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For that amount of money and time, my fellow attendees and I were expecting to come away bursting with fresh inspiration and tools to turn our blogs into mini success stories in the vein of the Headmistresses own blogs. Recently, I attended the exclusive, two-day, $800 Blogcademy workshop in Melbourne, hosted by blogging extraordinaires Gala Darling, Shauna Haider of Nubby Twigletand Rock N Roll Bride Kat Williams, who have turned their almost unprecedented success as bloggers into an international business. Next time, I’d recommend they let their guests speak for themselves, and offer the same level of discretion and respect to all of them, no matter their size or the topic they’ll be discussing.This article was originally published on TheVine on 8th January, 2015. Meanwhile, Mamamia put out an “apology” that is nonetheless defensive about why Freedman did what she did, and doing the equivalent of “I’m sorry this bothered you,” rather than actually being apologetic about what was done. “Can she fit into the lift?” Shame on you Īs Gay puts it, this is all a “shit show.” It’s also frustrating that a purportedly feminist website and a self-proclaimed feminist fan of Gay’s work would get it so completely wrong and be so tone-deaf when it comes to fat women. The medical community has been offensive to fat people forever, with health professionals under and misdiagnosing them for actual medical conditions because they focus too much on “lose weight” as the catch-all solution for anything wrong with them. “Fat” is simply a descriptive word, “super morbidly obese” is a judgement about what fat means. Just because it’s the “official medical term” doesn’t make it inoffensive. Rather than following Gay’s lead about what she calls herself, Freedman decides that she knows better, choosing to use the “official medical term,” which to be honest, sounds way worse. In what universe would calling someone super morbidly obese better than just saying “fat.” For example, whereas she writes “I don’t want to say fat so I’m going to use the official medical term: super morbidly obese,” in the audio she says, “I don’t want to say fat, even though she uses the word fat about herself, so I’m going to use the official medical term: super morbidly obese.”Īnd there’s the main thrust of the problem right there. What’s interesting is that the written post leaves out some things that Freedman speaks in her audio intro. This written post is also the same intro that remains on the podcast.
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Sadly, the words Freedman used introducing and describing the interview were less-than-stellar. Gay talks about the experiences she describes in the book with candor and grace, and Freedman is very careful in her questioning, specifically talking about the fact that she understands the importance of words, and how easily the wrong ones can hurt. What’s sad is that the podcast interview itself is very good. Gay did the interview to promote her newest memoir, Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body, which according to The Daily Dot is about “the anxiety and humiliation that comes with existing in a world that deems you take up too much room, and won’t accommodate your experience.” Writer and “bad feminist,” Roxane Gay was being interviewed by Mia Freedman of the feminist Australian site Mamamia for their podcast. Usually, when interviewers are speaking directly with a well-known writer and activist whose latest book deals with issues of which that writer has first-hand experience, the interviewer’s best bet is to allow the writer to speak on the subject, giving them a platform rather than attempting to describe the experience themselves, or make the experience about themselves.