I'm not what anyone would consider fat but let me tell you, the amount of ridicule I've had to put up with. I've had some of my larger friends (healthy though) tell me that they hate going out with me because I make them look fat. People used to come up to me to ask me if I was some genius kid when I was at uni because I was so small. Family friends ask me if I'm looking after myself properly, doctors try to get me to admit I have an eating disorder.

Even better - some guy once dumped me, claiming I was too short, and then started seeing someone else maybe an inch taller. Ugh.

I don't dispute that people who aren't stick-thin get it rough in the humiliation department, but it's not all roses on the other side either.

People do say bad things about skinny people - you'd be surprised how many people find it highly unappealing.

Genetics sure can be a real bitch.

Ms. Kane makes many , many uninformed statements here, and includes some outright LIES.

Read Velvet's response at her group (Candy Kane doesn't allow anyone to comment on her blog who isn't in lock step with her disinfo)

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Velvet_Vixen/message/2215

hello velvet fan, I am sorry you are taking my blog as an assault on velvet. I think shes beautiful and I am also a fan. I just think Jean Paul Gaultier should start a large sized line for women and until he does, I dont buy his token use of one large model even if she is awesome. Please point out where my blog has outright lies. Obviously I do allow people to comment on my blog who disagree with me, HERE YOU ARE.
candye kane

Hi. Great points, Ms. Kane, and very important ones. Extreme is still extreme, and Gaultier sure made sure we knew he was joking.

Here's another take on Gaultier's failure to follow through on normalizing bodies instead of continuing to exaggerate the fringe:

Thanks for your comments!

It makes me sad to see that a lot of times, self-assertion ends up being negative on the people who happen to fit the stereotype one is fighting against. I applaud your standing up for yourself and others being made to feel overweight and underappreciated--but please try to understand that the thin models you describe as "anorexic" may also have suffered a lot from "sizist discrimination", and that quite a lot of them are not even anorexic, just naturally thin. It seems that a lot of times, this turns into an "us versus them" discourse that forgets the flesh-and-blood humanity, diversity, and vulnerability of the people on both sides of the weight divide.

Personally, I've grown up in Italy with a huge complex about being too thin. I was persuaded that no one would ever love me and cried my eyes out on a regular basis for years because practically everyone I met asked if I was eating enough (I was--sometimes even forcing myself to binge in the hopes of gaining weight), and people would tell me that "men are not dogs--they don't like bones". And by the way--I have no genetic disorder, and was not even ultra-skinny--just your average kid a little on the thin side growing up.

Now that I have finally started appreciating my lean body--in spite of my family's continued begging that I eat more than I want or need just to gain more weight--I'm somewhat taken aback to find that I can be lumped together with the "establishment" and some sort of cultural norm that just happens to coincide with my natural shape and size.

It's very ironic: during my entire youth, I felt persecuted bc being thin was considered ugly and abnormal--and now, I again find myself to be a part of a much decried minority, but for entirely different reasons. Which makes me think--there must be a way for us all to resolve our body-image issues that does not happen at the other's expense.

Perhaps, a good starting point would be for women to not put so much of their personal self-worth in their image and weight. After all, we have supposedly ceased to be objects for male consumption a while ago--so why do we so desperately persist at letting our bodies define us?? Why are there no debates about anorexic male models--or BBM mouvements?

I think the real culprit here is a confidence-eroding psychological conditioning of young women to base their self-worth on what "men" and "society" happen to think of their bodies. And this makes the thin ones, the big ones, and everyone in between feel imperfect and dependent. (I put men and society in quotation marks because actually, there are all sorts of men out there, who like all sorts of women--and society is actually us, all of us, plus all the defensive stereotypes that stand in the way of mutual understanding.)

The real issue is not fashion and haute couture--which most people dont even care about. It's how women define their self-worth, and how much of it is still based on their exterior.

And by the way, to return to the ultra-thin models you mention--almost nobody in the general population, in Italy OR the States, seems to find their bodies beautiful. A lot of the models themselves say that the designers use them as "human coat-hangers", which isn't exactly flattering...so please: don't demonize them just because they happen to be in the spotlight and fit the ideal of the moment. I'm sure a lot of them have also struggled immensely with their own body issues, and it serves no one's interest to make others feel "unnatural" and abnormal. The current culture's overriding obsession with the female exterior in general is the real problem for everyone.

Jenny, thank you sooo much for this eloquent and intelligent comment to my blog. I really appreciated your comments and yes, I know that ultra thin women can also experience a certain amount of discrimination. BUT the irrefutable fact is that thin is "in" and far more acceptable than being fat. It is also much easier to disguise! If you are ultra thin, you can wear extra clothing and hide it but if you are fat, its very hard to hide.

Being thin is culturally acceptable and prominent in all forms of media and thats what this blog was about. The absence of large women in the fashion and media industries is astonishing. Since this blog was first published, hundreds and thousands of thin women have been profiled and photographed in television, film and print media on a daily basis, and you can count the fat women on one hand. This is the real issue.

When 75% of american women are overweight but are made to feel invisible, that is a real problem. This isnt about male consumption, although that has certainly contributed to body image problems. This is about inclusion of all body types.

This problem also exists for other minorities who are under represented in media in the united states. There are hundreds of television shows and movies out each month in the USA and only a handful feature an african american, latino american, asian american or fat american as a positive role model. Even italian americans are relegated to shows like the stereotypical Mafia series, The Sopranos. People come in all shapes and sizes and ethnicities. These differences should be celebrated!!

I sympathize deeply with your struggle to accept your own thin body. I am sure it hepled somewhat to be able to open any fashion magazine or turn on any television show and see hundreds of beautiful women with your same body type. Though we may be united in our struggle for self acceptance, for large size women, it is much more difficult to locate a role model or even a photo of a big woman being beautiful and comfortable in her own skin.

Until this is the rule and not the exception, big women will continue to feel invisible in a culture that portrays us only as the butt of jokes, the funny sidekick, or in the case of Jean Paul Gautiers use of Velvet D' Amour, the occasional token big girl model.

In reply to Snarkattack and Jenny, i totally agree! i have also cried many times because i felt as if not would liek me. because i was so tall and thin. i hate it! ive tried sooo many times to stuff myself in hopes of gaining weight. ima utlra skinny. i weight about 95? and im 5'7. I've had manyy negative comments. And to read so many articles about hatred towards skinny women in defense to "fat" women upsets me. Not only because they make it sound as if it is sooo easy to be skinny but because everyone assume, if your skinny, your sick. I dont understand why. For me its genetics and i dont have ne problems, i got to the doctor for check ups adn she says im fine. So i hate it when people make it sound as if skinny people have it easy. its not. We have to put up with as much redicule as a 'fatter' women.

hello #7, Nowhere in this blog does it advocate hatred of anyone because they are skinny, The blog was about tokenism and how I felt that Velvet D' Amour was a token because she was used by Jean Paul Gautier to make a point. As for you being thin and people thinking you are sick, what does the insurance industry say? Can you get insurance at your size? Because the insurance agencies in California call anyone over 200 pounds "Morbidly obese" and deny us insurance. It doesnt matter whether I have low blood pressure and ride my bike three miles daily, it only matters that I weigh over 200 lbs. As far as I know, no one is being denied insurance for being thin. This is one more illustration of how thin people are favored over large sized people. YES it hurts to be different but it is even worse when being different also means being invisible. Thin people are everywhere and thin is in. Just turn on your tv or open a fashion magazine.

I think its pretty funny that a woman is considered 'making a statement' by appearing in her lingerie and not being underweight clinically. Wow, what a revolutionary! So if you encourage the stereotype that a woman is only valueable in a sexual context but you aren't focusing your entire life upon appearing sexy to the modern fashion rent-a-cops..wow...she's such a trailblazer!! Why do the culturally rejected pander to the facist culture laws that insult everyone the minute they get the chance? Fashion is about elitism and a promotion of the leisure class lifestyle.

Zoolander is a great movie which dissects the hollow and self-congradulatory nature of fashion. It bums me out that so many gay designers fail to see how sexist/classist they are with their advertisements. They don't just sell anorexia, they sell the lifestyle of the pampered who are only pampered at the expense of an underpaid working class. The heirs of the robber-barons of the early 2Oth century lay about on yachts and wear Polo, attend prep schools, and live lives of leisure while the heirs of the workers of those same robber-barons -the majority of the US population- struggle financially to be "really living" by being consumerist shoppers. The intention is to exploit the "american dream";that if you work hard enough, you can have a life where you shop all day and are completely vain. The implication is that if you aren't wealthy, tan, thin, -devoting all of your time to YOURSELF, to making yourself appear beautiful because you don't have to do anything BUT work on your appearance- the implication within all of this fashion lookism- is that you are LAZY and you aren't TRYING hard enogh.
Designers are not radicals- they play the little dog and pony show-if they made real statements they wouldn't be applauded by the magazines. Magazines and tv shows are here to sell advertisements.One of my best friends is a gay American man and he loves to discuss how superficial, class-driven, apperance driven,and vain the gay (male) community can be and how ironic this is considering the amount of cultural bias gay men deal with as well. It makes me sad to see my generation of women be female chauvinist pigs who believe that their body is the canvas upon which to brand someone elses marketing stchick - to sell crapola to 15 year old girls. Modeling only exists to sell zit cream to teenagers between fake articles written by anti-intellectual propogandists pretending that fashion isn't materialistic- that buying clothing made by slave workers isn't trivial-because of course it is and the fashion INDUSTRY at base knows that.
I love clothing and sewing and respect tailors etc.I just can easily tell that these designers are made by magazines that think that the feminist movement which fought against status quo ideas in the face of ridicule to bring them the right to be independent- so they could be 'cosmogirls'??? I don't buy it,and the reality is that these magazines are RICH and POWERFUL...any message which dissents from their profiting from promoting women to embrace a frivolous, self-centered lifestyle wearing clothing which pollutes and persecutes, makeup which puts chemicals into your skin and water...etc etc-any message which is not- buy buy buy-me me me- be a stereotypical woman who's only concern is her image,shoe shopping,and not deviating from this trumped up 'modern career woman' a la sex in the city- they consider treasonous, and they shut out. Because - they profit from encouraging a public that doesn't care about politics,doesn't question the woman-directed marketing, and is worried about their own bodies at the expense of the real problems of the entire world.
Sex in the city for example completely nauseates me- this false idea of a 'normal' woman-she is always white, slim, RICH, and concerned with her own ego primarily. So the 'liberated cosmowoman' is trapped in a box,only free to have sex but not free to talk about materialsm,not free to make fun of the pretentiousness of modern art and clothing, and is sooo cool between the advertisements for nair. Nair- whose new commercials are "get touchable legs". Touchable! What a word...if you don't sit around dolling yourself up all day you really are an..."untouchable",
like a heavy model- for everyone knows that statistically heavy women are more likely to be poor. Why? Many reasons, but the book "Fat is a feminist issue' discusses that in fact weight is associated with being "low class".... nutrition and health are linked with pay.... and not to mention the fact that a person who works two jobs has less time to cook; I can attest to this personally. But that is crap- no one is untouchable- no one is'unfit' to wear freaking clothing.
At any rate it is obvious that our culture hates the poor and any challenge to the power structure which tries to brainwash the mainstream into believing that everything is working out splendidly. Make fun of fashion!!! You can't do that! There's a million art forms out there which get one millionth of the recognition that designers do who generally regurgitate a 'let them eat cake' attitude and glorify a Louis XIV lifestyle- glorify murderous kings and queens- make art for only the wealthy, the same kings who in generations previously put homosexuals to death and raped their servants.Lets all buy fake LouisVuitton bags, carry Bischon Frises, and pretend that we're not ashamed that one of our friends has more money than us. Because that's "who we are".

Notorious Liz is my hero.