Hello to BFBers!

Cat just dropped me a line to let me know that she told the good folks from Big Fat Blog that I’ll be blogging all about Fat this year; lo’ and behold, they’ve posted about my little shtick.

I suppose this is as good a time as any to plug my campaign this year: I’m blogging to raise money for NOLOSE. For the duration of the event, every single post will be devoted in some way to fatness, whether recalling bits of the fat liberation movement, sharing fat news or ruminating on fat culture.

I’ve been involved in Fat Lib only a short time, but I’ve fallen in love with this very important movement in that time. At the end of my sophomore year in college, I heard Carrie Hemenway of the Council on Size and Weight Discrimination (who also works in our Career Development Office) talk about her experiences with the CSWD and the fat activism movement. I was inspired, and when my junior year of college began, Colleen and I, along with our friend Mary, founded Size Matters, Smith’s anti-sizeism org. The group opened up a whole new world of opportunities for me, but it wasn’t until my Body in Society class last semester when I really got into fat lib history; I ended up writing a 25 page paper on the subject, getting to read lots of amazing writing like Shadow on a Tightrope and Revolting Bodies and Bodies out of Bounds. One of the other great results of my work with the paper was that I got to touch on the fat conference, which led me to NOLOSE.

I’ll sum up my experience at the conference in another post, but for now let me say that it was easily the most fat-empowering space I’ve ever been in. The normal range of the conference cost is $210-$275; a scholarship allowed me to go for $60, and without it I wouldn’t have been able to attend. I’d love to be able to raise enough for a regular registration - $210 - but any amount will help low-income fatties attend.

Have a few dollars to spare? Please consider sponsoring me. I’m sure to cook up some swanky thank-you’s for my sponsors as the event nears, and you’ll have the warm fuzzies that come from knowing you’ve contributed to the flourishing of the fat lib movement.