Life In The
Fat Underground
by Sara
Golda Bracha Fishman
From Radiance
Winter 1998
Southern Californians have
a reputation for going to extremes, and for getting there before
anyone else. It is no accident that Hollywood, purveyor to the world
(via cinema) of the thesis that only the slender deserve respect,
also produced its first radical antithesis: the Fat
Underground.
The Fat Underground was active in Los Angeles
throughout the decade of the 1970s. Feminist in perspective, it
asserted that American culture fears fat because it fears powerful
women, particularly their sensuality and their sexuality. The Fat
Underground employed slashing rhetoric: Doctors are the enemy.
Weight loss is genocide. Friends in the mainstream-sympathetic
academics and others in the early fat rights movement-urged them to
tone it down, but ultimately came to adopt much of the Fat
Underground's underlying logic as their own.
Members of the Fat Underground reunited recently
in Oakland, CA, at a Fat Feminest conference. Clockwise from upper
left: Sara Fishman, Ariana Manow, Sheri Fram, Judy Freespirit,
Gudrun Fonfa, Lynn McAfee
Precursors
Radical means "root." Radical liberation movements rarely
try to change discriminatory laws. Rather, they demand change at the
level of fundamental social values, which are seen as the root cause
of all human laws. These values not only shape legislation, they
also affect the way people view one another and treat one another in
day-to-day interactions. These values influence the individual's
self-image, fostering self-hating attitudes and self-defeating
behaviors in members of groups that society considers "inferior."
This insight was the driving force behind the Radical Therapy
movement, a major precursor to the Fat Underground. Radical Therapy
developed in the early 1970s as an in-your-face rebuke to the
mainstream mental health profession. Conventional psychotherapy
places the burden of change on the "maladjusted" individual; radical
therapists condemned this as a "blame-the-victim" approach. "Change
society, not ourselves," they urged. Practitioners of Radical
Therapy (or Radical Psychiatry, as some called it) prided themselves
on having no professional credentials. The "problem-solving groups"
wherein they conducted therapy were also training grounds for social
activism.
A major concept of Radical Therapy is that
oppression goes unchallenged if it is "mystified." That is, its true
nature is concealed. The oppressors do not say to the victims, "We
will torture you until you submit to our will." Rather, they say
(and often believe), "This treatment may seem painful or unfair, but
it is for your own good." An example would be the practice of
"protecting" women from sexual harassment by denying them access to
education or employment in predominantly male fields. The Fat
Underground viewed medical weight-loss treatments as a form of
mystified oppression.
The other major precursor to the Fat Underground was
the Fat Pride movement. This had begun in 1969 with the founding of
NAAFA, the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance. (In those
days it was called, more ambiguously, the National Association to
Aid Fat Americans.) Then, as now, NAAFA's goal was full social
equality and acceptance for fat people, within existing
society.
Among the fat pride literature available in the
early 1970s was the book Fat Power (Hawthorne Books, 1970) by
Llewellyn Louderback. This groundbreaking work documented the rise
of fat discrimination alongside the rise of the diet industry. Both
of these, Louderback argued, relied more upon prejudice than upon
medical truth or efficacy.
Prehistory
In
1972, a group of women from Los Angeles contacted the Berkeley,
California, Radical Psychiatry Center, asking to be trained as
radical therapists. Soon afterward, they formed a Radical Therapy
collective and began problem-solving groups for women in Los
Angeles. Among them were two founders of the Fat Underground, Judy
Freespirit and myself.
The theory of fat then taught by Berkeley's radical
psychiatrists followed that of mainstream America, with a touch of
rhetoric added for flavor: You're fat because you eat too much, and
you eat too much because you're oppressed. Presumably, anyone truly
living the life of a social revolutionary must be slim. By that
criterion, Judy and I lagged somewhat behind the other radical
therapists. No one criticized us for this openly. However, the issue
was destined to arise.
It arose on the occasion of an invitation to our
collective to speak about Radical Therapy at a local college. We
worked in pairs. But when Judy and I both volunteered for this
particular invitation, the collective balked. After a brief,
embarrassed silence, one member summoned up the courage to say what
was wrong: "You're both overweight." Unspoken, but understood by
all, was that to be represented only by fat women would damage our
group's credibility.
To their credit, the collective moved beyond this
fear and authorized us to go together to speak. We decided to use
the audience's anticipated negative reaction as the springboard for
discussing how sexist standards of beauty oppress women.
Feminist theory aside, the experience with the
collective was humiliating. I decided to try once again to lose
weight. A trip to the Hollywood Public Library yielded the usual
diet books, and also Fat Power. I found Louderback's history of
antifat attitudes interesting, but his medical and nutritional
claims stunning. Ultimately, they would become the core of the Fat
Underground's medical arguments, so I will summarize them
here.
First, fat people on the average eat no more than
slim people on the average. Second, the long-term success rate of
reducing diets, even the most "sensible," doctor-supervised
regimens, is extremely small: barely 1 or 2 percent. Third, fat
people who live in nonjudgmental environments are free from at least
one of the diseases (heart attack) most commonly associated with
being fat.
Louderback's book was written in a journalistic
style, without footnotes. However, citations within the text enabled
me to check out the sources, and indeed the sources backed up his
statements. Nor were his sources obscure research papers. No, they
were from public health documents summarizing years of published
research, accessible to anyone with a library card. Most important,
their findings resonated with the experience of one woman (myself)
who had dieted almost continuously since the age of twelve, and was
still fat.
Fat Power lacked a political analysis: Radical
Therapy provided one. The belief that fat people are just thin
people with bad eating habits now could be seen as part of a system
of mystified oppression. With Judy's encouragement, I presented this
Idea to the Radical Therapy Collective. The response was mixed, but
basically supportive. Judy and I contacted NAAFA and formed a
chapter in Los Angeles. We recruited about six active members, both
women and men.
From the start, our small NAAFA chapter took a
confrontational stance with regard to the health professions. We
accused them-doctors, psychologists, and public health officials-of
concealing and distorting the facts about fat that were contained in
their own professional research journals. In doing so, they betrayed
us and played into the hands of the multibillion dollar weight-loss
industry, which exploits fear of fat and contempt toward fat people
as a means to make more money. We asserted that most fat people are
fat because of biology, not eating behavior, and that the
"cure"-dieting-actually causes diseases, ranging from heart attack
to eating disorders. We rejected weight loss as a solution to fat
people's problems.
At first we relied upon the sources quoted in Fat
Power to support our attack on the medical profession. About a year
later, Lynn McAffee (Lynn Mabel-Lois), who had worked in a medical
library, joined our group. She taught us how to gain access to
medical libraries and to find information in the research journals
themselves. Thus we became able to quote primary sources and advance
scientific arguments in support of fat liberation. This won support
for fat liberation among some mainstream health
professionals.
In those days before the Internet, one important way
to spread a message was to gain the support of existing groups that
had access to the various media. Toward that end, we wrote position
papers and lobbied leftist and academic health organizations to
listen to us. Also, we contacted radio and television networks
ourselves. Being in Los Angeles, we had access to the national
television network offices and participated in several television
specials about fat and weight loss in the United States. These
experiences were always frustrating. The networks used doctors to
present medical facts about the dangers of being fat. We
"unrepentant fatties" were featured only for human interest. As soon
as we attempted to present our own medical facts, filming would stop
and the next guest would replace us on the recording
stage.
Our confrontational stance eventually drew the
attention of NAAFA's main office. Although some of the leadership
privately applauded us, officially we were told to tone down our
delivery, and also to be more circumspect about our feminist
Ideology, which most NAAFA members were not yet ready
for.
In response, we quit NAAFA. The name of our new
group, the Fat Underground, was suggested by Judy Freespirit; its
initials expressed our sentiments. We numbered one man (who soon
left) and four women. Judy and I wrote the Fat Liberation Manifesto
late in 1973. In it, we expressed the Fat Underground's alliance
with the radical left and our intention to battle the diet industry.
But as it turned out, we first had to battle a much more personal
enemy: our "spoiled" feminine Identity.
What, Me
Beautiful?
Early on a Sunday
morning, one member, Ariana, phoned the others, saying, "We must
meet, immediately! I have something to discuss." She had been
reading sociologist Erving Goffman on how people who are negatively
stereotyped develop personality traits and behaviors that enable
them to cope with their "spoiled Identities." We quickly assembled
in Ariana's little stucco house. There she put forth her questions:
Why do we not view one another as sexual beings? Why aren't we
sexually active? Why don't we even talk about sex? It was true. In
the sex-drenched environment of the 1970s, where sexy was a synonym
for good (as in "That's really sexy typing paper"), we still
fulfilled the stereotype of the "sexless fat girl": everyone's best
friend, no one's lover.
So we started to talk. I don't remember whether we
touched on any profound truths that day. I do remember that we made
some very good jokes. But bringing up the subject led to a thicket
of related issues, which we managed to expose to sunlight throughout
the next year.
Ariana had access to a cabin in a secluded mountain
forest, about an hour's drive from Los Angeles. There we went for
occasional weekend retreats. We sunbathed in the clearing in front
of the cabin. We talked or slept or read all day. We cooked the
meals that we had fantasized about while on diets and ate double and
triple portions, and then dessert, without shame.
The seclusion, the absence of men, and the abundance
of simple physical comfort brought into focus our shared habit of
seeing ourselves only "from the neck up." We'd all been told that we
had "a pretty face." We decided that from then on, we were also
beautiful from the neck down. But such a change required a new
aesthetic. We learned about the ancient goddess images, such as the
round little Venus of Willendorf, whose long, oval breasts draped
over a perfectly spherical belly. We talked about learning to belly
dance. We redefined flab in terms that could have come from the
biblical "Song of Songs." In Lynn's words, "Your belly is like
marble. Your arms are like the ocean." We replaced the Amazon
warriors of feminism with our own image of enormous, soft earth
mothers.
A Broader Base of
Support
By this time, Radical
Therapy had become an important force in the local radical feminist
community. The Radical Feminist Therapy Collective (RFTC) operated
out of the Women's Liberation Center. Judy and I were active in the
RFTC, and Fat Liberation benefited by association.
Around us had grown up a small group of fat women
who, although they did not feel bold enough to join the Fat
Underground, recognized that Fat Liberation had something valuable
to say to them, and they wanted to be connected with it. For them,
the RFTC started the Fat Women's Problem-Solving Group. The goals of
this group were to help members stop dieting and build
self-esteem.
In August 1974, the Los Angeles feminist community
held a celebration of Women's Equality Day, filling a local park
with placards and booths. Thousands of women milled about, enjoying
the sun, the crowds, and the atmosphere of sisterhood. The Fat
Underground had a booth there, among the scores of
others.
Several weeks earlier, the rock singer Cass Elliot,
of the Mamas and Papas, had died. She was only thirty-three years
old. Cass had become a star-an icon, even -to our generation,
despite being very fat. Predictably, the press vilified her memory:
a widely circulated report was that she had choked to death on a ham
sandwich. In fact, Cass had been dieting at the time of her death,
and we felt sure that her death was due to complications of the
dieting.
The Women's Equality Day celebration included an
open microphone and stage. When our turn came, members of the Fat
Underground, members of the Fat Women's Problem-Solving Group, and
some of our friends moved onto the stage. We carried candles and
wore black arm bands, in a symbolic funeral procession. Lynn spoke.
She began by describing the inspiration Cass Elliot had represented
to us, as a fat woman who had refused to hide her beauty. She ended
by accusing the medical establishment of murdering Cass, and
(because they promote weight loss despite its known dangers) of
committing genocide against fat women.
For the next few weeks, we were local heroines. The
Los Angeles feminist news paper Sister devoted a full page in its
next issue to Fat Liberation, with a photo of our Women's Equality
Day demonstration on the cover. Publicly, at least, local radical
feminists began to acknowledge fat women's oppression as a problem
they would have to take seriously.
Membership in the Fat Underground increased briefly
as new members joined; then, just as quickly, new and old members
dropped out. Ideology, personality, priorities, and cold feet all
played a role in the exodus. One founding member who left explained,
"It will take too long to change society's Ideas about fat, and I
want to put my efforts where I'll see success in my lifetime." She
joined other feminist groups and continues to promote Fat Liberation
from within these. In the fall of 1974, the Fat Underground once
again numbered only four members: Lynn, Gudrun Fonfa, Reanne Fagan,
and myself.
We continued to give workshops and to study medical
literature. We built coalitions with other feminist groups to plan
citywide activities and to make sure that fat women's concerns would
be acknowledged in them. The Radical Feminist Therapy Collective
formed a second fat women's Radical Therapy group.
Around 1975, we began a new type of activity:
harassing local weight-loss institutions. In a typical action, we
would attend a "free introductory lecture," pretending to be
shopping for a diet cure. But when the lecturer would ask for
questions, we would attack the program's medical theory and success
rate. Our goal was to shake the lecturer's confidence and turn away
customers.
Once, we disrupted a large behavior modification
seminar at a prestigious university. For this occasion, we enlisted
the help of all of our fat friends. As usual, a few of us sat in the
audience, ready to ask questions that would attack the validity of
behavior modification theory for weight loss. This was plan B, in
case the main event failed. But plan A went off perfectly. Right in
the middle of the program, Lynn led twenty supersize women onto the
stage. She pulled the microphone from the hands of the astonished
speaker and gave a one-minute speech of her own. Then, as quickly as
they had appeared, the women left. From the audience, I saw what
happened next. The moderator, her voice shaking at first, broke the
stunned silence with a joke: "Look how much exercise they got! They
walked all the way down the auditorium, and all the way up the stage
steps, and all the way back!" A high point of these years: In 1975,
Lynn Mabel-Lois was a featured speaker at a citywide women's rally
protesting crimes against women. She denounced weight-loss surgery
as mystified oppression. Procedures such as intestinal bypass and
jaw-wiring are considered healing rather than barbaric and dangerous
mutilations, Lynn argued, only because fat is seen as a women's
problem.
A low point of these years: In 1976, dozens of fat
women and friends picketed a major television network, because, in
our opinion, it misrepresented the Fat Underground in a news feature
on weight loss. However, this historical "first" went virtually
unnoticed. Despite heavy prepicket publicity to both mainstream and
alternative media, only one reporter covered the event. She was
there because she was a friend of ours.
The "New" Fat
Underground
In the summer of
1976, a major policy disagreement split the RFTC apart. The issue
involved was not directly related to Fat Liberation. However,
because the RFTC and the Fat Underground were so intertwined, the
split hit the Fat Underground hard. All of the core members except
Reanne soon moved out of state. As I am one of the ones who left, I
now rely upon the recollections of Sheri Fram, who was new to the
Fat Underground at the time, to complete the story.
By 1976, the Fat Underground had become recognized
locally as a legitimate voice in Women's Liberation. Feminist groups
now invited them to speak. An especially fruitful relationship with
the Women's Studies Program at California State University at Long
Beach led to the Fat Underground's being invited to testify before
the California State Board of Medical Quality Assurance on the
abuses involved in prescribing amphetamines for weight loss. The
confrontational style of previous years was dropped. However, the
sense of urgency continued as before. In Sheri's words, "Each event,
each possibility of being heard, felt like an opportunity we could
not afford to miss." Throughout the next few years, members came and
went. Sheri and Reanne remained the group's anchors, speaking
wherever they could. Meanwhile, news of Fat Women's Liberation
groups forming in other cities brought encouragement and support. A
network developed that eventually became today's size-acceptance
movement.
In June 1982, Reanne was diagnosed with breast
cancer. A year later, another tumor was found. She died in November
1983. The Fat Underground died with her.
While preparing this article, I asked several of the
surviving members of the Fat Underground, "What did we accomplish?"
Here are excerpts from their answers:
Judy Freespirit:
"In the beginning, people giggled when we talked about Fat
Liberation. Now . . . there are hundreds of thousands of fat
activists and allies all over the world."
Ariana: "We learned to reshape our minds
and lives, not our bodies, in the face of tremendous pressure to do
just the opposite."
Sheri Fram:
"We created a crack in the monolithic diet and weight-loss
industry, and started a slowly growing revolution."
Gudrun Fonfa: "By refuting the dogma of
the diet industry and rejecting the aesthetics of the patriarchal
culture, [we made] activists out of each individual fat woman who
liberated herself from a lifetime of humiliation."
Lynn Mabel-Lois: "We were audacious
enough to understand what a failure rate means, and to criticize the
medical profession. We expressed our rage and fought back." ©
SARA GOLDA BRACHA FISHMAN was a founder of the
Fat Underground in the early 1970s and distributed Fat Liberator
publications later in that decade. She has gone by several names,
including Aldebaran and Vivian F. Mayer. Sara now teaches and writes
about science and Jewish spirituality in Worcester,
Massachusetts.
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