Diary of a Fat Girl

I can't speak for anyone but myself in this regard, so I'm not attempting to project my motivations onto you by offering mine. For me, I also identified with and wanted to have romances with male characters for the following reasons:

1. I wanted to be powerful and dominant because I so often felt powerless and at the mercy of others who tormented me for my body.

2. I wanted to be independent and indifferent because I so desperately wanted to be free of caring what others thought of me. The image of women is always linked to the way in which others appreciate and approve of them. The image of men is not. Ugly heroes and anti-heroes are still desired and admired.

3. I rejected (and still reject) my femininity. Because of my weight, I feel like a useless asexual blob. I could not identify with the idealized heroines and their slender beauty. I could never be them, so I could never see myself as them.

It's only now that I've lost some weight (but am still quite fat) that I've realized how hard it is for me to "be a girl". I feel like I'm a fraud in make-up, "girly shoes" or any clothes which aren't uni-sex. I'm trying to come to terms with this, but it's hard given how many years I've rejected portraying myself as overly female.

Faycin A Croud said: I identified with Luke too, and can relate to the wanting to smooch him lots. You and I are about the same age, so yeah--big teenage crush there. But I did want to be Leia, because she was probably the first really kick ass heroine that I ever saw. I was soooo sick and tired of the helpless girl needing rescuing, and this was a woman who was capable of participating in her own rescue. I was also a feminist pretty early on, although I didn't really identify as one until I was 16 or 17.

Really, if we perpetuate the myth that the only way to be powerful is to deliver a flying roundhouse kick to someone's jaw or to go after the enemy with a sword or a light sabre or whatever, isn't that the same as saying that, if you're not physically capable of achieving that goal (now, in the future, whenever) that you don't get to feel or be perceived as strong? Not quite fair when the herculean effort you had to exert to change a light bulb justly qualifies as heroic. Besides, there are all kinds of heroism and very few of them rely on physical prowess.(Rosa Parks springs to mind) You're strong in so many ways--don't those deserve equal credit? IMHO overweight people, women in particular, are robbed of so much of their personal power simply becaue they don't fit the cultural stereotype of what strength is supposed (sic) to look like. I'm not saying jettison your goals, but why deny the strength inherent in your body and soul as it stands right now?

Whoa, whoa, whoa, what the hell do you mean "if we" perpetuate the myth. Oh no you don't.
I'm not bearing the burden of whatever agenda you're speaking for.

Fairness?? How dare you undermine my dreams and goals because you think what I say here has something to do with society at large and I somehow owe it to the wheelchair bound (myself included) to celebrate step ladder climbing and be satisfied with whatever I can name as "strong" in my body as is. By the way I do that all the time. I deviate and you think you have to set me straight?
As you say, "really".

I DO CELEBRATE STEP LADDER CLIMBING!

I've been celebrating the little victories, since I started this blog, but especially when I lost the ability to walk unassisted in 2008.

If I declare for myself that a roundhouse kick is my benchmark of badassery that's mine. You don't get to touch that by suggesting I'm being unfair to myself.

And because I've been in the wheelchair, I can empathize with people in their various conditions of ability. If they want to celebrate whatever they wish to call a victory I will cheer and support them. See, I believe that THEY GET TO NAME what is or isn't victorious for them just as I'm doing here whether it's bulb changing or roundhouse kicking.

I'm not denying the strength that's in my body right now. I'm building on it.

I'm tired of the "right nowness" of this body. I'm moving on. Sorry if that makes you uncomfortable.

If it's a societal stereotype to say that strength equates with a strong body, that is unfortunate for those with differently abled bodies but I don't owe it to anyone to say I'm just fine the way I am and then stay this way.

I don't feel fine and I'm moving on.

You say you're not telling me to jettison my goals, you're just devaluing them by implying they're ablist and that I'm somehow shortchanging myself by wanting something different. I dare not say "better" because I might be sullying the diversity flag.

Did you really expect me to have a positive reaction to your comment??