quote:Tom complains that his future employment is affected by his weight. Mrs. M says that people rarely saw how competent and how smart she was because they saw her as pretty and as a sexual object, and that affected her work experiences.
I'm not sure Tom has actually voiced such a complaint, but it he has the statistics don't support the claim. The employment bias against fat people, is only valid for white women. Studies show that there is no such bias for men. Interestingly, it is short men who are discriminated against both socially and in the work place not fat men.
He DID voice this point, more than once I believe, I just think it was in the "fat rights' thread, which aspawned this conversation.
BTW< I am 5' 6" - 5'7", and I know about the short man stuff myself. I am not always the shortest guy in the room,but ore often than not I am. Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
What luck Kwea! I've just been purusing the web on discrimination against short men and it turns out that the really serious discrimination is against men who are under 5' 5". Just imagine how bad it would be if you were 2 inches shorter.
We're spoiled because we have a computer? I'd prefer to say that we're fortunate to have such a vital tool available to us.
Posts: 1480 | Registered: Dec 2004
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quote:At least in the sense that you could have it so much worse.
Of course we could all have it worse. That's a given - and it's true for anyone walking around in the world, regardless of where they live. Something can always be worse.
That doesn't mean that people don't suffer pain. Just because I have what most of the world would consider fabulous wealth doesn't mean I can't experience enormours tragedy and personal pain. Whether he meant it to be that way or not (and I suspect not) Bob calling me spoiled is offensive and hurtful.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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Human and Belle, I think you two should go re-read my post, especially the last bit.
If you truly think I said that people ARE spoiled, then I can't help you.
But really, I find it completely unsupportable that you would come away from that post thinking that I called people spoiled.
Read especially the the last line.
Okay? Quit it!
and really, the take home point from my post was intended to be that we are fortunate because we live in a place where WHEN WE CHOOSE TO, rising above the problems caused by others around us actually works much of the time.
I would never belittle anyone's suffering. Nor would I lump all suffering into one category and say it's all equal. For stuff like what's been discussed in these threads, what matters often is the person's perception of it -- their approach to it.
There are LOTS of problems where personal mental approach is kind of a secondary thing (at best). But the kinds of problems that are the result of other people putting us down or not giving us enough consideration are truly handle-able in this country and time better than in any place or time in history.
We are fortunate.
That is all I was saying. I think I was pretty clear. Clearly no offense was intended. And if there was even an implication of us being spoiled it was CERTAINLY qualified by the notion of what is really meant by that -- i.e., fortunate. But I'm pretty sure my usage was correct in implying that I DID NOT think of it as a problem with being spoiled...
Man, this place has gone beyond frustrating lately.
NOTE: The only reason I even used the word "spoiled" in that post is that Tom referenced it earlier and it sort of gets at the same issue. I didn't want Tom (and others) to think I was ignoring what had already been said.
quote:It isn't even close to being as hard as what I go through daily. Period.
And I'm speaking here as someone whose wife is very thin, so thin that people have assumed her entire life that she has an eating disorder, that she's practically unable to find clothes anywhere -- especially now that they've actually made Size 0 (for women) bigger to accomodate expanding waistlines. I'm not exactly unfamiliar with the "thin" experience.
I'm saying -- and I'm saying this completely unapologetically -- that thin people, even very thin people, have it far easier than fat people, and especially very fat people.
First Tom, You have yet to give one concrete example of what you go through daily as a fat person that is so far worse than what others here have gone through. Please, explain.
Second, You have a point. If I had to choose between being very thin and very fat, I would choose very thin. Morbidly obese people do have it worse than very thin people. But if I had that choice, I'd probably also have the choice of being normal weight, which is far preferrable to either extreme.
The fact that the stigma against being fat is worse than the stigma against being thin is more or less irrelevant.
If I had to choose between loosing my right hand or my left hand, I definitely choose to keep my right hand. Loosing my right hand would be far worse for me as a right handed individual than loosing my left hand. But that doesn't mean that loosing my left hand would be a trivial problem. If I had lost my left hand, I think I'd have a pretty good understanding of what people go through who had lost their left hand. And I think I'd be just in taking umbridge with any one who said 'You're just whining. It would be so much worse if you lost your right hand. Most people would be grateful to be in your shoes'.
And in essense, that is what you have been saying to me and Mrs. M. There is a lot more that is similar about being ridiculed for be thin, buxom, or fat than there is different.
Yeah your right, fat people have it worse than thin people. But that doesn't mean that the stigma I carried as an excessively thin person wasn't real. It doesn't make me an ingrate who doesn't appreciate the advantages of my body type. Maybe what stigma you carry as a fat man is really worse the one I carry as a thin woman, but that doesn't give you the right to say mine isn't real.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: What luck Kwea! I've just been purusing the web on discrimination against short men and it turns out that the really serious discrimination is against men who are under 5' 5". Just imagine how bad it would be if you were 2 inches shorter.
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