Explorations on Feminist Leadership | S1: Episode 5

Episode 5: Changing Narratives

Mrinalini, Pooja and illesha meet in a cafe, to trace their stories –the ones they have been told, the ones they have lived, and the ones they would like to tell about leadership and heroism. As young women, they feel deeply alienated and enraged by the popular trope of the hero “saviour” who operates in individual prosperity and leaves the love and labour of the collective non-male invisible. The traditional notion of leadership doesn’t recognise all the stakeholders involved. The current dominant structure of top-down leadership and patriarchal heroism never did benefit the entire community.

About the hosts

Mrinalini is making the most of a conflicted passion for social development and entrepreneurship, and wishes to bring the change she seeks through building structures and communities, whilst tapping onto her entrepreneurial spirit to help her drive the change the society needs. She is extremely passionate about creating safe spaces for growth, collaboration, and wellbeing and truly believes in the power of togetherness and love. On days away from all of it, you will find her surrounding herself with dogs, nature, kids, and a whole lot of coffee.

Pooja Dedhia is a Brand and Design Executive at Common Purpose. With a background in branding within the social sector, Pooja brings a unique perspective to creating transformative brands. Beyond her professional pursuits, Pooja is dedicated to impactful projects in various areas, with a focus on career development, inclusive leadership, and collaboration with the feminist and queer community.

illesha is an interdisciplinary artist studying the geographies of the heart. She makes photographs, poems, films, books, and gatherings. Her practice is primarily concerned with the meeting of internal/external landscapes, forms that push us to reconsider the depth of our relationships to places and to each other. She is the co-creator of ikattha – an independent artist-run collaborative studio space that was based in Mumbai. illesha looks ahead with hope, to a more loving world for all beings.

Transcript

Pooja

Hello everyone!

 

Mrinalini

Hi! 

 

illesha

Hello and welcome to “Explorations on Feminist Leadership by #OneFuture Fellows2022”, a podcast by the 2022 cohort of The One,

 

Pooja

Future Collective Fellowship.

 

illesha

Where we discuss, examine, and learn about all things feminist leadership.

 

Mrinalini

My name is Mrinalini and

 

Pooja

I’m Pooja Dedhia and.

 

illesha

I am illesha and today we will be talking about. Changing narratives of leadership and heroism.

 

Mrinalini

In a physical setup in Mumbai,

 

Pooja

we just had a very flowy conversation in such a beautiful environment and very cute cafe and we just had let each other’s conversation flow and guide us

 

Mrinalini

through our discussions. We understood how leadership and heroism are not just restricted to the outside world, all our workspaces, but something that are deeply and inherently connected into our being as well.

 

Pooja

We hope that you enjoy this episode. Thanks for listening in and let’s begin now. (followed by laughter) It’s very nice na, the ambiance?

 

Mrinalini

Are we like talking?  Don’t worry about being perfect, that’s the first thing, come as you are.  So I’ll tell you, like the image that comes into my head the moment I say these fancy words. It would be like of some man who’s like tall and like very like muscular and like you know, like full on. I don’t know, man. Like some, some just really strong buffy guy, you know who can just take on the world literally. And he believes that that he can because the world has, like told him, like, “Oh my God, you can do everything” like the world is like that. The problem with heroism is, the first problem is that it automatically places the burden of saving on one person and also victimizes the other one.

 

Pooja

Okay

 

Mrinalini

I feel that there is this big issue of codependency which arises thanks to heroism. Trying to get over here is that if you’re gonna put these social roles onto women, they’re automatically not gonna have the space to become financially or emotionally independent, even if they wish to do so. Or at least like there is the set of resources are unequally distributed over here.

 

Pooja

Yeah, so it like, it makes the quote “hero” indispensable.

 

Mrinalini

Yes,

 

Pooja

It means that he or usually he is required in order for the other person to survive.

 

Mrinalini

Exactly. In fact, I feel a lot is also about how it’s presented to us on the table. You know, like stories are literally what is being told to you.

 

Pooja

Yeah.

 

Mrinalini

How I narrate a story is what the story will be for you rather than what the story really is.

 

Pooja

Yeah yeah.

 

Mrinalini

So something of similar sort I feel happens with the shades of leadership and heroism as well, like your system that’s not really facilitating independence. Like, it’s not really, giving someone the resources to be able to stand on their own. Because that’s dangerous. Like, yeah. Why is it dangerous? Because then the hero might have less.

 

illesha

Again, equity comes over there.

 

Pooja

Yeah. Yeah.

 

illesha

So I feel like patriarchy in itself is propagated by this, by inculcating this sense of dependency on the hero. Do you want to share some thoughts, anything?

 

Pooja

Actually I rather had today, it was my CEO’s birthday right? Like she’s like I think 51 or 52 and she’s running the organization right now. Very nice to have like a handwritten note card from every person in the team, a small team. And sort of majority of the note cards said like you’re a really good leader and I aspire to be you including myself. Like I wouldn’t say she’s perfect but it felt like true because everyone had their own words to express it not like a message that you copy paste. So yeah, even she felt very heartfelt after she read all of that so. Yeah. So that is something I was just thinking on when we were, we wanted to talk about leadership and like this happened just today. So yeah, that was sort of going on in my mind.

 

illesha

Is she the first boss or like female like leader that you’ve experienced some like such a close level?

 

Pooja

Yeah, yeah, definitely. And she like it’s been 4 months to be there. But like she has taken care of me in a way, like when she involves me in the conversation, they’re like. In your in the position also in the age people are there. Yeah, she’s willing to open the door for you. And yeah.

 

illesha

And not just to open it, but to help you walk through. I think that’s really beautiful because I’ve had mostly female bosses in a lot of my work situation, say, in the last 10 years. And I think they have all embodied extremely male forms of leadership. And I’ve mostly experienced being, yeah, that being shamed in public and like extreme anxiety on their part. To match up and live up to their counterparts who are all males. But I’ve found that most women who are in leadership positions that I’ve experienced are under such severe stress and have worked so hard to get there. But once they’re there, they don’t really have the bandwidth to examine how they’re doing it. They’re so caught up in remaining in that position and proving that they are worth staying there, right? And there’s like so much to fight against in order for them to remain in those positions. Where does the energy remain to reflect? But I wonder how, like I practically genuinely wonder how did your boss get it right?

 

Pooja

You know, I was thinking about it. So I don’t know her entire story. But from what I understand she was an educator. She was a teacher before. So I think that sort of like how you behave with a student might be coming into her leadership style in a way, like the empathy, in a way. And she started her leadership journey around in her forties So I think the age factor also like she might be a little more secured even though there are like other men who might not making her feel very secure, but she herself and the person might be a little more secured. Like that sort of maturity might have been a part of it.

 

Mrinalini

Listening to the two of you, in general, if you think about a leader, for me a leader would be someone who opens the door for you, like Pooja just said. Or you know who brings you inside, who makes you a part of the table, who gives you a seat at the table and also gives you the respect to, the respect plus the strength. You know, go out and make some courageous calls or make some courageous decisions or just put your opinions down on the table. Sometimes you do need that question, you need that faith also that ‘Alright, even if I do screw this up, I have somebody at my back’. Only then I can take these bold calls or so to say, yeah, I feel, I think this this trait of leadership or of an ideal leadership so to say, if we think deeply about it, it stems from having a high EQ or like a high emotional quotient , right? It stems from like she said high sense of security? Yes. Empathy? Yes. Being able to be a good listener? Yes. Being able to find faults within yourself? Yes. Being able to provide a sense of affection also to the other person like that. Yes, I like you and I’ve got your back. The traditional top down notion of leadership. What happens is that again, it is the entire burden of being a leader, being a hero is placed on one gender. The same gender is conditioned to be born and bred in an environment where emotions are a sign of weakness. When emotions are a symbol of weakness, how are these individuals supposed to bring emotions to the table when they’re practicing? So we need to work on our emotional capabilities. Emotions are not a sign of weakness. We need to like probably put it on our shirts and wear it every day. I don’t know. 

 

illesha

I mean it does take awareness and it takes you to keep repeating yourself. To keep drilling it in because so many years of conditioning that we’re kind of up against.

 

Pooja

So I will come into the emotions. I’ll just speak about my boss because this is on my mind today. I can’t like think of any other examples.

 

illesha

Good to, I think, to speak from where you are.

 

Pooja

Yeah. So she has like a little louder voice. Like her normal pitch is also little higher. So when she gets angry, her voice like becomes little more higher, right? And she is aware and she has like told us that if I’m angry and not angry at you, I’m angry at like the situation that has happened, right? Never. It’s never personal. If I say something, it’s never personal. She has like, you know, made that warning clear again and again and she’s the someone who loses her temper, like pretty quickly. And she’s aware about it, which is a good thing. Not losing the temper part, but being aware about it is a good thing.

 

illesha

Yeah, it is showing up as human, as flawed.

 

Pooja

And like imagine like if I’m a new employee and putting this out in front of me also takes a courage, right? Because if someone who comes into your environment you want to, like, impress them or as a leader, you might want to boss them or whatever. But like, putting this part out is also very human or like empathetic thing to do right. When you I think said like you know opening the door for others is very important So she tells other colleagues also “I want you to do this by yourself so that you learn so that you are capable of it, you can take it forward. You don’t have to come to me always.” She has this very small small nuances that happens every day. So you miss it. But when I was reflecting on it today since everyone wrote, everyone appreciated her as a leader. So I was reflecting and those are like everyday things that happen. So which is like a very different practice than what we see otherwise, right

 

illesha

And that’s and I feel like that’s something  to do with not withholding information. Like I think if she’s willing, and not just willing, but interested in her coworkers picking up skills and picking them forward independently. Then she has to be transparent about how it’s actually done and what are all the moving parts that go into making this thing happen. And I feel like what often happens with hierarchical or top down leadership and a lot of say masculine you know, male forms of leadership that I’ve experienced is a withholding of information.

 

Pooja

I think that comes from insecurity of their position. Because if I know how to do it, then, you know, I might take her power 

 

illesha

This is something I have thought about a lot in the context of family. So I had wondered again and again, you know, like if when I was a child, my father felt open enough with me to tell me the bank balance this is how much money we have. I knew my chocolate cost ₹5, but I don’t know what is that ₹5 coming out of, right? So I have no perception of what is the whole and then how am I expected to make decisions that then help the family? Even as a child. And I feel like growing up now as an adult, the genuine daily problems I face with financial management… Like, sure, it might be my terrible math skills, it might be my inability to remember numbers, but it might also be the fact that so much information was withheld in the times when I could have picked up these skills. Because my father needed to maintain a certain sense of even if it didn’t exist, he felt a lot of pressure. Even if there was no money in the bank account, to pretend that everything is fine. So you don’t feel stressed out, right. You know, I can understand that might even be empathy. You know, there might even be empathy on the part of the father that I don’t want my child to be really, really worried about this right now. So I will just pretend everything is fine and I won’t tell them that we have no money. Yeah. And I think that definitely also comes with a certain amount of privilege, to be able to withhold that information. But yeah, I think that’s like a good example of maybe how information-withholding prevents like independence in a workspace as well or in the world. Like if we don’t know, or if we don’t personally put in the time say to study all the laws, then how the fuck are we gonna walk around and know how to use anything?

 

Pooja

Like, I don’t want to elaborate more on this but political leaders, what they’re doing, they’re like basically withholding lot of information, right. And that’s how they’re controlling everything around us in some way or the other.

 

Mrinalini

Coming to what illesha spoke about when it comes to a family structure and also so brave of you to like to speak about like this.  Thank you for bringing it up because I feel withholding information, sense of security, extremely valid point. But one more over here I feel is this mirage. This is the facade that you’re talking about, this mirage of perfection which the society as a whole chases constantly. We are the perfect family. My workplace is the perfect workplace. Please tell me one perfect family that exists because I don’t believe there’s any.  But if I go home and ask my dad, he’s like, “Oh, we are like the perfect family. Why would you say we are not?” you know? And then he’ll get like, stressed the shit out if I say “Uh, we are not. ” You know, if you think about it, if you make women or if you make individuals, capable individuals, the relationships they form in their lives will come from a space of want, desire, and not from a sense of need. As an agency, as a society being an agency, I feel it marriage is a very big part of the Indian spectrum or I would even say the South Asian spectrum as a whole, right. If you think about how marriage is actually broadcasted or advertised, I’m sorry these are very technical terms, but it is kind of advertised, right? It’s drilled into our heads, right from the time you’re born, that oh marriage is like the best thing ever to happen to you and what not. I feel what happens is that over the years, because they’re so desperate to keep this one institution going. Or they believe that a set of institutions can only and only take the community ahead in the right spirit, that to continue these institutions they create such dependent creatures altogether, that that by the time you’re an adult like, okay, fine, you know that you suck at math, you suck at numbers, you suck at all of these things, but you’re still trying. That takes a lot of courage. And I’m not, like, saying this with any disrespect, but a lot of girls might stop and be like, “You know what? I’m not good at all of it. Why don’t I just get married to the guy, like my parents are, like, telling me about and like he’ll take care of all of this bullshit and I can, like, have my breathing space.” I’m not judging them for this. But what I’m saying is that there is a sense of incapability that is being propagated in the society as a whole. In order to ensure the success of a couple of institutions, which the society wants. And why and why are we chasing these things? Because we are so scared that independence will demolish the sense of community when in reality communities flourish the most when they are coming from a sense of independence.

 

illesha

I love that.

 

Mrinalini

I should not need to be with you all, but I should want to be with you all. And the problem is that when individuals are conditioned and brought up and they’ve been like structured in a way that okay, I do need these institutions for my survival, for my existence, the choices are never your choices. The choices are always the choices of the society.

 

Pooja

Yeah, especially in these cases where like someone is getting married or because of  “I can’t do it. I need…that is how I am supposed to live.” And like you’re getting married for the need and not the want. So like later on, like after a certain point, you don’t want to be with that person anymore because of whatever reason, but because you need to be. There’s no other way.

 

Mrinalini

Exactly. Or you’re being trapped.

 

Pooja

Yeah you’re completely trapped.

 

Mrinalini

It’s like a bloody rat trap, man. Like you’re shown the cheese and you get into it. You’re stuck in, chalo keep eating the cheese all your life and now you’re gonna die in that rut only. So, I mean, that’s very dark.

 

illesha

I think there are so many women who go on these journeys every day, you know. Maybe we fight these ideas and we try to change the narrative of like our roles and our families. And like there I just met Limbo Pandit, my very close childhood friend, before coming here. And she was sharing with me how maybe in her family, her father has always earned more than her mother, right? So she never knew that she would be in a relationship where she was a financial supporter and now she is. She’s engaged. And she kind of, earns more than her partner does. And she thought he would be uncomfortable with it. And she was shocked that he wasn’t. That it, never even comes up for her, that it’s so comfortable just to support each other without it needing to be more him, or even needing to be entirely equal. And I think that’s the point where I see some cracks in the world forming and like some narratives actually beginning to change. But I wonder what level they happen on. Like, I wonder if it can only happen…I don’t believe it can only happen in a space of privilege, but I believe it’s more possible, like when we have the ability to have these conversations, that like narratives…. Do you feel like narratives change faster in spaces of privilege?

 

Pooja

Yeah, I think so. Like not every time, but definitely this privilege sort of aids it. Like lack of privilege might bring certain more obstacles than there is already in the world.

 

Mrinalini

You know, I don’t think so.  I don’t. I have met the most broad minded individuals who come from a space of zero privilege and I’ve seen like, it’s probably my opinion is a little biased based on my experience…

 

illesha

No, but that’s how it should be. That’s what I want to know.

 

Mrinalini

Like imagine that the society and its notions are like this big giant thing, probably like that one over there. Okay, like a big, big tree okay. And the branches are like super wide and it’s like huge. Like the tree is a big, big massive tree. The canopy is like really vast and it’s like covering everything possible and it’s like a super big ass tree. Imagine there comes like a small budding plant like a small bud has just planted on like on the floor, on the soil, okay.  Vichara, as long as this tree is like so vast and it is covering the entire universe, even if the plant tries to like grow bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger, it will never.  It will be so difficult for the plant to surpass the tree to break through the tree. If he, if he tries to do that, if the plant tries to do that, he will be broken. That’s what patriarchy does to our men. So they don’t try to be that plant. They try to add themselves to the Goddamn tree. And then when we talk about, let’s say, women or when we talk about the LGBTQI community. We are shunned over with a couple of leaves. We are not even given enough resources to probably even reach the root of the tree.

 

illesha

Yeah, because what would happen, in this metaphor which I love, is that the sunlight wouldn’t reach the forest floor. But you know what trees do. So trees… fall. And when a tree falls in a forest, all the seeds it drops will grow. And that’s often now trees continue to reproduce. Their children are born when they give up. And I think that’s beautiful. So, yeah, there’s something that has to die, sometimes, so the sun can, like, seep in.

 

Mrinalini

This helped me to think.

 

Pooja

I also know how our conversations are more family oriented today. Last conversation we had were like very, very more focused, right? Talking about like leader in workspace and we didn’t explore any other space. Yeah, I think today we are like sort of like it’s more diverse…

 

illesha

But do you see how, like the resource management being that no one is eating the fourth falafel. Everyone ate exactly equal, and we all are waiting to see who needs the last piece.

 

Pooja

They can have it. (followed by laughter)

 

illesha

That was something, huh? So thank you for listening to us again. We are Mrinalini, Pooja, and illesha talking about the changing narratives of leadership and heroism. We hope that you will take the time to examine the ways in which you have learned to lead. The ways in which your community is led and the ways in which narratives are shifting around you and we hope you will continue to plant seeds and to grow and to push down the trees that need to fall. To our listeners, thank you for joining us and listening today. We really appreciate your support. If you liked this episode, please follow One Future Collective @OneFutureCollective on Instagram and Facebook, and keep an eye out for future episodes of “Explorations on Feminist Leadership by #OneFutureFellows2022”. We look forward to watching you grow. Until next time. Take care of yourself. And we know we’re going to be exploring so much more together. Love from Mrinalini, Pooja and illesha. Good night, good morning, good afternoon, however and wherever you find yourself. Thank you.

 

Sochcast Ad:

Like this Sochcast? Tune in for more, with the Sochcast app from the Google Play Store. 

End of transcript

Mapping and negotiating power

Uncuff India Episode 10: Dimensions of conflict and peace: visioning a utopian world

Uncuff India Episode 9: Civic space and dissent: A pathway to social justice

Breaking Down the Roots of Anti-Fat Bias

This blog is the last of our series of blogs on the experience of fatness in urban India, and is written by Vallari Shivkumar.

Content warning: mentions of bullying, anti fat discrimination, sexual abuse

When people discriminate against fat people, they often chalk it up to preference, concern, or advice. Fat people experience hostile environments, judgment, and ostracization on a daily basis because of their bodies. This discrimination was met by the rebellion in the 1960s. As with any political movement, fat liberation started out as a way to fight oppression. As fat people organized and mobilized against fatphobia, the early fat liberation movement gained traction. Fat people were at the center of theory, actions, and radicalism. The impact and ripples of these movements are still felt today, as the fat liberation movement evolves and continues to be a part of the zeitgeist. 

 

The fat acceptance movement has facilitated the creation of a community that carries forward that fight for equality. Although the message in the movement evolves and takes different forms like body positivity, anti-diet culture, intuitive eating, etc, it has led to a platform that fat people can use and take up space in and has established a community of people that are working towards eradicating anti-fat discrimination. Fat activism has led to a pushback towards people who discriminate against fat folks. Whilst this movement has led to real change, there is still a long way to go.  Is this all there is to anti-fat bias?  Or does it go much deeper than that?

 

Fatphobia is a Systemic Issue

 

According to the Collins Dictionary, fatphobia is an “irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against obesity or people with obesity.” Fatphobia has been reigning terror over fat bodies for centuries. Fatphobia, rooted in racism, classism, misogyny and other forms of oppression, spiraled into the oppression fat folks face today. Systemic fatphobia is a societal issue. Saying fat people are at a disadvantage in society is like calling a cut a scrape because the extent of this disadvantage has strong roots in structural and interpersonal violence. 

 

There is a level of violence when a fat person is denied equal opportunities, denied access to be able to meet basic needs like clothes, to not just live but thrive as a complete person. What does that mean for me when I am not given proper care at the doctor’s office? What does it  mean when support systems like the HR at my workplace or a police officer have an internal bias against fat people? What does it mean when I get on an airplane and the airline doesn’t have seats that fit me or resources like an extendable seat belt in place for fat people? 

In the fat community, fatphobia is the most commonly used term, but I think we, as a community, need to start narrowing down exactly what fatphobia means. Phobia means fear, but people aren’t afraid, they’re biased and hateful. Perhaps systemic anti-fat bias is a better choice of words. Weight-based oppression on a large scale affects marginalized groups more deeply. It’s common for the experiences of fat folks’ to get downplayed because they think ‘fat’ is an ‘excess of flesh’, which can be easily changed with hard work and determination and being fat is still viewed as a choice or moral failure. There is so much emphasis on obesity care, but how about making sure therapists understand weight discrimination and how to accommodate our bodies? Often, particularly, in systems of structural care, there is both a glaring lack of experience and infrastructure to deal with fat bodies in a safe, equitable and dignified manner.

While society at large still uplifts and prioritizes thinness, fat bodies are continuously exiled and ridiculed. For fat individuals and people with nonconforming bodies, society adversely attacks and belittles them as ‘responsible’ for their sizes and takes the onus upon itself to recast them into ‘acceptable bodies’. This is done through the flooding of markets with products and services to ‘address’ fatness. ‘Thin’ sized bodies are given more value and desirability by society because those bodies are considered “normal.” This value system is a hierarchy of size that focuses on personal choice but doesn’t take into account geography, culture, poverty, or genetics. Through such a value system, people are blamed or held responsible for their body types.

 

Institutional and Interpersonal Violence

 

A fat body is invaded by comments, measured with hatred, pathologized by fear, and diagnosed with ignorance. It is weighed down not by its weight, but by the force of hatred, contempt, and pity. This violence also can be of fat people towards themselves and their own bodies in self-talk among other things. Fighting systemic fatphobia is all about equal access, equal respect, and fair treatment. Anti-fat bias permeates multiple structures and interpersonal relationships which in turn make existing and thriving in a fat body challenging. 

 

Every institution and agent of socialization in our culture — schools, health-care organizations, media, marketing— promotes the propaganda of weight control, so that it is nearly impossible for individuals not to believe that “fat is bad.” Fat people have to face multiple levels of interpersonal violence as they navigate life and spaces. 

People who are fat get discriminated against in a multitude of areas, including healthcare, work, education, and transportation. Discrimination against fat people is the fourth most common type of discrimination and it has increased drastically over the past twenty years. This marginalization has consequences over the entire lifespan of fat people. It starts as early as school. Bullying is, unfortunately, a lived reality of school. Fatness is one of the many reasons that kids are bullied and socially excluded in school. Students do so by making nasty comments, and the fat body once again becomes the site of humour. Teachers sometimes also contribute to this. For example, teachers can be insensitive towards fat kids and make them feel excluded from certain activities. Often, teachers choose conventionally ‘attractive-looking’ students as representatives. Teachers perceive fat students as less academically, physically and socially able. Anti-fat bias can also affect friendships. In a clique, people who are fat get reduced to the ‘fat friend’ like a token. A study by the University of Southern California found that children who are overweight have more unreciprocated friendships than others. It was further found that they are excluded from friendships. All of these take a mental, social and physical toll on people who are fat. The constant ostracization of individuals who are fat is likely to lead to the risk of loneliness, depression, poor eating habits, and chronically feeling isolated, lonely or socially disconnected experiences. 

In the workplace, fat people are harassed and bullied. They face a significant “wage penalty” for employment, even when controlling for socioeconomic status and health. They are less likely to be hired and promoted, and more likely to be fired. Many people think overweight employees lack self-discipline, are lazy, aren’t competent, aren’t conscientious, are sloppy, disagreeable, and are emotionally unstable. Even when fat candidates/employees are better qualified than their colleagues, reservations like these result in unfair hiring practices, low wages, and job termination. Places like schools and offices structurally fail fat folks. Usually, there is no consideration for inclusive seating, uniform sizes and policies in place that help reduce this alienation and discrimination. India also completely lacks an anti-discriminatory legislative framework to deal with weight bias in the workplace. The Delhi High court rejected a flight attendant’s appeal of Air India’s decision to ground and further terminate them for being overweight in June 2008. The decision was “taken strictly as per the terms of employment,” according to the state-owned airline. The court justified its decision by stating, “In the highly competitive industry of civil aviation, the company has to focus on the personality of its employees. By the very nature of their jobs, their overall physical personality is one of the primary considerations.” However, in a more recent turn of events, the Delhi High Court ordered the reinstatement of three employees grounded by Air India, citing that excess weight does not necessarily impede optimal performance

In mainstream media, fat bodies get limited representation, reaffirming thin supremacist preferences for bodies that follow hegemonic body size and beauty standards. This leads to dominant conceptualizations controlling discourses about fatness: fat bodies are lazy, disgusting, and lacking control. As Marilyn Wann notes, “[e]very person who lives in a fat-hating culture inevitably absorbs anti-fat beliefs, assumptions, and stereotypes, and also inevitably comes to occupy a position in relation to power arrangements that are based on weight.” This creates a hierarchy of bodies. People who experience weight discrimination report more psychological distress, lower well-being, and greater loneliness as a result of weightism.

Based on one’s size, specific performance is expected. In our society, this same performance creates, stabilizes, and legitimizes ‘fat’ as a concept. In courtrooms, the same association can be made with fat defendants by jurors, who expect a particular performance. Fat makes people feel guilty, lack self-control, and lack respect. Then studies on social reaction and response to size become applicable to the courtroom. Researchers found that male jurors found female presenting defendants guilty more often if they were fat than slim in a simulated check fraud case. In cases where a defendant’s body expresses a size and situation not allowed to be explained by the voice, bias based on fat may also harm them. Fat defendants’ and fat victims’ bodies are seen as beyond their control, which reflects an entrenchment within the justice system too.

Court actors  who conceptualize victims of abuse as thin might not take fat women seriously when they tell stories of abuse. In State v. Ruhlman, the defendant said he wouldn’t assault the victim/survivor because she was “fat and ugly.” It’s especially visible in domestic violence. Abusers use size as a tool to insult and attack a romantic partner’s sexual attractiveness. Several police officers refuse to take reports of sexual assaults by fat women, saying they’re too unattractive to have been raped because of their size.  These experiences of cultural, structural, and interpersonal violence only get worse for people whose fatness intersects with other marginalized identities such as age, disability, race, caste, among others. Even within communities, not falling within the expectations of the community, may lead to a disconnect and further alienation.

As a fat person, living with a fat body is hard considering that the world feels like it isn’t made for someone like us and is actively trying to work against us. There are constant battles, big and small that need to be fought so that we as fat people can take up the space we deserve. It is imperative to look out for and act on the intersectional needs of fat people so that every person has more than the basic necessities to thrive and be their best self. Fat people need to be heard and taken into account in a way that tackles systemic anti-fat bias by making laws, policies, and recommendations, and having fat people in the room helps make those so that people whose needs are being met are represented and are part of the process. 

 

Thank you for reading this blog, which is the final blog in our series of blogs on the experience of fatness in urban India. This blog series is a part of our upcoming research study on Fatness in Urban India, focusing on building counter-power narratives on the experience of fatness in Mumbai; as well as developing an evidence base for documentation of the discrimination and oppression faced by fat people in urban India, with a focus on 

 

(1) built environments

(2) health and medical infrastructure

(3) careers – educational institutions and workplaces

(4) intimacies and interpersonal relationships

 

Further, we hope to document the ways in which fat people embody different physical-emotional conditions. Finally, we hope to use this research study to co-create recommendations for changing norms, policies and infrastructure to meet the needs of fat people in urban India. 

 

To become a part of this study, please consider participating in our data collection process by giving us 30-45 minutes of your time in an interview. To learn more about the process, check if you are eligible and to sign up, please visit: bit.ly/OFC_Fatness_Study

 

Mapping and negotiating power

Uncuff India Episode 10: Dimensions of conflict and peace: visioning a utopian world

Uncuff India Episode 9: Civic space and dissent: A pathway to social justice

The Performance Of Fatness

This blog is the third of our series of blogs on the experience of fatness in urban India, and is written by Deeksha Tiwari.

Content warning: mention of disordered eating, anti-fat bias

Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity, i.e., that gender is a social role performed by individuals and validated and approved by society, provided a fresh lens for perceiving gender. While their theory specifically discusses gender, it has a certain universality to it that can be applied to a plethora of other identities including the fat identity. According to anthropologist Victor Turner, repeated performances are necessary for social action. This repetition serves as both a reenactment and a re-experiencing of a set of socially established meanings; it is the routine and ritualized way in which they are legitimized. 

Being fat in today’s world is like living under a microscope since every action is scrutinized with the binary lens of ‘healthy’ or ‘unhealthy’. In addition to being monitored by non-fat people, fat bodies undergo scrutiny by themselves and other fat people as a result of the internalization of this scrutiny. 

For a fat person, there seem to be only two roles to play: a ‘good’ fat person or a ‘bad’ one.  

Being a ‘good’ fat person involves following an elaborate list of dos and don’ts. There are rules to be followed and mannerisms to be observed. In a way, it is quite similar to being in a play. Every waking moment has to be a performance, carefully portrayed within the boundaries of the script, which in this case is the list of dos and don’ts. And just like a play, there are critics, voicing their approval or disapproval, waiting for you to ‘slip up’ so they can tell you the many ways you are not living right. Unlike plays though, the critics of fat people’s lives are mostly unwarranted and quite often unqualified.

This performance of fatness is indoctrinated through different mediums until it becomes second nature. From stereotypical media portrayals to the constant policing of fat bodies done by families and friends, it is made clear that the only somewhat acceptable way to exist as a fat person is to always play the part of the ‘good’ one. Gemma Gibson describes this performance as a “rhetoric of innocence which seeks to absolve fat people of the ‘blame’ for their fat bodies.” So as long as you play the part of the apologetic and guilty fat person doing everything in your power to change your body, you remain innocent of your fatness. Naturally, a fat person that refuses to put on this performance becomes the ‘bad’ one.

How to be a ‘good’ fat person – scrutinizing fat bodies using the ‘health’ lens 

To play the part of a ‘good’ fat person, you must have certain qualities. The foremost requirement is that you live a ‘healthy’ lifestyle. Now, the term healthy has very different and ambiguous connotations for fat people than it has for non-fat people. For a non-fat person, it mostly means eating nutritious meals and getting some exercise and movement for your body. Even then this is very negotiable as most non-fat people go about living their lives as they please without raising any concerns. For a fat person though, it seems as if being ‘healthy’ is not an option. It is something that is expected of them owing to their fatness. Being ‘healthy’ for fat people includes doing anything and everything (not excluding starving yourself) to not be fat.

This obsessive need to assess the health of bodies, especially fat bodies, and then deduce their worth is extremely dehumanizing. The Body Mass Index (BMI) continues to be a widely used metric by health professionals and people to assess the health of individuals despite having been found to be incredibly inaccurate. As per this assessment, fat automatically equals unhealthy. According to researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, BMI is an unreliable indicator of body fat content because it ignores factors like muscle mass, bone density, overall body composition, and differences between racial and gender groups. An alternative was proposed by Dr. Margaret Ashwell, to assess and predict health risks like type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. She suggested that the waist-to-height ratio is a better predictor of these than BMI.

On the flip side, there is the idea that people of all sizes can be in good health, even fat people. In this case, health indicators like blood sugar, blood pressure, heart rate, cholesterol, etc. are mainly used to assess the level of health. Going by this metric of evaluation, if you’re not fat but unhealthy, you’ll be told that you can do better, but it won’t likely result in discrimination and marginalization. Consequently, if you are fat but otherwise healthy, you are somewhat acceptable but still not immune to bias and prejudice around fat bodies. But what if you are fat and unhealthy? Is being unhealthy such a monumental failure that you no longer deserve respect or rights? 

Does fatness glorify obesity?

News flash: Just existing as a fat person is not promoting or glorifying ANYTHING. 

If you are not a fat person, there are very high chances that you can get away with eating a pizza without people telling you that it is unhealthy or that you are ‘promoting obesity.’ A fat person in the same scenario, however, has a much higher chance of being accused of ‘promoting unhealthy lifestyles’ and even being told that they do not deserve to live at all.

Fat people simply existing outside the role of the good fat person is always seen as glorifying being unhealthy and is met with severe backlash. Remember the photo of American singer, rapper and flutist, Lizzo, in a bikini that went viral? All the unwarranted comments (mostly hateful) calling her gross, unhealthy and accusing her of “eating herself to death” and promoting/glorifying obesity was in response to her just existing unbothered on a beach as a fat person in a bikini. It is also pertinent to note that the hate and backlash that Lizzo received were aggravated by racism. In an interview, Sabrina Strings, author of “Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia,” said that health concerns are not the source of fatphobia. As per her research, fatphobia in the West was rooted in Protestantism and the Transatlantic slave trade. Black people were believed to be “sensuous and thus prone to sexual and oral excesses.” Protestantism promoted moderation in all pleasures and as a result by the early 19th century, obesity was seen as a sign of immorality and racial inferiority, especially in the United States.

Another interesting thing to note is that Lizzo wasn’t even the one to post those photos. Page six just posted the pictures on their Twitter account with the caption “Lizzo rocks tiny red bikini beachside during Brazilian vacation” and all hell broke loose.

Fig: An example of one of the several hate comments under the photo, which individually, has garnered close to 3,000 likes.

Anti-fat bias and popular culture

Another significant characteristic of a good fat person, is their willingness to happily accept any and all comments, criticisms, and opinions regarding their bodies at any given point in time. It is irrelevant if these are opinions shrouded as health concerns, constructive criticism, or straight-up hateful comments telling you you’re worthless. As a good fat person, you have a responsibility to take it all as feedback. 

A ‘good’ fat person must also have a sense of humor about being fat to take jokes about their bodies in ‘good spirit’. We have often seen fat people being the butt of the joke, like in FRIENDS with ‘fat Monica’ or more recently in Avengers, with fat Thor. In the media, writers can do better than using the old, “I used to be fat, ugly, and sad,” storyline like they did for Monica on FRIENDS or Schmidt on New Girl. The shift from the ‘ugly and sad fat person’ happened to result in the ‘fat sidekick with too much personality to make up for their looks,’ like fat Amy from Pitch Perfect. In all these iterations, fat people are just expected to be laughed at and laugh with the person making the joke. A study in 2010 shows that fat people feel pressure to be charismatic and funny to compensate for their ‘failed’ bodies. Like Amy from Pitch-Perfect, some fat people feel like they have to use humor to make fun of themselves and their bodies to prevent others from doing so.

Surveillance of Fat Bodies

Fat bodies are discussed and monitored from a young age. In some schools, children are publicly weighed during their physical education period and depending on the weight, are asked to ‘take action’ (lose weight) accordingly. This creates an early awareness that weight is a ‘problem’ and needs to be fixed. 

Non-fat people feel like they have the authority to monitor fat people and it is disguised under concern. The holiday season can be a minefield of uncomfortable feelings and awkward interactions as it is filled with diet culture, food guilt, and anti-fat bias. It’s a lot harder to eat, drink, and be joyful when dealing with people commenting negatively about weight or food choices. On the one hand, we become obsessed with food and at the same time, social attitudes towards calorie counting and weight loss are at an absolute high. The idea that fat people, in particular, should be especially careful not to consume ‘too much’ food is usually at an all-time high.

Fat people also try to compensate for negative stereotypes by working harder to make a good impression at work.  In a study by Amsterdam and Eck conducted on people who self-identify as fat, they found that fat people had to work the extra mile for their work to be seen as more legitimate. Many fat people feel the need to overcompensate for the stereotype of the ‘dumb, lazy and unkempt fat person’. By putting extra effort into their work performance and appearance, fat people try to show others that fat people are indeed capable of delivering outstanding output and can look professional. This can be via spending extra time on their appearance, working extra, and performing harder for lesser rewards. 

Another way that fat bodies are monitored is via social media. According to the  Vice President of the Adult Performers Actors Guild (APAG), “Instagram has an algorithm that detects and flags photos featuring over “60% skin.” The intention may have been to censor images that are inappropriate but the algorithm negatively impacts larger-bodied Instagram users. It inadvertently monitors fat bodies and makes them inaccessible. Refinery29 and Getty Images launched their 67% Project in 2017, which acknowledged that although 67% of women are plus-size, they make up less than 2% of the images we see. 

All this external monitoring can lead to fat people developing the habit of self-monitoring as a coping mechanism so as to not be judged or commented on by people externally. Self-monitoring is a very common practice that has been made a part of the fat culture as a weight loss method. When fat people self-monitor, the one quality that they have to show is restraint. Whether it be in their personality, food choices, or clothing and lifestyle choices. Any and all decisions have to be influenced by the need to get thin and be ‘healthy’. Studies show that self-monitoring, when born from a place of shame and judgment, negatively impacts the individual.  

The irony is that most of the time, being a ‘good’ fat person also isn’t enough. It’s as if our existence until then has been a waste of space because we’ve been taking up so much of it. We are constantly made to explain ourselves and our lifestyle choices. The more fat people give of themselves, the more society wants to take. This give and take is never-ending. The reality is that the more we compromise on being ourselves and not performing, the more rules-explicit and implicit, trends, advice, concern, and unsolicited help, are going to be aimed at us. 

These demands reveal much more about our society’s expectations of, projections of, and entitlement to fat bodies than they reveal about fat people ourselves. These demands are overwhelmingly created in a vacuum, away from the actual lived experiences of fat people, or any of our stated needs. Too often, fat people shoulder the burden of navigating these many, complicated, conflicting demands. It is therefore important for fat people to have communities and spaces where they can feel like they can freely be themselves without feeling like they have to perform and be a certain kind of fat. These communities can not only offer the much-needed solidarity but also a space for fat joy, fat love, fat pleasure and the entire gamut of fat experiences.

 

Thank you for reading this blog, which is the third of our series of blogs on the experience of fatness in urban India. This blog series is a part of our upcoming research study on Fatness in Urban India, focusing on building counter-power narratives on the experience of fatness in Mumbai; as well as developing an evidence base for documentation of the discrimination and oppression faced by fat people in urban India, with a focus on 

 

(1) built environments

(2) health and medical infrastructure

(3) careers – educational institutions and workplaces

(4) intimacies and interpersonal relationships

 

Further, we hope to document the ways in which fat people embody different physical-emotional conditions. Finally, we hope to use this research study to co-create recommendations for changing norms, policies and infrastructure to meet the needs of fat people in urban India. 

 

To become a part of this study, please consider participating in our data collection process by giving us 30-45 minutes of your time in an interview. To learn more about the process, check if you are eligible and to sign up, please visit: bit.ly/OFC_Fatness_Study

Mapping and negotiating power

Uncuff India Episode 10: Dimensions of conflict and peace: visioning a utopian world

Uncuff India Episode 9: Civic space and dissent: A pathway to social justice