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Self-Love and Discrimination: we cannot simply love ourselves to no longer be discriminated against

Self-Love is an important key to avoid that all negative things will affect our life, but it doesn't offer protection against discrimination or insults

body shaming, self love, fat shaming

It’s a strong habit (of many) to judge the body of others. And it’s something that should be avoided. But when this happens, our friends or family (certainly with good intensions) prefers to transform the subject by focusing on the love we have for ourselves talking about the so-called Self-Love.

But as much as Self-Love is an important topic, we must separate fat phobia, body shaming and all those topics related to the vision that society and others have of non-conforming bodies from the conversation about Self-Love and the work that people can do about themselves and their body image.

body shaming, self love, fat shaming

Body Shaming and Self-Love: two important themes, but not interchangeable

When we talk about body shaming we are not talking about how we see ourselves or what is the idea of our body. We talk about how institutions and others see, judge and treat us. We talk about the cultural idea that affects society and everyone related to us, regardless of what we think about it.

Transforming a conversation that deals with these issues into one that focuses on our life path, only deflects the responsibility of their own role in supporting (or simply not fighting) all the ideas against people with different bodies (and the way they talk about it) and redirecting them into a less threatening conversation.

body shaming, self love, fat shaming

Love yourself is not the solution

We cannot simply love ourselves for no longer being discriminated against: Self-Love doesn’t offer protection against discrimination, insults or (physical or verbal) micro-violence.

Of course, Self-Love is an important key to avoid that all of this will affect our life, but it’s not the same thing to talk about the ubiquitous, explicit and institutional discrimination against those who have different bodies. And it is not the solution to all this for sure.

Imagine if someone will punch you in the face and then tell you that, if it happened, it’s because you don’t “love yourself”. This is what people that having a non-conforming body feel in a world that openly teases them about it and tells them to think about their self-love.

Would you be happy of that?

[inspired by tweets of Your Fat Friend]

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