Fit Pride Isn’t ‘Hate Speech’

By Maria Kang -- accused of insulting "fat pride"

Will a “real woman” please stand up? In the age of Photoshop, plastic surgery and celebrity idolatry, it seems women are constantly debating what is considered a “real” woman. And, as I found out recently when I posted a picture of myself looking fit and healthy in workout clothes with my three sons (playfully asking the question “What’s your excuse?”), apparently I don’t count. My voice as an apparently nonreal woman counts so little, in fact, that Facebook recently banned me temporarily from the site — shutting down my account for almost three days for supposedly violating the site’s terms of service — after a number of users flagged a post of mine venting about the damaging culture of fat acceptance. After my post had garnered thousands of likes, comments and shares, these users apparently reported what I wrote as “hate speech.”

While I accept Facebook’s explanation that the post was pulled down automatically, as can happen when users flag content as offensive, it’s amazing to me that a company that hosts so much conversation and debate isn’t far more proactive about making sure that controversial views don’t get squelched on its network. It’s also amazing, frankly, that it took such a long time to get reinstated. Most disturbing, however, is that we now apparently live in a culture where other people deliberately try to — and feel entitled to — censor speech they dislike by labeling it hateful.

Have we really created a society so sensitive and weak that we cry “hate speech” whenever someone points out the fine line we’re walking as a nation by promoting a healthy body image above actual health? Has the growing movement promoting “fat acceptance” and even “fat pride” gone so far that now we need a countervailing movement promoting “fit pride”?

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