I see your point - and I agree with it - but I also think that while many of the fat acceptance advocates end up reiterating what sounds like a "STICK IT" drum beat, most of them (I think) are really, underneath whatever anger and frustration they're venting, trying to get to just that point as well. (And if you made it through that and are still with me, I'm doing better than I thought!) I don't think they're saying anything different than what you are, but because of how "society" responds to what they say, they end up beating a different set of drums to try to head off the trolls.
I read Kate Harding, but also several others (The F-Word, Shakesville, Bitch PhD, and Sociological Images, among others) that deal either mainly with fat acceptance or with feminism in general (which tends to overlap sometimes) or (esp. Soc Images) with media-shaping of perception and the overriding message I get from all of those is that we're inundated with media about what's normal and it's all constructed and ideal and as far from normal as it comes. And, in my opinion, it's getting worse as we become even more plugged in, more connected all day (and night) every day to technology *designed* to keep us in contact with those messages. (The OMG11!!!1 version of this is the movies or shows where someone's drugged someone else to love them (or something) and as long as the drugged person hears the perpetrator's voice every so often, they stay under the influence.. See also the beginning of The Handmaid's Tale and compare that society just before it went 1984-ish to now.)
I've just started reading "The Body Project" which touches on this as well - the idea that women's bodies (so far mostly young women's, but I think she expands the scope farther on) became commercialized. It's rather sickeningly fascinating - so far she's discussed how menarche was taken out of the female-centered realm through the Victorian era and then firmly established as first a medical and then a commercial experience rather than something focused on the changes in one's body. I think that's happened to *everything* related to bodies - we talk less with our family and friends and rely more and more on what the media tells us is normal. Which starts to brush up against the idea of Television as God, a la Neil Gaiman's American Gods.. *spiral**spiral* *smile*
Sorry if this is a little long and meandery..
I read Kate Harding, but also several others (The F-Word, Shakesville, Bitch PhD, and Sociological Images, among others) that deal either mainly with fat acceptance or with feminism in general (which tends to overlap sometimes) or (esp. Soc Images) with media-shaping of perception and the overriding message I get from all of those is that we're inundated with media about what's normal and it's all constructed and ideal and as far from normal as it comes. And, in my opinion, it's getting worse as we become even more plugged in, more connected all day (and night) every day to technology *designed* to keep us in contact with those messages. (The OMG11!!!1 version of this is the movies or shows where someone's drugged someone else to love them (or something) and as long as the drugged person hears the perpetrator's voice every so often, they stay under the influence.. See also the beginning of The Handmaid's Tale and compare that society just before it went 1984-ish to now.)
I've just started reading "The Body Project" which touches on this as well - the idea that women's bodies (so far mostly young women's, but I think she expands the scope farther on) became commercialized. It's rather sickeningly fascinating - so far she's discussed how menarche was taken out of the female-centered realm through the Victorian era and then firmly established as first a medical and then a commercial experience rather than something focused on the changes in one's body. I think that's happened to *everything* related to bodies - we talk less with our family and friends and rely more and more on what the media tells us is normal. Which starts to brush up against the idea of Television as God, a la Neil Gaiman's American Gods.. *spiral**spiral* *smile*