Monday, January 19, 2009

Figure Magazine - A Fat Girl Rave

One day last week I went to Lane Bryant on my lunch break, and I picked up (among other things), this copy of Figure Magazine:


I was skeptical, at first, because it is a women's magazine, after all, but I was very impressed at how fat-positive it is.

They use real fat women as models, instead of just "fat for modelling" women.


Even for the lingerie modelling!


And, look! A magazine targetting to women (fat women, no less) that contains actual recipes with real ingredients. Not low-fat, low-carb, calorie counting "lose-weight-ipes".


There were articles about diet and excercise, but the focus was on your health and not your weight. The tone of the articles was more "of course you're taking care of your physical health, so here are some things to help you with that" and less "since you don't move much at all, try parking farther away to lose weight". The article about how to pack light for a trip included information about your work out gear because, dur, of course you're bringing that!

In fact, the only issue I had with the magazine was the sections that assumed I was in a relationship with a man (or wanted a relationship with a man!).

I guess a fat femme can't have everything, but I really don't need to read about fat-positive heteronormative sex. I mean, that's nice and all, but kind of "Ew" at the same time.

Aside from that one thing, I really did enjoy this magazine. It had a bunch of things I was interested in without making me feel like I needed to hurry up and lose a bunch of weight so that I could fit into the clothing featured. It's already my size! I don't have to wonder if I'll really look that cute in that one outfit because the model is closer to my size so I have a better idea of what it would actually look like on me.

I felt like I could see myself in this magazine more so than I have any other one that I've read.

And that totally rocks!

2 comments:

Dawn Fortune said...

I've seen that magazine and my ex used to have a subscription to BBW magazine. Both are relatively positive if you're a femme-identified straight woman. Not so much for us big butch girls. We just get called "sir" in the grocery store.
Aside from that bit of bitterness, I have noticed that larger women are getting less grief these days, and even appearing as objects of desire in popular culture movies. Indeed, pre-surgery, pre-Weight-Watchers Queen Latifah was flat-out the sexiest thing about the musical movie "Chicago." And she still is fantastic, although I tire of the weight fluctuations. People come in all shapes and sizes. Ease up for cryin' out loud! All I need is for her to just once say to me "Gather 'round the good stuff, baby" and I am soooooooooooooo there. Mmmm-hmmm. Thank-you-may-I-have-another. Damn.
Is it warm in here?

dolphyngyrl said...

I totally feel for big butches (married to one!). At least fat women's clothes are made for.. you know.. fat women. Fat men's clothes are just not made to fit correctly on a woman, and nobody makes clothes designed for fat, masculine women.

And, yes, that totally sucks!