A reminder to my fellow mid-sizers by Megan Clark
Illustration by @vintagepiss
I was scrolling through TikTok the other day, as I’m want to do several times an hour when @ceceliaisgray came up on my page. Taking a break from her current campaign to get blocked by JK Rowling, she spoke about mid-sized women and their role in the body positivity movement. Or rather, she was talking about our negative role in the movement. I say ‘our’ because I write this as a size 16, I’m at the larger end of mid-size but also not in the plus-size category.
Yes I struggle with body image, yes I’ve been called a ‘fat bitch’ by guys who I have rejected in the club and yes I’ve also been told routinely to lose weight by my doctor. Mid sizers have trouble with body image like fat women do. We feel rejection from love interests, judgement from colleagues when we eat a ‘naughty’ lunch and struggle to get jeans over our thighs in low lit dressing rooms designed to make us cry.
However, we don’t face A LOT of the struggles fat women do. We feel like we’re fat but we’re actually not that fat, we won’t get refused healthcare because of our weight, we’re unlikely to get taunted in the street or made fun of by co-workers. We can walk into most shops and there will be clothing in our size, it might not fit like we want it to but it’s there nonetheless.
Mid-size white women keep co-opting a movement that was started by and aimed at marginalized, POC and Black people. Yes, we absolutely can champion their work and take parts of it and use it to work on ourselves but it is appalling that some of us feel it’s reasonable to steal this movement and then kick-off when we’re called out on it.
Some major perspective is needed here. We need to get a grip.
Like most left-leaning white people, I’m trying to recognise when racism has entered the chat with issues like this. Recently I became aware of @curvynyome on Instagram and her campaign #iwanttoseenyome whereby she challenged Instagram on their removal of photos of her in the nude. Stunning and classy photos may I add. She rightly pointed out that white, slim bodies weren’t being censored, even white fat bodies weren’t being policed with the same ferocity as hers. A movement started by the women in her community was being stolen by white straight-sized women and then when she tried to reclaim it, she was being told her images violated community guidelines. It also didn’t take long for fat white women to try and piggyback on her movement, and when she called them out on this, the indignation was evident in the responses. Women that were extolling the virtues of the body positive movement were now getting pissy when they were being told they were stealing important hype away from Nyome, insisting that their intentions were good and that Nyome owed them some slack.
I watched this from the sofa on my little black mirror and was flabbergasted by the responses. Everyone from straight, mid and plus-sized communities just couldn’t see the hypocrisy and I couldn’t believe it.
From my position as a mid-sizer, I think it comes down to wanting to be included in a community we see as positive as well as people’s insistence on always being the most ‘worst off.’ No one likes to admit their privilege, so when it comes to being overweight, mid-sizers want to be included in the community they feel they are most like, instead of just admitting we struggle in different ways and to a lesser extent. What frustrates me is that mid-sizers aren’t willing to nurture our own circle, we can uplift our plus size gals, support the straight size ones and no one has to feel left on the fringes.
My hope is that one day someone will emerge like Nyome did as a champion and guide for mid-sizers and we can start to get over ourselves.
So in essence I would like to say to all my mid-size girls, I love you, but please stop.
Essay: Megan Clark
Illustration by @vintagepiss