Fat shaming by PETA

[Guest guest]

This fat shaming billboard by PETA is disappointing, Mike. As you

indicated, the language is very hurtful. I think we can promote

vegetarianism without denigrating anybody. There is a lot of critical

discussion online about PETA's billboard. I've pasted a sampling below

(the first excerpt is particularly heartbreaking):

__________________________

http://womeasure.wordpress.com/2009/08/11/peta-attacks-fat-people-again/

 

" My family was visiting and i was planning on taking them to the beach

to enjoy the beautiful day when i saw the billboard that made me want to

cry. It says 'Save the Whales' with a picture of an over weight woman in

the foreground.

 

We all sat there and stared at it for a minute and everyone in the car

was silent. No one wanted to mention my weight. I laughed it off as

usual but it really had made me so embarrassed, so self conscious and so

ashamed about my weight that I dropped off my family at the ocean front

and left to go home making the excuse that I wasn’t feeling well. "

__________________________

http://veganideal.org/content/taking-sizeism-and-fatphobia-seriously

 

" The fatphobic insults of the PETA billboard campaign frame a vegetarian

diet in a very punitive manner that encourages shame and self-hatred.

Promoting vegetarianism as a form of dieting in order to look good in a

bikini is contrary to cultivating positive, long-lasting changes in the

way we meet our bodies' needs. Framing vegetarianism in sizeism and

fatphobia is both harmful and counterproductive. Instead, I believe we

need to encourage vegetarianism in a way that is anti-sizeist and body

positive.

 

In short, an anti-sizeist, body-positive approach refuses to devalue

people because of their weight, size or shape. It recognizes that

everybody is deserving of respect. "

__________________________

http://vegansagainstpeta.blogspot.com/2009/08/peta-to-world-whales-suck1111-and-\

women.html

 

" PETA's billboard is hurtful to ALL women and ALL fat people and ALL

people who have eating disorders or body dysmorphic disorder, regardless

of whether we're vegan, vegetarian or omnivorous.

 

Furthermore, what's with the ... speciesism, PETA? How is trivializing

the anti-whaling movement and appropriating it for your stupid

everybody-hating billboard going to help any, you know, actual whales? "

__________________________

http://www.womanist-musings.com/2009/08/peta-fat-shaming-and-consequences.html

http://contexts.org/socimages/2009/08/17/keepin-it-classy-peta-compares-fat-wome\

n-to-whales/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/17/petas-new-save-the-whales_n_261134.html

http://calorielab.com/news/2009/08/10/pet-save-the-whales-billboard-offends/

http://deceiver.com/2009/08/11/peta-takes-the-cake-with-save-the-whales-billboar\

d/

http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2009/08/women-still-less-important-than.h\

tml

__________________________

 

Victor

 

Mike wrote:

 

This billboard is untrue and offensive:

 

http://blog.peta.org/archives/2009/08/lose_the_blubbe.php

 

As a fat vegetarian and sometimes vegan, PETA just lost me. Given the

experiences of most fat people I know, associations between them and

elephants,

whales, and hippos quite literally counts as hate speech.

 

--

The Vegan Ideal: http://veganideal.org/

Veganism as Anti-Oppression: http://loveallbeings.org/