Tag Archives: monkeys

Beauty diversity and unlikely animal buddies.

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Well this video recently surfaced in my facebook feed (thanks Gina) and I woke up singing the song and thinking of these adorable animals.  It was much more pleasant than the mental tug of war that is finding a topic for a blog post today.  And then it hit me–do a blog post about adorable animals playing with their pals.  Win. Win.

So today, I’m going to talk about body diversity.  The super cool thing about this video is how all the animals are different.  The monkey can play with the dog without telling the dog to look more like a monkey.  The dog and the dolphin can swim together without the dog having to engage in a streamlining program or getting a blow hole cut in his noggin.  And the dolphin can swim with the dog without feeling any particular need to join “Crazy LEGS(TM) a new process to grow legs in just 8 weeks!”

And it really made me think about our current standard of beauty.  It made me think about how so much of our society is shaped around the notion that if we just looked like a movie star or a beauty queen or a male stripper, everything would be just peachy keen and wonderful.  This is so silly, and so sad and so very, very wrong.  It’s a Barbie world, where all the girls should look like Barbie–tall, tiny waist, large breasts, smooth and flowing blonde hair, tiny feet and all.  Never mind that many believe that Barbie’s proportions are not only unlikely but also perhaps impossible.  (Some suggest if Barbie were an actual women, she would be 5’9″ tall, have a 39″ bust, an 18″ waist, 33″ hips and a size 3 shoe.  She would have a BMI of about 16 and would likely not menstruate.)  Yet as we’ve heard before and will undoubtedly hear again, it’s a Barbie world.

But seriously, where’s the fun in that?  It would be pretty boring if we all looked the same.  And trying to turn dogs into dolphins or vice versa could be endlessly profitable (if anybody could convince them that this needed to happen) but doesn’t seem likely to meet with any success or lead to happier canines or aquatic mammals.

So here’s to our diversity.  Here’s to our beauty in all it’s differences.  And here’s to keeping our money to go out and have a whole lot of fun with our very best buds.

Love, Jeanette DePatie (AKA The Fat Chick)

P.S. Want me to come and speak to your school or church group or organization or business about body diversity?  Check out my speaking page here!

Thursday Theater: Even Monkeys Understand Fairness

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This video is wonderful for a few reasons. In the first place it is really funny. And in the second place, it reminds us that even monkeys understand about fairness.  When monkeys do equal work, monkeys expect equal pay.

Yet, in the world of humans, we have an ever growing disparity in worker pay. At my last full-time job, I was discouraged to learn that my immediate supervisor was earning nearly ten times my pay. And I was also earning less than half as much as the male producer in the office next door. Granted, my supervisor was higher on the totem pole than me, but ten TIMES higher? I don’t think so. And I have to admit, when I found out that others doing the same job as me were getting paid twice as much, well I started lobbing more than cucumbers out of my cage.

This is why I get so boiling mad when I see that fat people on average earn less than their thinner counterparts. Even when the fat person is performing the job as well or better than their thinner counterparts, the bigger person typically brings home a smaller paycheck. According to The National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, in 2004 obese men earned $4,772 less than thin men, and obese women earned an astonishing $8,666 less than thin women. That’s a lot of grapes, my friends.

This is one of the reasons I think it is so important to be aware of and fight against size discrimination. We’re talking not only about somebody calling us names and making mooing sounds when we are trying to work out in the gym.  (Although those things are truly horrible as well.) but also about our ability to make a living. $8,000 can easily mean the difference between being above or below the poverty line. $8,000 can pay for better health care or a college class or special job training. $8,000 could pay for a used car to get us to a better job.

Let’s continue to fight for the rights of people of all sizes to receive a fair wage. Let’s share the message far and wide that equal pay for equal work is just common sense. It’s a pretty simple idea. Heck, even a monkey can grasp it.

Love,
The Fat Chick