Blog
Interviews Diamand Dave, Peggy Howell
June 17, 2011
Well over a month ago I published two new interviews, one with Fat Admirer Diamand Dave, and the other with Public Relations Director for NAAFA miss Peggy Howell. I didn’t update the blog to announce these interviews. I’m doing this now via this post, in case you missed them when I announced them on Facebook.
The interviews are part of the reopened Fat (In-)Activism volume that now also includes some additional content. You can start reading it – and the interviews from this page: http://www.bbwshrine.com/shrine/volume-iv-fat-in-activism/.
Interview With Renata Boes
March 18, 2011
Renata Boes (left) and Gissella Arends (right).
Today I am adding a new interview, this time with Renata Boes, a BBW photo model from the Netherlands. It’s a two-part interview; In the first part Renata talks about her life as a bigger girl, and in the second part she talks about her participation in the Dutch BBW contest ‘Miss Maxi Nederland 2011′ (translated: Miss Maxi Netherlands 2011).
Read the interview here.
Sanctuarie Designs and Bagoes Mode
December 17, 2010
I’ve added two new clothing stores to the BBW Clothing Stores Locator:
- Sanctuarie Designs (American)
- Bagoes Mode (Dutch)
Thanks to Karen McNally for sending in the Sanctuarie Design link.
If you have any links that you wish to share, please send them to me. I may then add them so that other people can benefit from them.
Interview for Just As Beautiful Magazine
October 11, 2010
About six months ago I was approached by UK Plus-size magazine Just As Beautiful for an interview with them about BBW Shrine. Several months later, when the issue finally was published, the interview was not included.
When I emailed them about the reason for this, I was told that “There have been a number of staff changes in the editorial department of Just As Beautiful magazine which has affected a number of stories, yours being one of them” and “it is something that happens in publishing” and that “Some stories get dropped at the last minute – often to be used at a later date”.
Well, ‘Just As Beautiful magazine’, I happen to have worked in the publishing business myself and I have never heard an excuse like that! To add insult to injury, if you could have at least notified me of this, that would’ve made a world of difference.
So when I replied on that asking if I could receive the interview because I no longer had a copy of it myself (I thought), I didn’t hear back from them anymore. I guess I finally ticked them off.
And then, one day, I found the interview was still sitting on my hard drive, in a backup folder. So, here is the interview with Just As Beautiful magazine, because I don’t like spending half a day on answering questions for an interview which supposedly is published at a ‘later date’, if at all.
I don’t really have a section for this on BBW Shrine (yet), so I will just post it here in full.
The Interview
Here’s the full interview with Jus As Beautiful magazine.
Why did you start the task of campaigning?
I have always believed a woman’s beauty is defined by her uniqueness; She can be fat, skinny, or anywhere in between, but she is beautiful regardless of her size.
But today, beauty is defined mostly by capitalism. Corporations using the media brainwash the masses: fat is “ugly”, “unhealthy”, etc. The media needs their advertising money.
In BBW Shrine, I want to explain all of this in detail and ask people simple questions, as questions may be the only way we can change how we think about beauty. People need to start thinking for themselves, instead of mindlessly accepting media propaganda.
Why do you think big women are beautiful?
I’m a very spiritual person and for me it’s all about how things feel intuitively. When I hold a big woman, how does she make me feel? How does that feeling connect to my higher self? Will I allow this feeling to be thwarted by someone else’s opinion, or will I do with it what I already intuitively know to be right?
I often ask people: “Do you honestly think that a person who is attracted to a woman’s breasts isn’t attracted to the same softness on other parts of her body?”. Whoever came up with the ridiculous notion that breasts are normal, but a big bum, a round tummy and plump arms and legs aren’t?
I see these gossip magazines showing female celebrities with a headline like “… is trying to lose those holiday pounds”. Well guess what? I LOVE their holiday pounds!
How do people see plus-size women in the Netherlands?
In general, I think people are in a similar degree affected by the media as in other parts of the world. We can learn a lot from some of the South American countries, where a big woman is considered very beautiful.
But the whole weight debate (or as I like to call it ‘the fat (t)issue’) is just as intense here as it is anywhere else in the world. In a popular Dutch TV talent show a girl was disqualified because she was considered ‘too fat’ by one of the judges. I was outraged, and so were many other people. She looked great and had an incredibly pure voice. But because of her weight, she was not given a chance to pursue her dream.
So now, not only beauty is defined by weight, but also talent is. How much more of this are we going to take?
What major problems do you face in your campaign?
It is difficult to fight fat discrimination with the few tools we have. There are little monetary means. But, we can ask people questions. And questions are not being asked enough.
When all of this nonsense about ‘over weight’ started years ago, people didn’t buy into it at the rate these corporations had wanted us to. So they played their ace card, introducing the concept of ‘bad health’. Being large means being unhealthy, or so they want us to believe. No longer do women lose weight to conform to a beauty image alone, now their health is on the line as well.
Yet countless studies show that weight gain is not any more of a cause than other causes for death. But the media, whom we rely on for uncolored information, are biased. The only way we can stop this, is with grassroots movements, changing the beauty paradigm from within.
Anything else you want to tell us?
I like big women because it is a preference, but it doesn’t mean that therefore a slimmer woman is any less beautiful, or less attractive for that matter. We also need to stop confusing preference for beauty, because they are NOT the same. We need to let women know they are ALL beautiful. If we start attacking slim women in the same ways bigger women have been in the past, then we only perpetuate the problem of size discrimination. But then it will have shifted from a maximum, to a minimum size.
There is a popular BBW nightclub in California where no one is excluded for entry, regardless of their size. It serves as an example that fat discrimination won’t be turned into slim or skinny discrimination. Clubs who do not allow big women to enter should follow their lead.
Thank you for doing this interview with me.
Network Pages Added
September 7, 2010
I can’t believe it’s been exactly two months since I last posted to this blog! But I thought today was a good date to resume work on the site.
As you know the world’s economy has gone bonkers and people the world over are losing their jobs and can’t find new ones. For myself work has been slower as well; That is, until about two months ago. It’s been very busy as of late and that’s a good thing because we all need to make money.
Today I have added a new Links section and this concerns the links to Social Network sites such as Facebook, Myspace and Twitter. I have pages on those sites, plus a few more. I’m not sure how to call this page so I’ve just named it ‘Network Pages’ for now. I might change it later. Although I already have a page called ‘Social Networks’ and ‘BBW Shrine on Social Networks’ is a tad bit long.
I need to add some proper graphics like the logos of the various sites but that’s a concern for later.
I’m still pondering to add the other ones, or to delete them there altogether. Some sites have become kind of ‘raunchy’ and I don’t want BBW Shrine associated with that.
See the new Networks Pages err, page here: http://www.bbwshrine.com/links/network-pages/