The personal is political; the political is personal.

Today on Facebook, a friend said that she was happy to escape to my blog for fun when she wanted a break from politics.

Well, it may not exactly surprise many people that Fat Acceptance/Liberation is political for me in the deepest sense. Here's why.

Once upon a time it was considered more or less all right to discriminate against women who didn't think or look acceptable in the eyes of the Male Establishment  - in other words, it was all right to shame, belittle or ignore women who thought differently than the mainstream or who were not as thin as Barbie Dolls.

That is where Fat Acceptance/Liberation comes in. It is no longer acceptable to blame people -but especially women- for their weight. It is not acceptable to pressure women to starve themselves. It is not acceptable to assume that any illnesses or conditions a woman has are curable if she loses weight. (They are not, and thin people get all the diseases and illnesses and conditions that fat people get.) It is not acceptable to make fun of women who wish to exercise but who don't happen to look like Barbie Dolls.

It is not acceptable to discriminate against heavier women by paying them lower salaries than those paid to thinner women.

It is not acceptable to try to convince women that if they starve themselves or mutilate themselves surgically, they will become magically acceptable to some powers that be in Big Med and Big Pharma and Big Finance and Big Diet.  95 percent of weight losses are short-term, with all the weight and often more regained in 2-5 years.

Think of Fat Acceptance/Fat Liberation as the the next great issue of the Women's Movement. (And Ms. Magazine has published articles about how dieting is anti-woman and anti-liberation).