Any JK Rowling fans see her new piece on body image?

[Chovexani]

Being thin. Probably not a subject that you ever expected to read about on this website, but my recent trip to London got me thinking...

It started in the car on the way to Leavesden film studios. I whiled away part of the journey reading a magazine that featured several glossy photographs of a very young woman who is either seriously ill or suffering from an eating disorder (which is, of course, the same thing); anyway, there is no other explanation for the shape of her body. She can talk about eating absolutely loads, being terribly busy and having the world's fastest metabolism until her tongue drops off (hooray! Another couple of ounces gone!), but her concave stomach, protruding ribs and stick-like arms tell a different story. This girl needs help, but, the world being what it is, they're sticking her on magazine covers instead. All this passed through my mind as I read the interview, then I threw the horrible thing aside.

But blow me down if the subject of girls and thinness didn't crop up shortly after I got out of the car. I was talking to one of the actors and, somehow or other, we got onto the subject of a girl he knows (not any of the Potter actresses – somebody from his life beyond the films) who had been dubbed 'fat' by certain charming classmates. (Could they possibly be jealous that she knows the boy in question? Surely not!)

'But,' said the actor, in honest perplexity, 'she is really not fat.'

'"Fat" is usually the first insult a girl throws at another girl when she wants to hurt her,' I said; I could remember it happening when I was at school, and witnessing it among the teenagers I used to teach. Nevertheless, I could see that to him, a well-adjusted male, it was utterly bizarre behaviour, like yelling 'thicko!' at Stephen Hawking.

http://www.jkrowling.com/textonly/en/extrastuff_view.cfm?id=22

Great essay. Makes me love her even more. :loveya:

[Katherine Brengle]

1. And the number 2 insult is...

calling another girl "flat chested" -- even if she isn't.

And the sick thing is, if someone says it to you, whether it is true or not, it hurts. Why the fuck should it hurt???

I hate life sometimes...

[Chovexani]

2. Sad isn't it?

I'm 24 and the flat-chested thing still hurts. I know it shouldn't matter to me, but years of indoctrination are hard to counteract.

[mzteris]

3. Here's a couple of my come-backs

to any (adult) males who use that. (Well - used to. I'm getting a bit long in the tooth for anyone to CARE whether I'm flat or not. Not that I am so much anymore, but now what little I have sags... oops - probably too much information, eh? :rofl:)

My FIRST husband used to tease me unmercifully (one of the reasons he's an EX) - and he used to do it in front of his Navy buddies. One night at a party he made a crack about how flat I was, and I looked up and said, "Well, you ARE the only one who's ever complained about it." He NEVER made another comment like that again.

I also used this line a couple of times: "Well, at least *my* lack of equipment doesn't impair my ability to perform!"

That usually shut 'ems up.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

4. Love those comebacks!

:yourock:

[Chovexani]

5. Hee!

Those are awesome! :rofl: