Reduced To A Single Adjective

Walking to counseling on Tuesday night sans headphones (so unfortunately I could hear the asinine things people say to each other in public) I came across a man getting out of his car who took the opportunity to make a disparaging comment about me. Sadly, though he may have meant it as a compliment of sorts (a perverse one), it pierced me, and I had to pray to keep from internalizing his words.

Hey Big Girl.

His tone was nonchalant but there was something in it, some layer of malignance I thought I detected. I did not acknowledge him, and he offered nothing further, but I realized, again, in that moment, that when you are fat, that is all you are as far as other people are concerned.

Thin people are given the benefit of the doubt in matters of intelligence, character, work ethic, relational/emotional intelligence, intellectual curiousity, cleanliness, sexual expression/sensuality, hygeine, culture, and overall health (physical and mental).

When a thin (unhealthily so or not) woman is in the landscape, it seems that the belief is that she must be valid, worthy, whatever. But this man felt that he could just comment on my weight, a visible, but private matter, and reduce me to the rudimentary category of "big girl" without a second thought.

What made him think he had the right? When does anyone have the right to make any comment to anyone else they don't know, about anything?

This man doesn't know the books I've read, the depth of feeling I possess, the kind of work I do, that I haven't always been this size (but what if i had??!!), the music I like, my religious preferences, or my political views. And they don't matter to him either, because he never gets beyond "big tits; fat ass." Fat girl. She should be lucky anyone says anything to her at all.

Honestly, it reminded me of the time a cab driver told me "[I] moved pretty fast for a chubby girl."

I felt embarrassed at the thought that someone might say something like that to me in front of Mr. Renaissance, or some other friend. All the things I am besides his quick and dirty evaluation of my size seemed to be eclipsed in that moment, and I struggled to see myself accurately for quite a while after that.