Doctorate Denied!

As many commentators rightly pointed out after the death of Margaret Thatcher that Maggie “made it through the glass ceiling, but pulled the ladder up after her”: a phrase that reminded us all of how reinforced that glass really is. Thatcher herself wanted none of the feminist cause, frequently referring to herself as an anomaly amongst the weaker sex; women successes of the modern age are slightly more charitable, with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg ostensibly helping to winch her sisters through the ceiling with her bestselling career advice book Lean In. Although Lean In is based around the idea that - in the words of Eleanor Roosevelt - “No one can make you inferior without your permission”, the reality of the workplace in numbers is that 22 out of 197 global heads of state are women; the percentage of women at the top in job sectors ranging from government to journalism to law in the UK and US levels out at 22 per cent; 18 of the Fortune 500 CEOs are female; women returning to work after having children are likely to see their careers progress downward rather than upward. Personal ambition is undoubtedly an asset, but acknowledging that we must fight overarching sexist structures in the workplace - yes, even through “positive discrimination” - is key.

Don’t create drama. Create stuff.

Guys are just, like, obsessed with their abdominal muscles. The headline of every man’s magazine is, like, “How to Make Your Abs Great.” Girls don’t care. No girl’s ever told you, “I wish you had a flatter stomach,” right? They’re like, I wish you made more money. I wish you would talk about your feelings more.

Force yourself to imagine the perfect life you think the perfect weight will bring you. What does it look like? You never argue with your husband? That guy you like at work will ask you out? The woman you’ve been in love with since college will suddenly want to sleep with you? Coughbullshitcough. The beauty of working toward real confidence by actually liking yourself is that it doesn’t disappear the moment you gain weight, it is always there, and anyone worthwhile is drawn to you because of that aura, not the fact that you’re at some specific number.

It remains a radical act to be fat and happy. If you’re fat, you’re not only meant to be unhappy, but deeply ashamed of yourself, projecting at all times an apologetic nature, indicative of your everlasting remorse for having wrought your monstrous self upon the world. You are certainly not meant to be bold, or assertive, or confident—and should you manage to overcome the constant drumbeat of messages that you are ugly and unsexy and have earned equally society’s disdain and your own self-hatred, should you forget your place and walk into the world one day with your head held high, you are to be reminded by the cow-calls and contemptuous looks of perfect strangers that you are not supposed to have self-esteem; you don’t deserve it. Being publicly fat and happy is hard; being publicly, shamelessly, unshakably fat and happy is an act of both will and bravery.

Rare indeed is the fat person who manages to find contentment in hir own skin, because everything around hir is designed so that zie will not. Thusly, the idea of a culture that maintains an inclusive attitude about a spectrum of natural (and acceptable) shapes and sizes is almost impossible to imagine—and yet important enough to imagine and set as goal nevertheless, because the person who is healthy but fat is not being served by our scorn, and the person who is unhealthy but thin is not being served by our approbation.