Daisy in Chains(7)
‘I’m not getting anything,’ says Liz, after a few moments. ‘No record of her having a partner or a lodger. No, nothing.’
Pete is still looking at the house. The windows are blank and empty. ‘There’s someone else in there,’ he says. ‘I’m sure of it.’
Chapter 4
www.CommonplaceSexism.com
HOW FAT BECAME A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH
Posted 5 October 2014, by Beth Tweedy, regular contributor and self-confessed ‘bigger-than-average girl’
Zoe Sykes, Jessie Tout, Chloe Wood and Myrtle Reid were killed because they were fat. That is a fact.
Zoe, Jessie, Chloe and Myrtle were targeted on the strength of their dress size and then murdered. We still don’t know exactly how, but you can bet your life it wasn’t pleasant. Their bodies were dumped in wet, dark, underground places, from which they were never supposed to be recovered. Zoe’s still hasn’t been. This happened to these women because we’ve become a society in which body size is the last remaining bastion of prejudice. Because fatness has become so despised, we can tolerate the annihilation of it.
Hostility towards those who don’t conform to our body-image ideal has been growing steadily in the last couple of decades. Oh, I know, girls in plus-sized school tunics have always been catcalled in the street. Fatties, fat women in particular, have long been the (big) butt of comedians’ jokes, but in recent years, this fat-ism has taken a much darker turn.
We’ve seen larger women attacked in pubs and on the streets, by assailants of both sexes. Dental hygienist Tracey Keith, 22 stone, was left shaken and badly bruised by the verbal and physical attack launched upon her as she travelled home by train one night last June. Her offence? Taking up too much room on the seats. Many women tell similar tales. Fat women get refused entry into nightclubs, they’re abused in doctor’s surgeries, because, of course, their ailments have to be directly related to their body size and consequently their own fault. Fat people don’t get jobs, they don’t get interviews for jobs, they can’t even get cabs, half the time, as though their excess body weight might prove too much for the seat springs.
And all this is being condoned by those in authority.
It’s OK now, for influential bullies, like the vile Ron Carter writing for The Spectator, to talk about the ‘horribly fat woman’ in the Tesco queue, accompanied by her ‘wobbly kids’ and to joke about sending them all to starvation boot camp. When educated, intelligent opinion-formers talk in such ways, what hope is there for the jabbering Twitter underclass?
As a nation, we pride ourselves on being diverse. And yet there is almost zero tolerance of anyone of size. Women of my size and larger cannot walk the streets without being verbally or physically assaulted. The normal rules about behaviour, respect and common courtesy don’t apply to us.
And now the most fundamental of the Ten Commandments doesn’t seem to apply to us either. Hamish Wolfe swore to preserve life wherever possible but allowed himself to become so enraged by what he saw as the drain on the NHS by overweight people that he took matters into his own hands. Even those who outwardly condemn his actions are secretly relieved he didn’t kill anyone of worth. He chose to kill large, unattractive women, so that’s not so bad then. He may even have done us all a big favour, by reducing the financial demand on the NHS in future years. Think I’m exaggerating? Search Hamish + fat people on social media and see what you find.
By his actions, Wolfe has legitimized the ill treatment and abuse of people of size. He has set us back decades.
Hamish Wolfe will never come out of prison alive. But the threat to women roams our streets continually.
COMMENTS:
SuziePearShape writes . . .
I’m a larger than average but perfectly healthy woman and so far, today, I’ve been called Tubs, Nelly the Elephant and Fat Cow. It’s not even the middle of the afternoon. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been pushed, shoved, or abused by perfect strangers in the street, simply because of the way I look. In the queue at Asda, other shoppers look into my basket and sneer. A man asked me once if I was planning to eat it all myself. I have three kids, thanks very much, dickhead. You’re right, Beth, bigger women just don’t matter as much.
MellSouth writes . . .
A darker side of fat-shaming is to assume that fat women are easy. Because they look the way they do, they will sleep with anyone, they are grateful for the attention. They aren’t allowed to be particular, they have to take what they can get (and frequently do). Inappropriately touching a fat woman in a bar, grabbing her breasts or her bottom, will be viewed by all around as humorous. Either she was asking for it in the first place, or she should be grateful anyone wants to touch her at all. Fat women simply aren’t afforded the same protection by the law as their skinnier sisters.
GazboGoon writes . . .
Fat cows like you make me sick. Just stop eating so much and your problems will all vanish, daft bitch.
Jezzer writes . . .
Ever shagged a fat bird? Talk about fart and give us a clue. LOL.
‘Never read below the comments line.’
‘You’re right.’ Maggie closes the screen.
‘Do you think people buy this idea of the killings being a vendetta against fat women?’
‘No. Most of the stuff in the national press was a lot more sensible.’