Feminists have often said that “the personal is political,” emphasizing that larger systems of oppression become visible in the small, mundane experiences of everyday life. In “It’s a Big Fat Revolution,” fat oppression activist Nomy Lamm agrees with that “old cliché,” and discloses her personal truths as a way to further “the fat grrl revolution.”[1] Purposefully turning away from traditionally academic language in favour of a casual, punk-rock straight-talking style, Lamm describes the moments in her childhood that have reinforced the idea that “fat is ugly.”[2] By writing about her memories, Lamm reclaims and transforms them into a narrative of resistance. At the same time, she admits that she can’t always live up to her body-loving ideal, and that she, like all human beings, is full of contradictions.[3]
Like Lamm, I believe that there is brilliance and radical potential in the small microcosm moments of resistance and strength. I see it when my friend holds a party to celebrate his first injection of testosterone; when I overhear my younger brother denouncing sexism; when my mother proudly tells her coworker that her daughter is a lesbian; when I have an honest, difficult talk with my partner about how she feels excluded from feminism and the Montreal queer scene because she was born and raised in Mexico. The revolution—a term Lamm describes as “solidarity as well as critique and confrontation”—is a learning process, a constant desire to work on one’s own prejudices, not a fixed destination.[4] The appeal of Lamm’s punk-rock DIY culture is its immediacy; there is no bureaucratic process to contend with, no abstract theorizing. There is something powerful about living and breathing your own politics, about needing to build a world in which you can exist. For Lamm, marginalized as a “fatkikecripplecuntqueer,” political activism is not a luxury, but a necessity; intersectionality, oppression, and privilege are not detached social theories for a Women’s Studies classroom, but at the core of her experience in the world.[5] It is impossible to separate theory from practice, political from personal.
The difficulty of “the personal is political” ethos, however, is that it can be easily inverted, opening even the most intimate spheres of public life for political scrutiny. The classic example of a lesbian feminist agonizing over whether or not to use a dildo with her lover (fearing that this phallus would represent male supremacy and violence against women) illustrates that basing one’s personal life on political ideals can be a heavy burden to bear. What happens when our desires, thoughts, preferences or realities conflict with our politics? Can I be a feminist and desire sexual submission? Can I be a fat oppression activist and carry around the remnants of an eating-disorder mindset with me, simultaneously fighting for body acceptance and fearing my own hunger? Lamm says,
I’m still a real person, and I don’t always feel up to playing the role of the revolutionary . . . Despite the fact that I do tons of work that deals with fat oppression, and that I’ve been working so so hard on my own body image, there are times when I really hate my body and don’t want to deal with being strong all the time.[6]
Contradictions between one’s political ideals and one’s personal feelings are especially hard to avoid when it comes to body image, because the “thin, white, heterosexual” beauty ideal is strictly taught and re-enforced, and even the savviest feminist media critic can have a hard time replacing those harmful messages with positive ones. By admitting that she, too, occasionally succumbs to self-hatred, Nomy Lamm isn’t discrediting her political action; rather, her work to end fat oppression is strengthened by her honesty and her ability to accept her complexity and her contradictions.
If we, as feminists, base our politics on our personal experiences, then we must work towards loving ourselves for where we are right now as well as strive to achieve our future goals. We must learn to love our struggle for self-acceptance, our contradictions, our mistakes, and our fear. Loving oneself as-is does not imply laziness or an inability to take accountability for one’s actions; rather, it means recognizing that we are both oppressors and oppressed, that the world contains infinite shades of grey, and that we do not have all the answers. There is no such thing as the “right” way to behave. If we can accept ourselves (even, and especially, the parts we are ashamed of), then there will be no conflict between our politics and our personal lives, because we won’t feel the need to create personas, “better” versions of ourselves. We’ll be able to admit that we’re all here in the muck together, trying to be good people to ourselves and others, trying to figure it all out.
1. Nomy Lamm, “It’s A Big Fat Revolution,” in Listen Up, ed. Barbara Findlen (New York: Seal Press, 2001), 141.
5. Nomy Lamm, “It’s A Big Fat Revolution,” in Listen Up, ed. Barbara Findlen (New York: Seal Press, 2001), 134.
