Fat Acceptance fractures along political lines
How “Fat Acceptance” plays second fiddle in Kate Harding & friends agenda!
Adherents to Fat Acceptance may have not voted for her, but Kate Harding is undoubtedly the undeniable leader of the movement. It is questionable if FA has any influence outside of the internet. But in the Fatosphere, Kate Harding’s blog has become the voice of record for Size Acceptance. By Techorati anointment, her highness Queen Kate, has demonstrated that all FA adherents should bow down to her monarchy. She is a potentate who is less than benevolent, and certainly is not open minded.
Kate Harding accepts all the hard core tenants of Fat Acceptance in fascist fashion.
- No diet talk allowed
- Weight loss surgery is an abomination
- Fat has nothing to do with disease
- The diet industry is behind “obesity epidemic” hype
- Doctors are biased against fat patients
- The media perpetuates myths against fat people
- Anorexia and Bulimia are the only real eating disorders
- All diets fail
- Eating healthy and exercising rarely result in weight loss
To Kate Harding, and those who parrot her ideas, these aren’t just beliefs, they are absolute religious axioms which SHALL NOT be disagreed with. Even the slightest difference in opinion or even the being perceived as being in disagreement, results in an IMMEDIATE thrashing! This eventually ends with the commenter being labeled as a “Troll”, then extradited from the Kate Harding’s presence. Of course it is her blog, and it is as popular as ever. Her arrogance and self importance has not run many away. Kate Harding’s message and behavior still have a lot of appeal.
Her blog’s online popularity rankings remain steady (not growing), while other Fat Acceptance blogs are slipping off into obscurity, as far as readership goes. Rachael’s “F-word” seems to be the only exception to this trend.
Kate is a FA advocate second and a liberal feminist first
Fat Acceptance isn’t where Kate’s blogging career began. Her original blogging was along the feminist and left wing political front. Kate is a college campus feminist, and a progressive/left winger. This isn’t a personal criticism of her politics. But, she whole heartedly inserts these beliefs into her FA blog in addition to her college campus speech codes. This dictatorial behavior has alienated those who would otherwise agree with her. Kate Harding is a Liberal and a Feminist FIRST before being a Fat Acceptance advocate. She has no compunction about alienating people for disagreeing with her politics or even violating her narrow use of PC language.
A small group of bloggers, who are a bit more open minded, have broken away from Kate Harding’s fold, and have been blogging on a slightly independent angle. A blogger named Big Liberty has begun an independent feed called “The Fat Liberation Feed”, which is a departure from the traditional “Notes from the Fatosphere Feed” which is loyal to Harding type FA bloggers. A quick note: RSS feeds are the way those topics from other similar blogs are displayed on the side columns of websites and blogs like this one. Big Liberty’s main difference with Kate seems to be a political one.
Libertarian bloggers chose to disagree with Kate Harding
Big Liberty is a Libertarian. Libertarians think that the government doesn’t have the right to meddle in people’s personal business, and the government should be as small as possible. This is a more intellectually honest stance for a Fat Acceptance blogger, so long as they don’t desire assistance government paid medical help and anti fat discrimination laws.
It remains to be seen if the “Fat Liberation” sect will start to peck away at Kate Harding’s following. Right now they occupy the remote fringe both in the number of blogs and readership. Certainly however there seems to be some resentment by some FA bloggers who are tired of being marginalized by someone who pretends to speak for all of Fat Acceptance.
Additionally Liberals in America are not exactly leaping at the chance to bring FA into its’ big tent. Many progressives view obesity as a challenge to implementing the goal of socialized medicine; while politically active greens view obesity as a manifestation of the over consumption that threatens the earth’s environment.
Admittedly, I read Kate’s blog on occasion and see the comments sections as very telling lately. I’ve noticed a distinct up tick in the thought policing and the language of the comments. Is the Shapely Prose really experiencing an up tick in the number of “trolls” or is it simply becoming more and more close minded?
The “fat liberation” blogs aren’t exactly free speech zones either but at least they do allow a disagreeing thought now and without obligatory censorship. Your not goint to convince anyone of your point but as long as you respectful they will at least listen, for a little while.
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