Alright, real talk. For my first
post in this New Year, I’d like to talk about one of my icons; Jes Baker.
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| Photo source |
Who is Jes Baker? Possibly one of
the most badass women you could have ever hoped to stumble upon on the internet. She’s
runs a blog called The Militant Baker,
is a fat model (and yes, she wrote that herself), self-love enthusiast,
feminist and many other wonderful things.
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| Photo source |
Recently, she’s launched a book
called ‘Things No One Will Tell Fat Girls: A handbook for Unapologetic Living’.
Now, I downloaded this on my Kindle and I kid you not; I couldn’t stop reading
it. It was just so honest and unapologetic and most of all, inspirational! I
literally could not go through a chapter without some sort of revelation or
hearty agreement. The books was phenomenal and though it took me awhile to
finish (because sleep is important and lord knows I need more of it), when I
did I felt kind of changed.
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| Jack Green Photography |
The first thing that struck me
was how she referenced Sonya Renee Taylor, poet, social justice activist and
founder of ‘The Body is Not an Apology’ movement on how important ‘Body Love’
is to the health (mental, emotional and physical) of our whole world.
A shortened excerpt;
“The Body Is Not An Apology
fosters global, radical, unapologetic self-love which translate to radical human
love and action in service towards a more just, equitable, and compassionate
world…. We indeed believe in inherent ‘beauty’ of all humans but as Lindsay shared,
not from a lens that is about aesthetics but about inherent value and worth.”
I might have cut out a few things
somewhere in the middle but you get the gist of it. Reading this in Jes’s book
was just MIND BLOWING. I had to legitimately put my kindle down before I
accidentally threw it with all my flailing.
Learning to love your body is
hard. Sometimes on bad days, it seems downright impossible! But when we do,
little by little, it can affect not only ourselves and those close to us; but
it can affect the whole globe. Just imagine yourself rocking an outfit that was
deemed ‘ugly on fat people’ and posting those images online; confident in
yourself and your body in a way you’ve never dreamed of before. This could
spark a slew of positive changes in other people across the globe and like Jes
said in her book;
“A world that starts to invest in
body love has the capability to shift to a more equal, compassionate and kind
place”.
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| Liora K Photography |
Jes also goes on about reclaiming
the words used to hurt us. Like the world ‘Fat’. Fat is just an adjective to
describe someone who has a large amount of excess flesh. If you have a lot of excess
flesh, then you could be categorized as fat. But the thing is, fat is not all
you are and being fat does not cancel out all your other qualities. Like how
kind you are or how helpful; how you’re funny and smart and witty and sassy and
how you might know more than two languages or are good at math or sports or art
or a myriad of other things.
People are the ones who have somehow imbued so
much negative connotations with the word ‘fat’ that being called as such seems
like the end of the world. It’s not. So
you’re fat. No big deal. If you wanna slim down some, go ahead. If you’re happy
with how you are and it’s not affecting you negatively in a health sense than
go you! Because just thinking that the word ‘Fat’ can dehumanize and scare you
(and an entire generation, cause damn, the statistics looks shady asfck) is
just not on.
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