see if we can enjoy working towards our goals in 2014, just a little bit more. Remember, if you don't love yourself before you put on that extra five pounds of muscle, you're probably not going to love yourself after you've muscled up, so start now, be happy now, and then you'll be at that healthy extra weight and be happier, too.

Comments

[deadsong.livejournal.com]

Way to ruin what would have been a good message coming from anyone else by chiding us as if we're too stupid to figure this out without Marmie Laurell's sage wisdom. No using your own brain cells, okay kiddos?

[fangedsekhmet.livejournal.com]

My grumpy gif aside, she's right about us hating ourselves because we aren't perfect. In the words of Bill and Ted. Be excellent to each other. And party on dudes.

[rodentfanatic.livejournal.com]

Well, hopefully there won't be anymore shaming skinny women IN HER OWN BOOKS from now on!

[watersheerie.livejournal.com]

Or just shaming women in general. It's amazing to hear this sort of thing come from a woman who writes books where other women are not as perfect and beautiful as her own avatar. Either they're too fake, wearing too much make-up or not enough, they're 'boys with breasts' or obvious plastic surgery, too blond or dyed black hair, clothes are too baggy severe or too revealing and slutty. No woman is really ever good enough for Anita, yet LKH has the sheer gall to tell us to love ourselves for who we are when Anita rags on every woman she meets for the most absurd and sexist reasons?!

[fangedsekhmet.livejournal.com]

Damn, you guys reminded me about all that. I think I've started to repress even the earlier books I read *facepalm*

[lliira (from livejournal.com)]

Or fat women. Or tall women. Or women with high cheekbones. Or women who wear makeup and clothing different from what she would pick for them. Or women who do not look precisely exactly 100% like Anita in every conceivable way.

[suzycat.livejournal.com]

Or or or, women who look just like Anita but are not QUITE exactly so! Hair a fraction lighter, clothing choices a fraction less try-hard, level of comfort with irritating PDAs and willingness to do the whole faux-poly thing a little lower.

[lliira (from livejournal.com)]

This, from the woman who wrote "Shutdown".

Also, the term "extra weight" makes me want to smash things. It reinforces the false idea that any weight over the bare minimum to survive is "extra". And I love how she has to specify "muscle". Five pounds of fat would not be forgivable I take it?

And I hate her use of "we". I do not make New Year's resolutions and never have. I do not diet and never have. You are not the sole measure of all things, LKH!

[suzycat.livejournal.com]

That's it! I was wondering (below) how it was that it came off as so body shaming, fat shaming in particular, despite being all "loove the body you are in". You have pinpointed it.

[desert-vixen.livejournal.com]

I think it has to do with her "Expert Queen of All" tone. Despite the fact that she is clearly NOT an expert (witness: working out while injured).

I mean, I'll be honest, I am trying to work out and tone up. Partly because I'm in the Army and tired of stressing about staying under my relatively low max weight (5'3'' and I'm allowed to be 143 pounds - however I seem to have gained about 5 pounds that don't want to go away, putting me JUST over it) and partly because I'm tired of hating clothes shopping.

However, I'm pretty sure that not all women are trying to "muscle up" just like her.

[suzycat.livejournal.com]

It's so weird that this body acceptance post somehow still comes off as body shaming.

[rodentfanatic.livejournal.com]

I'm sincerely hoping this. No, really, I'm sincerely hoping that she's going to at least TRY to take this message to heart, I really do.

[rebootfromstart.livejournal.com]

Honestly, the "love your body regardless" message is a nice one but it falls flat to me because my body is crap. I've got so many things wrong with me it's almost ludicrous, and while I've learned to accept that, I sure as hell don't love the messed-up thing that is my body. I love me, on my good days, but that's different to loving my body. I don't know. I'm probably taking this the wrong way because I'm having pain flare-ups, but I'm getting really tired of being told I should love something that causes me pain and difficulty on a daily basis.

[rodentfanatic.livejournal.com]

No, I think you're right on. People whose bodies are a source of problems for them that have nothing to do with appearance and self-esteem are often not considered in the "love your body!" movement as a whole, and I consider that a very real problem because it contributes to the erasure of disabled people.

[rebootfromstart.livejournal.com]

I mean, guess what, LKH? I can't "walk, and run, and move" easily. I'm allowed to not be thrilled about that. Sure, some of my not-loving-my-body is to do with my dissatisfaction with my weight, but most of it is because what the hell body, why do you suck so much?

[plastraa.livejournal.com]

I have Multiple Sclerosis and am physically disabled so I can sorta feel what you are saying. I also am a sort of fat activist as well. So for me it's about not feeling shame because my body is fat, or because my body is disabled, or for any reason. While allowing myself to be fully pissed sometimes (when my legs are merely decorative) that my body has betrayed me. I think it's the shame aspect and that I owe it to how the world views me to fit into their cookie cutter image of what OK is that I throw away.

Plus I can't take anything seriously from a women who writes such women hating and body/slut/sex shaming fiction.

[lliira (from livejournal.com)]

This. I only wish I had the energy to care about how my body looks. I do not love my body, as it beats the crap out of me constantly, and I also get a lot less pleasure from it than I used to. I'm only 37 years old but I'm not supposed to get on the floor or take the stairs. My body doesn't flippin' work, it is broken, it hurts me, and I'm supposed to love it?

[dreamstrifer.livejournal.com]

Oh man, I totally understand where you're coming from. I have Crohn's Disease and I get wonderful things like arthritis and a lowered immune system and fevers and eye problems among other things so my body is pretty crap sometimes. I always hated it when people told me that if I just exercised more, or got out more, or ate healthier, I'd feel so much better. When it was HEALTHY food that was causing me to be so sick, and my joints were in so much pain I couldn't even type on a computer let alone go jogging.

Haha sorry to explode in a rant all over your comment. But I understand where you're coming from and I hope you can find some relief.