When I was sixteen, a classmate of mine told me as I walked back to my school desk, “you walk like an awkward fat girl.” Unable to think of a more constructive critique of my being, she decided to roll with that one. This incident was more an exemplar of her lack of intelligence and creativity than it was my inability to walk in a straight line in accordance with the universe’s apparent expectations. However, I did not see this at the time, so her words stuck to me for years, like hubba bubba bubblegum underneath a table, which is partly why I still remember them today.
Fast-forward a few months and we miraculously graduate our Saturday Ukrainian school, thus ridding ourselves of each other’s presences for good. Jump another 6 months, and I am picking out a dress to walk in my high school’s prom fashion show in. In another half year, I found myself sticking a thousand booby pins to keep my graduation cap from blowing off as I walked across the stage in a late May windstorm. Roughly two years after that, I got to walk in College Fashion Week, presented by Her Campus Media. I guess you could say I did a lot of walking despite myself.
Most recently, I walked from Jackson Street to the Art Institute, then headed north on Michigan Avenue, passed the Trump Tower, and found my way back to the L to go home; I participated in the Women’s March on Chicago, one of the sister marches of the Women’s March on Washington.
The march was incredibly good spirited and had people of all ages cheering and chanting and walking in solidarity, along with lots of cute doggie allies; to quote Princess Leia’s flawless monosyllabic summation in the last scene of Rogue One, this is what the March meant to me: “hope”.
Unfortunately, not everyone’s reaction was on the same page as mine; specifically the plethora of politicians, journalists, and television personalities who questioned the legitimacy of the cause and criticized many aspects. For instance, there is State Senator Jack Sandlin who said in his social media post regarding the Women’s March: “In one day Trump got more fat women out walking than Michelle Obama did in eight years.” Many are finding this hilarious, applauding his ingenuity. As a young woman who feels very “been there, done that” with inappropriate, nonsensical fat jokes,
I believe there is an incredible difference between what it means to critique verses to criticize: To critique someone or something is to ask what are the limits of their framework and conceptual lens and then work on improvement. New work will address any old flaws, and the work that follows this will do the same. This is how humans can establish critical thinking and growth. To criticize is to give a big FU that may or may not have any real relevance or make any sense at all. It is not helpful and is used by those too unwilling and indolent to bother thinking beyond the nincompoop peanut gallery. It’s basically what the mean girl at Ukrainian school did to me – she criticized me and gave no intelligent input.
Besides opting to critique and not criticize, there is also the matter with how and why certain words hurt us so much; every human body contains fat. Fat is very important and nice to us. Why its connotation is so negative and how we can change this is something that interests me greatly.
Something that was incredibly prominent during all Women’s Marches was to knit and wear pussyhats. Inspired by Trump’s reckoning that female genitalia is something he has every right to grasp and the fact that he bragged about the power he obtains through this tactic, hundreds of thousands decided to take back the vulgar term and reintroduce it as something they have and are no longer ashamed of.
Female genitalia should not have a negative connotation and stigma attached to it, and neither should any part of a person’s body. And if someone thinks otherwise, then maybe trolling them is the way to go. So if I and other people truly walk like awkward fat girls, and through walking we have accomplished great things, then maybe the way we walk is not so bad. If wearing a pussyhat while walking like an awkward fat girl is how we can resist a government hell bent on refusing aid to healthcare funds to impoverished women and families in other countries and defunding care for Americans as well, then I totally walk like an awkward fat girl all the time, 24/7, with pride.