The "movement" towards size acceptance continues to gain momentum

Women of size, all around the world, are discovering what it is to be in control of their lives and to face out-of-date attitudes.  Taking control is definitely NOT "losing" control though. Self confidence combined with self-assurance and the knowing that we really do know what is best for us, can empower us to tread lightly but firmly on the path of total self and size acceptance.

 

For some, it's a daily struggle to maintain a "positive" attitude in a society that feeds upon blame and guilt associated with those who are deemed plus-size.   The media is blatantly discriminatory but will never admit to it.  Excuses abound and you and I are no longer persuaded to see their point of view.   

 

Here in Victoria, Australia, which is the only State so far to have introduced legislation against physical discrimination, there have been 365 cases of discrimination on the basis of physical features (including those based on a person's weight) in the past five years.  ("Woman's Day, April 19, 2010).    This does not, of course, take into account the many thousands of cases that never come out into the open.

It is not legal to be turned away from a job, told you are too fat to shop in a particular outlet, denied a promotion, knocked back from a club or bar or suffer humiliation because you don't measure up to someone else's ideal of what you should look like (Victorian Equal Opportunity Rights Commissioner) 


But that doesn't make sense because in real life, people ARE turned away from jobs, they are MADE to feel out of place in specific shopping outlets, they ARE denied promotions, they ARE subjected to humiliation - by innuendo, jokes or straight out verbal abuse  (and they're not being over-sensitive in claiming that it's because of their weight).  It happens too often and to too many for it to be simple imagination!


There is bias in our society, and it's about time that we were judged less and understood more.


The first step is up to us.   To discover our own worth and value; to live by and with those values; and to believe in ourselves.  Then it's up to others to accept us as we are.  If they can't or don't want to, then that is their problem, not ours, and even though it might be hard to do, we may have to turn away from those people (even if they are family or so-called friends) and find other ways and means of handling our lives.


We should never become puppets to a society that dislikes the plus-size so much.