Hey guys!
So today's video is going to be another Disability Discourse video, and before we get into things,
let me just let you guys know that this week has been a really bad pain week for me, so
if I'm looking a little bit of a mess, if you see me shuffling around a bit more than
usual, or making even sillier faces than usual, that's why.
Um, but what better time to make a Disability Discourse video than when I'm feeling the
effects of my own disability, right?
Maybe?
Anyway, today's topic is going to be the body positivity movement and disabilities, and
this is quite a complicated topic.
I feel like every topic I cover here is going to be kind of complicated, just because "disability"
or the term disability itself covers such a wide range of different people and different
issues, and then also a lot of the time the relationship between disabled people and these
other social constructs or social movements is also very complicated.
So I think just by the nature of the type of things that I'm going to be talking about,
a lot of the time it's going to be quite complicated.
So anyway.
I am going to try to keep it simple and keep it down to two main point.
So the body positivity movement is a movement that I generally agree with and think is awesome,
that everyone has the right to feel good about themselves and about their bodies, and, um,
that society's idea of attractiveness is very narrow and should be expanded and we shouldn't
really buy into that, um, you can only be attractive if you're a very thin white girl,
right?
So in general I think that's a good principle, and I appreciate a lot of work that the body
positive movement does, however I do think there are some issues surrounding its relationship
with disabled people, and I'm gonna talk about those today.
So I think these can largely be broken down into two groups, so I'm going to talk about
representation of disabled people within the body positivity movement, or lack thereof,
and then I'm also going to talk about the complex relationship that a lot of disabled
people have with our bodies, and how the body positivity movement is kind of unhelpful for
that.
So let's start out with representation.
Um, let me start by saying that I am very very surprised whenever I see a body positivity
post or um, like body positivity content that includes disabled people, so that kind of
goes to show how unusual it is to see us included in body positivity movement things.
Uh, which I think is really sad, because if you're talking about everyone and every other
thing, like weight, race, religion - for example, the hijab is often included in body positivity
things, gender presentation, all of those things, if you're talking about everything
else, to exclude disabled people, especially in a movement that (as I'm going to talk about
later) has a lot of other issues around disabilities, um, that is kind of hurtful and it always
just sucks to like not see yourself represented.
And this is something that the body positivity movement talks about a lot, is that representation
matters, and so to avoid representing disabled people is, uh, a little hypocritical I would
say.
So that's the first thing is that just generally there really isn't very much representation
for disabled people in body positivity.
The next thing is anti-representation.
I'm not quite sure how to word this, but hopefully you'll understand when I talk about it some
more.
And that is like, not just a lack of representation or kind of a, an invisibility, but actually
detrimental representation.
And that would include things like the Health At Any Size movement, and posts that are like
"oh, well, as long as my body is healthy, like, what issue is it of yours?" or like
"my body is healthy and (therefore) I love it" and things like that, or like "all healthy
bodies are beautiful" and things like that.
It's like, here's the thing about that, right?
So that just seems to me like it's completely forgetting that unhealthy people do exist
and should be allowed to also love our bodies.
Because health is not the defining characteristic of worthiness either, right?
Just like weight isn't, just like colour isn't, just like gender isn't.
Health is also not a defining characteristic of worth, and it shouldn't be.
Like health at any size is great, like I'm glad that you're healthy and you feel happy
with that.
I'll never be healthy at any size.
It doesn't matter how overweight or how underweight I am, I'll always be unhealthy, and that should
also be okay.
So to have this definition of body positivity as health is just deliberately excluding unhealthy
or disabled people, and I don't think that that's right either.
Because that's just as narrow a definition as the skinny white girl, right?
Uh, you're still excluding a whole bunch of people who, we can't change that.
Like I can't just get healthy, believe me, we all would if we could, but I can't just
take my disability away, so like unhealthy at any size is my life, and that apparently
makes me less worthy of respect or self love in the eyes of the body positivity movement.
So whenever I see posts like that it just makes me a bit sad that like...like, I get
that it's not deliberately malicious, but it does feel like they've just completely
forgotten that disabled or sick people exist in the world.
So yeah, that's representation and anti-representation in the body positivity movement for disabled
folks.
The next thing I wanted to talk about was the complex relationship that many disabled
folks have with our bodies, and how I think that body positivity is not great for that.
So many disabled people have difficulty accepting and loving our bodies, because often they
cause us pain or they cause us problems and make it difficult for us to get through daily
life because we're not catered to, and that makes it really hard to just love yourself,
which is like what a lot of what the body positivity movement is about, which is just
loving and accepting your body, which I think is great if you can.
But if your body causes you constant pain, or if your body sometimes scares you, or makes
you unhappy, or doesn't allow you to do the things that you love, it's going to be really
hard sometimes to love your body, and to accept your body for what it is.
And I don't think that that is something to be ashamed of, and often the body positivity,
um, kind of mantra of love yourself, it sort of...um, unintentionally shames people who
don't love themselves or who can't love themselves.
And as someone whose body often causes me pain, well, always causes me pain to some
degree, and often causes me debilitating pain, I don't always love my body, I can't lie to
you.
I say "oh no, it doesn't matter, I'm disabled and I love it, like I just love my body all
the time" and it's okay to not love your body and have a more complicated relationship with
your body than that.
It's very difficult for abled people to understand that some days I might love my body, some
days I can get up and be like "yes, I can walk!
Oh, this is amazing, I'm just happy that my body is doing what I tell it", or some days
I can look in the mirror and think that I look nice and love my body.
But some days, when it hurts and when it's hard to get out of bed or when I can't get
out of bed, it's much harder than just going "I love my body anyway, society doesn't love
my body, but I do!".
Because it's not society, right?
It's me, it's me personally who's being very negatively affected by my body.
I think a lot of disabled people struggle with this, and part of coming to terms with
your disability is also mourning and grieving for your body and how it isn't like an abled
person's body, and how it does stop you from doing things.
And it's important to allow disabled people the freedom to feel that way, and not make
us feel guilty for feeling that way.
So this is me, as a disabled person, telling you: If you don't love your body, that's okay.
You're allowed to feel that way, and it's completely normal to feel that way.
I don't know any disabled people who have always been happy with the way that things
are, and I would defy anyone to live in a disabled body and never have negative feelings
about it.
So I think a lot of this mantra about just loving yourself and loving your body no matter
what, I think that negatively affects disabled people because it is kind of shaming or guilt
tripping to say that it's society that makes us feel this way and that like, if we just
free our minds from that we would love our bodies, because that might be true for a lot
of things.
That might be true for like a lot of the other things that body positivity fights for, and
I think that is true for a lot of them, but for disabled folks that isn't the case.
It's not society that tells me that my body hurt me.
My body physically does hurt me, and it's hard to love a body like that, and that's
just something that disabled folks have to deal with that the body positivity movement
really doesn't seem to understand or cater to in any way at all.
Um, so yeah.
That's my little body positivity...not rant, just discussion, I guess.
If you have any thoughts about that I would love to hear them, like do you support the
body positivity movement?
Like how do you feel as a disabled person within that?
Do you feel the same as me, or do you feel differently?
I would love to hear what you have to say.
I feel like...I do support the body positivity movement in a lot of ways, and I...I think
a lot of what they're doing is really fantastic, but I do think there's this huge blind spot
about people with disabilities and how we're affected by our bodies, and how the body positivity
movement is like actively negative towards us.
It isn't even neutral at this point, it's like actively negatively affecting people
with disabilities.
So I think that's something that's really interesting and not super great, obviously.
So yeah, let me know what you guys think in the comments down below, I always love reading
what you have to say, and I will get back to you ASAP.
Um, yeah.
Just some things to think on.
Thanks so much for watching, and I will talk to you in the next one.
Bye!
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