Critical Resource Response #2: Serena

Serena Rahaman

Word Count: 474

In Roxanne Gay’s “Reaching for Catharsis: Getting Fat Right (or Wrong) and Diane Speechler’s Skinny, she talks about a girl who went to fat camp, and relied on reading Diane Speechlers “Skinny” to keep her sane. The three main points I want to argue in this essay is nobody should be able to make comments on a woman’s body, fat people are people too, and it is okay to love your body even if it doesn’t look like what society says is pretty.

For some reason, everyone seems to have an opinion on women’s bodies, and what they should look like. Some are “too fat” while others are “too skinny”. In this essay by Roxanne Gay, it is in the point of view of a young girl being forced by her parents to go to fat camp over the summer. Everyone in her family has opinions about what her body should look like. “I would come home for holiday breaks and my parents noticed a new roundness to my figure. They did not approve.” While she may realize she has gained some weight, it is very hard on young girls to receive negative connotations about their body. It then in turn affects their mental health and could lead to serious problems.

Just because you are labeled as fat, does not mean you are any less of a person. “Most important, though, the bigger I made my body, the safer I felt.” The young woman states she used her bigger body to hide from her imperfections and her bigger body made her feels safer. Just because she is bigger does not necessarily mean she is unhealthy, and people should not judge her or her body type.

Lastly, women are often taught that they should look like whatever is “in” in society at the moment. For example, in past years it was bad to have a “big butt”, but now society says small butts are “bad”. This in turn calls women to obsessive over their body, and even the little things that nobody notices. “Most of my friends are equally obsessive even though they are thin- hating themselves or specific parts of themselves: their arms, their thighs, their chins, their ankles.” This is explaining how no matter how beautiful you are, you will always see something that you think is not write based on what society tells us.

Women are expected to look a certain way according to society, and when they do not have the perfect hour glass figure, they feel bad about themselves. Even if they do have the perfect figure, they find something else that is “wrong” with their body. Overall, women and others in society today need to realize they should not comment on a woman’s body shape, fat people are people too, and you should love your body no matter what.