I really appreciate your FY! Chubby Girls Tumblr, but I do have a problem with the fact that a lot of the girls you feature aren’t actually what most people would consider “chubby”. Curvy, maybe! What made you choose that adjective specifically?

I didn’t choose it, Amy did. If a girl submits and says she’s had body issues and feel as if she has chub, is it really up to me to email her back and tell her to get over herself and that she’s not chubby? I feel like people should be able to accept all ranges of “chubbiness” without getting offended or upset. The point of the blog to me, is overcoming self doubts and liking what you have.

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I’m sorry if this offends anyone else but this blog has helped girls that range from all sorts of sizes and I’m not going to begin to be the judgement if a girl doesn’t fit into a stereotypical size range, because that’s the opposite of what I want the blog to be like. If a girl tells me she’s had body issues and this blog has helped her love her body, I am going to post her picture because that in itself is amazing. The more people who accept the fact that big is beautiful, is better.

there is an interesting conversation going on here, to which i contributed the rather cranky response: “your stance is depoliticizing. thanks for appropriating and sanitizing chubby to NOT address power dynamics of body hierarchies.” now here at my own blog, i have the space to expand on this point and explain myself.

within a patriarchal world, it is a struggle for all women to love their bodies and feel comfortable within them. i believe that everyone should be able to love themselves and their bodies, and that this is, indeed, a beautiful thing. body acceptance is an admirable political goal. absolutely all people should learn about accepting self image and overcome their insecurities.

however, this is not about general size acceptance. this is about being “chubby.” to say, “One persons chubby is another persons curvy is another persons fat” is problematic and alarmingly neutralizing of the politics at play.

i believe that when we indulge skinny folks’ tendency to call themselves “fat,” lament their “fat” and then reclaim it, we perpetuate fatphobia.

it is fatphobia because it fails to recognize that actual-in-life fat people experience daily prejudice and are materially limited in a number of ways. To say “sizes & shapes of people don’t matter, the skinny are just as able to see fault in themselves as the chubby” is sweet yet naive. skinny folks who see faults still get to walk down the streets, shop for clothes, flirt, fuck and ride in airplanes with greater ease than fatties, being read by probably most people around them as skinny, regardless of their own self-image.

fuckyeahchubbygirls’ stance is fatphobia because it fails at addressing the root problems of fatphobia, such as why skinny folks fear being fat in the first place. it fails to address the impact this fat-fear of skinny folks has on real fat people, and our self esteem, and how frustrating it is for us to have to deal with their fat anxieties.

it is fatphobia because it celebrates skinny folks ability to get over being “fat” and accept their bodies, implying that it should be just as easy for the actual chubbies. it puts skinny folks back at the centre of the discussion, the photo shoots, the blogs and the imagery - and yet now as our “chubby” representatives. what does that make us, “extra-fat”?

it is fatphobia because it appropriates the term “chubby” and sanitizes it so it means basically nothing. there are parallels that can be made here about white feminism’s tendency to celebrate privileged women’s ability to love themselves, without addressing how race, class, sexuality and ability mediate other women’s attempts at self-love. the stance of fuckyeahchubbygirls is fatphobic because it robs “chubby” of its radical political potential, just as white feminism impoverishes feminist politics. in other words, it is simplifying and depoliticizing.

ultimately, it’s about power. i believe in everyone’s right to love their bodies. at the same time, we must consider how power operates in these situations in order to avoid depoliticizing the hierarchies. it is not a level playing field, even if we all love our bodies.

as tropigalia wrote: “i kind of wish there were another tumblr that was about general size acceptance. i can see non-chubby girls being celebrated anywhere.” if fuckyeahchubbygirls has decided to be about general body acceptance, and skinny folks getting over their fear of being fat, then it should not use the term “chubby.”

lastly, this is an important discussion and it needs to happen. to call it “just another kind of snobbery” or “judgmental” or to conclude “if you don’t like how the blog is run, don’t follow it” is to silent crucial, educational and radical criticism and dissent.