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Marta's avatar

This resonated with me so, so much. I worked at a plus-size boutique a few years ago. The awful things people say to themselves! The awful things people say to those they supposedly love! That was hands-down the worst part of the job. There was a man who would come in, either on his own or with his wife. If she was with him, he’d pick out clothes, she would try them on and he’d decide what to buy if he liked the way it looked. He explained this process to my colleague, I’m not inferring. The vibe was decidedly controlling, and I couldn’t serve them because it made me so angry.

“When we dress how we want and signal that we want to move through the world as we want, we signal that we feel we are deserving of an autonomy that the rest of the world feels that we haven’t earned. And that threatens the idea that autonomy is something to be earned at all.” Yes!!!

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Allison McCue's avatar

Thank you for this. My youngest daughter is seven and our doctor has mentioned her BMI is too high and warned us to make serious changes for the sake of her health. She is happy and confident in her body and has always been very independent with her fashion sense. Yes, her clothes are larger than her peers, but she feels good and takes pride in how she looks. I love and envy that, I don't want that to change. I feel like if she starts dieting now, I'm setting her up for a lifetime of worrying over her weight.

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