Fat Liberation Manifesto (1973)

In november 1973 brachten dikke activisten Judy Freespirit en Aldebaran in naam van de Fat Underground het Fat Manifesto uit. Het manifest was een doorslaggevende oproep ter vereniging van dikke mensen onder een gemeenschappelijk doel en markeerde zo een keerpunt in de fat-liberation-beweging.

Naar aanleiding van discriminatie tegen zijn echtgenote richtte Bill Fabrey in 1969 in de VS de National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA) op. NAAFA is vooral gericht op sensibilisering en self-empowerment. De afdeling van San Fransisco, die bestond uit een groep lesbiennes en queer vrouwen, richtten echter hun pijlen op de vethaat in de wetenschappelijke gemeenschap. Dat verschil in focus zorgt ervoor dat ze zich in 1972 afsplitsen van de NAAFA en de Fat Underground oprichten. De radicalere subgroep streefde niet alleen naar aanvaarding van dikke mensen, maar naar het ontmantelen van de structurele onderdrukking, de discriminatie en de inherente fat phobia in de samenleving. Fat liberation, fat pride en fat power stonden daarbij centraal.

1. WE believe that fat people are fully entitled to human respect and recognition.

2. WE are angry at mistreatment by commercial and sexist interests. These have exploited our bodies as objects of ridicule, thereby creating an immensely profitable market selling the false promise of avoidance of, or relief from, that ridicule.

3. WE see our struggle as allied with the struggles of other oppressed groups against classism, racism, sexism, ageism, financial exploitation, imperialism and the like.

4. WE demand equal rights for fat people in all aspects of life, as promised in the Constitution of the United States. We demand equal access to goods and services in the public domain, and an end to discrimination against us in the areas of employment, education, public facilities and health services.

5. WE single out as our special enemies the so-called “reducing” industries. These include diet clubs, reducing salons, fat farms, diet doctors, diet books, diet foods and food supplements, surgical procedures, appetite suppressants, drugs and gadgetry such as wraps and “reducing machines”.
   WE demand that they take responsibility for their false claims, acknowledge that their products are harmful to the public health, and publish long-term studies proving any statistical efficacy of their products. We make this demand knowing that over 99% of all weight loss programs, when evaluated over a five-year period, fail utterly, and also knowing the extreme proven harmfulness of frequent large changes in weight.

6. WE repudiate the mystified “science” which falsely claims that we are unfit. It has both caused and upheld discrimination against us, in collusion with the financial interests of insurance companies, the fashion and garment industries, reducing industries, the food and drug industries, and the medical and psychiatric establishment.

7. WE refuse to be subjugated to the interests of our enemies. We fully intend to reclaim power over our bodies and our lives. We commit ourselves to pursue these goals together.

FAT PEOPLE OF THE WORLD, UNITE! YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE …

Oorspronkelijk uitgebracht door de Fat Underground, Los Angeles, California. Ook verschenen in Shadow on a Tightrope: Writings by Women on Fat Oppression, uitgegeven door Lisa Schoenfielder en Barb Wieser, Aunt Lute Books, 1983.