Secretly Fat

CW: Fat and fatphobia

So this is a topic I’m nervous to discuss, but I think it’s worth it. There’s a bit in Crushed guest’s Caitlin Moran’s “How To Be A Woman” where she discusses what happens when you call a woman “fat”:

“The accusation is so strong, it is still effective even if it has no basis in truth whatsoever. I have seen size 10 women being silenced by this line – as if they feel the accuser has somehow sensed that they secretly have a fat aura or will become fat later in life, and called them on it.”

The first time I read this I both gasped and cringed (gringed?), it hit so hard.

Recently I read a piece by a fat activist where she mentioned that size (UK) 14 was where fatphobia kicked in and I realized the truth of it. I was about that size between the ages of 14 and 26 (pretty key years, forming-identitywise); I definitely experienced it. Even back then, I knew that 14 was not in fact fat in any meaningful way - that 16 was the average, but this is not what we was represented in the media. This was the era in which Chris Evans weighed Victoria Beckham a few weeks after she’d given birth and said that 8 stone was “OK”. Light-hearted fun, right? I remember discussing with a friend why a Dawn French dance routine was funny and I was completely thrown when she said “it’s because she’s fat”. I’ll admit that there was a fun irony in the traditional ballet gear (or whatever) on a larger frame but… no. SHE’S funny. Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph are just as physically funny at their very slim sizes.  Funny bones, not funny fat. And don’t get me started on Fat Monica dancing at the end of Friends. I don’t see the humour and never have. Courtney Cox at any size is  stunningly beautiful. I love Friends but the body-shaming in it is off the charts. The idea that fat is funny in itself? I don’t get it. I hate how often it’s a punchline. I hate thinking about the actress who played the woman who fortunately isn’t David Brent’s date in The Office Christmas special. For the record her name is Joann Condon, and she has a great CV, which I hope contains many more fulfilling roles that don’t just focus on her size.

I wasn’t tormented by my size, but I was conscious of it every, every day. As I say, I know it isn’t actually fat - I didn’t suffer the pain or indignity of not being able to fit into seats or high street clothes, but I remember the unkind comments (a man, not skinny himself shouted “lose some weight” at me on the street. I’ll never forget the absolute scorn in his voice) and I remember being treated differently to my slimmer friends. I really don’t want to get too “poor me” about it as it was pretty mild but it is illuminating to reflect on it. Both Tina Fey and Dolly Alderton have written in their memoirs about the experience of being a bit thin and being a bit fat. I hugely related to Fey’s admission that she looked down on the boys who paid her attention only once she was thinner. (There was a particular smooth, arrogant friend of a friend who made a big play for me, when on the previous year’s visit he’d barely been able to meet my eye. Reader, I still fucking hate him to this day).

Without doing too much literal navel-gazing, when I was/am bigger, my frame is more masculine. The remarks I used to get were always about being blokey. I know a lot of that is about my nerdy obsessions and mouthy humour, but some of it was definitely about my blocky haircut, lack of make-up, band t-shirt and what one boyfriend called my “postman’s shoulders”. Yes I had big tits but I wasn’t curvy in a luscious hourglass way, but in a kind of stocky, hunched way. A friend’s dad once told her I had tits on my back. Mainly I think it was a weird choice for her to tell me that – but to be fair, she thought it was really funny and maybe thought I would too.

I don’t write this for sympathy or for people to rush to tell me I was beautiful. I know full well that beauty comes in many different forms and actually, people fancy all sorts of “types”. I didn’t completely go without sexual attention - but I want to relate a story I remembered recently having not thought about it for years.

I had a male friend who I’d really fancied and pursued. He’d rejected me in a very kind way and we’d gone on to be proper mates. He got a really lovely beautiful blonde girlfriend. As well as being quite preppy and very sensitive, he was Northern with a capital N. One weekend he had some friends from home come to visit. We went to the pub to watch football and had a raucously fun afternoon. They were all fun and I fancied his ginger friend who was a little bit flirty which I enjoyed. At one point during the banter, where there was a bit of ribbing over something (I think I’d won some argument), the ginger one said to me “You? You’re not a girl! You’re a bloke!” I think I smiled and rolled my eyes, and went to the bar. It stung. But what really stung was the exaggerated way my friend laughed. I wasn’t fully conscious of it but here’s what I took from it. These boys might like me, they might even fancy me – but they wouldn’t want to admit it. This is a really hard thing to talk about I know. I’ve only managed to have one conversation about this. A male friend of mine said “I once fancied a fat girl a school, and it was horrible”. It was an extraordinary thing to hear – but I really appreciated his honesty. I think not enough people admit that what your friends think, what the world thinks; is a part of the package when it comes to who you fancy. And it sucks. But nobody’s above it. I felt real pain when a friend from Drama School said “you’re the one who’s famous in our year for having lost weight”. Really? I thought. Is that what defined me (and still does)? How depressing. I have a mutual friend who reckons it says more about her than me. But the truth is somewhere in the middle I’m sure.

I’m currently a UK size 8-10 This is, when it comes down to it, just a clothing size but here’s the weird flood of thoughts I had  towards myself when I typed that:

1. Show-off. People will hate you for drawing attention to that.

2. You’re a liar – that can’t be right.  You’re probably deluded.

3. Even if you are that size (are you? Are you really? Really? Not really. Not at heart), you’re definitely jinxing it. It won’t last.

And finally:

4. OH WHO FUCKING CARES? You do – but you’re ashamed of caring. Why aren’t you more enlightened?

Here’s the lesson for all of us. I was a size 14 for a long time and I thought if I was thinner, I would be happy. Well, I am thinner now, and (though I admit it’s easier to be both a woman in the world and an actress at this current size) I’m still fretting. I’m not toned or peachy or tanned and I still often feel covered in shame when I look at myself and my body. The lesson? IT’S A FUCKING TRICK. They will always find a way to make you feel less, and wrong. Always. There will always be bodies shown as ideal that you cannot attain. I watched a video of Lizzo the other day and thought “God I wish I looked like that” then I shook myself. NO, Margaret you don’t. You wish you FELT like that. So work on feeling like that. And stop staring at Davina’s abs.

PS: For an incredibly articulate and enlightening discussion on “fat” I recommend the double episode of The Allusionist with Crushed alumni Helen Zaltzman.