Fat

I want to post a link to Joy Nash's You Tube video "A Fat Rant", since I can't post the actual vid here.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=yUTJQIBI1oA

Joy has a really good point to make about the way overweight people are regarded.

I saw it on Sister Decadence's MySpace blog and had to add a comment
This is an amended and expanded version of what I said there:

Joy is SO right. She might be technically overweight. but she's bloody gorgeous.

My doctor keeps telling me I need to lose weight. I think he's daft. I weigh between 158 and 162lb depending on the time of the month. I eat well, I exercise regularly (bellydancing is extremely good exercise for women and I walk a lot as well) and I look and feel fine if not fantastic.

I do find it depressing though that I (not a hugely overweight woman) find it hard to find clothes that fit and look good. I wear a size 14-16 (that's UK sizes. I think that's 10-12 in US sizes - correct me if I'm wrong, please!), sometimes an 18 depending on fit and style, but I'm finding that the young-and-trendy shops are increasingly not stocking above a size 14, and their size 14 is too tight on me. Conversely, I'm also finding that the shops catering for curvy (normal sized) women start at 16-18, but their sizes are too generous on me, especially in the bust.

One of Joy's YouTube commenters, seanpuckett said that normal curvy women weren't enough of a market to make it worthwhile for manufacturers to make clothes in bigger sizes - "the profit ratio for such large sizes is small. the amount of manufacturing it would take, the additional shipments, the extra assembly line workers would drive prices up,now poor people cant afford it..unfair?" I'm sorry, but I have to disagree. The amount of manufacturing, extra assembly line workers? Bullshit!

A lot of manufacturers seem to be gravitating towards the superskinny hollywood starlet size end of the market. Admittedly, the starlets have thousands of pounds to blow on one frock, but they're a tiny tiny market for exclusive designers. For normal manufacturers, the people who fall into the superskinny category - the size zeros - are very much in the minority among the population in general. The majority of us are not superskinny - that's why we're called "average sized" - for those having trouble with the concept, "average" is a mathematical term which indicates the group "most" people fit into. To spell it out - the majority of the population are I believe (in the UK) in the size 14-18 range - that's a lot of people who don't have thousands at our disposal for a one off party frock, but we do have our regular paychecks - which might enable us to spend a hundred a month on clothes at most. Question is, why are we being fobbed off with stuff that doesn't fit well and doesn't look good just because we're not skinny and can't or won't spend money on designer gear? This is potentially a real moneyspinner for the store that cracks the size issue and yet we're being ignored.

Size zero is not healthy, not attractive and not the way most women are meant to be.

As an aside - my beloved reading over my shoulder passed comment on the amount "regular" women spend on clothes in a month. He thought a hundred to a couple of hundred a month excessive so I rephrased it to a hundred a month tops, which is pretty much the most I would spend on clothes for myself in any one month - not every month, because I can't afford to spend any more than that, I certainly couldn't afford to spend a hundred every month on clothes - not even half that. I pointed out that if I had a full-time well paying job, I'd probably spend more. He told me that'd really piss him off if I wasted money on clothes for myself when there were more important things. Fair enough, but if I had a full-time well-paying job, I'd consider that those more important things would be already taken care of.

I wondered if is this a bloke thing? Is it a lack of understanding of what clothes actually cost? That a hundred quid in one month isn't actually going to buy very much - when you consider that one item eg a skirt or a pair of pants would cost £30 possibly more depending on where you shop. You could spend less, but you'd know it'd be poorly made by some underpaid overworked sweatshop labourer and would
a) not fit properly
b) not look all that good
c) fall apart/shrink/fade/all of the above after not very long at all.
Is it a lack of appreciation of the need for variety in a woman's wardrobe. Most blokes seem to think (mine certainly does) that more than one coat is an unnecessary indulgence without realising that for a bloke, you're wearing pants all the time - you have a coat and it looks good with pants. Women wear a range of different outfits, skirts and dresses of varying lengths, pants, casual, formal clothes, clothes for particular seasons and climates - and one single style of coat is not suitable for every type of outfit.

I wondered if it was the effect of having worn a uniform for work every day for the last few years? Maybe you forget that when you have to wear your own clothes for work and you work in a job where things get damaged, stained, splashed etc you wear things out more quickly than if you had a uniform provided - and these things have to be replaced out of your own pocket. And maybe it's a lack of appreciation of the snidiness of other women, our colleagues who mutter "has she only got one skirt - she wore that last week". It's the spending model we grew up with too - we learn a lot from our mum's spending habits and I've not been set the best example. I feel down quite often for no reason than envy - I envy my friends who earn more than me and can spend money on new stuff just because they saw it and wanted it and bought it without having to worry about the bills. I wish I could do that too.

There are advantages and disadvantages to everything and although I don't have money I have time. Maybe one day I'll have both. I'll drink to that! Cheers!