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Two lovers engage in sociologically minded discussions exploring books, movies, and whatever else fits the bill.
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Hannah
Hi, Sam.
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Sam
Hi, Hannah. How are you doing today?
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Hannah
I'm good. How are you?
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Sam
I'm doing very good myself.
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Hannah
I'm looking forward to talking to you about some of the first topics that you and I ever talk to each other about.
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Sam
Yeah, I think from our very first
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Sam
date together, it was clear that we were going to be having many
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Sam
topics and conversations
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Sam
revolving
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Sam
around
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Sam
sociology.
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Hannah
Yeah. And in particular, what we talked about a lot on that first date
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Hannah
was,
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Hannah
disability rights and fat acceptance.
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Hannah
And
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Hannah
your
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Hannah
thoughts on those things based on your background
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Hannah
as a pharmacist, as a care provider, as a student of philosophy,
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Hannah
and as somebody who grew up
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Hannah
in a certain cultural background that I found utterly fascinating.
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Sam
Yeah, we definitely
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Sam
came to each other from
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Sam
opposite backgrounds,
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Sam
I come from a conservative,
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Sam
political and religious
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Sam
background,
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Sam
whereas
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Sam
I would say that you came from a more progressive,
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Sam
community focused
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Sam
background.
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Hannah
I think so I came from,
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Hannah
a,
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Hannah
well two really, left-wing families in New England.
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Hannah
I was part of two blended families,
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Hannah
and
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Hannah
our religious background was a mishmash of,
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Hannah
Judaism, Catholicism and,
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Hannah
in the later years, a smattering of Zen Buddhist practices.
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Hannah
And
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Hannah
I
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Hannah
learned early on to value
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Hannah
pluralism, multiculturalism.
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Hannah
And
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Hannah
liberal values.
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Sam
Yes.
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Sam
I think plurality was a good word. The, the plurality of
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Sam
human society,
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Sam
the need which we all have to fall back on each other, and the tendency that we have to be
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Sam
dependent on one another,
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Sam
not from a,
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Sam
Inability to care for ourselves, but just from the
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Sam
very nature of
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Sam
the buildings that we live in and the roads that we drive on and the health services that we
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Sam
are able to access.
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Hannah
Yeah.
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Hannah
That interdependence,
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Hannah
was a big theme in our first conversation and has been a big theme in all of our conversations ever since. If anyone
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Hannah
interviews anyone in this relationship, it's probably me. I am fascinated
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Hannah
by.
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Hannah
the culture that you grew up in, the conservative, Christian,
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Hannah
relatively racially homogenous town.
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Hannah
And I think that the listeners might hear me,
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Hannah
ask a lot of questions where I'm trying to check a judgmental tone
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Hannah
from
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Hannah
my voice.
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Hannah
Yeah,
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Hannah
yeah.
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Sam
And I think that'll be something that
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Sam
permeates throughout
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Sam
all of our podcast episodes. So
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Sam
I say that we
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Sam
formally introduce the topic today, which if you've already clicked on the episode, you know that it
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Sam
is regarding the book,
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Sam
"What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat," which is a book by Aubrey Gordon that we have both read and thoroughly enjoyed.
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Hannah
Yeah. And somebody who we can only
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Hannah
wish to be a fraction as charismatic and articulate. Yeah. As her.
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Sam
Yeah.
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Sam
If you are unaware Aubrey Gordon, in addition to the book we'll be discussing today,
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Sam
she also has a podcast called Maintenance Phase, which I would say is an expansion of her work in the book,
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Sam
and talks further about.
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Hannah
Wellness, culture.
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Sam
Wellness, culture,
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Sam
and.
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Hannah
Trends.
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Sam
in our
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Sam
21st century society,
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Hannah
And we're going to be talking about the book.
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Hannah
But before we talk about the book, we're going to be talking
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Hannah
about disability and health.
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Hannah
Because
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Hannah
I'm someone who has been reading fat liberation texts and engaging with Fat liberation media for, probably like ten years now.
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Hannah
A major reason why I'm really drawn to those types of voices and arguments is because I have a physical disability,
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Hannah
a minor physical disability.
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Hannah
I have some
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Hannah
paralysis.
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Hannah
And deformity in my left arm and hand.
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Hannah
And
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Hannah
it is
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Hannah
very minor in terms of how much it limits my, my physical abilities and my everyday life, but it is visible,
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Hannah
it's a visible physical difference. And so for that reason,
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Hannah
a lot of writing by fat activists really, really resonates with me.
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Hannah
And I've
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Hannah
had an appetite for
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Hannah
more conversations about,
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Hannah
what these two demographics have in common,
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Hannah
what these two sets of analyses have in common and the limitations of the parallels between the two.
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Sam
Yeah. And if I may add,
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Sam
hearing you say minor disability.
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Sam
I do think it's
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Sam
important to add that you've also done a lot to adapt to,
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Sam
your current lifestyle and a lot of things that you've had to do to
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Sam
get to the point where you are today that other people may not have had to go through.
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Hannah
Yeah. And we'll get into,
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Hannah
what some of the things are and what my thoughts on them are.
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Hannah
So my background is that I, I just have a regular job. I, I'm a writer at the city teachers' union in New York.
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Sam
I mean, I wouldn't call that a regular job, but. Okay.
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Hannah
It's it's it's not really a journalism job.
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Hannah
It's, it's a writing job.
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Hannah
I am writing mostly in, in the voice of an organization and not myself.
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Hannah
I also have a bachelor's degree in sociology and gender studies and a certificate in labor studies. So I'm coming from a social science background.
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Hannah
And,
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Hannah
you are coming from a
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Hannah
hard sciences background.
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Sam
Well, as
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Sam
hard science as you can call,
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Sam
the medical field,
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Sam
But yeah,
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Sam
I went to pharmacy school
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Sam
I work in retail pharmacy.
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Sam
So
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Sam
My perspective in the pharmacy world is primarily going to be from that of a
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Sam
retail community pharmacist. And I'm sure that that's going to have its limitations when applied to
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Sam
people who are pharmacists in other sectors, whether that be the hospital pharmacy,
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Sam
more clinical focus pharmacy,
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Sam
even industrial pharmacy and research.
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Sam
so you wanted to start off with a discussion of the.
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Hannah
Medical and social model of disability.
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Sam
Which to briefly preface them, they are
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Sam
sociological perspectives.
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Sam
Would you would
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Sam
say that
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Sam
maybe?
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Hannah
Yeah, maybe. I wouldn't like credit
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Hannah
an academic field with these theories. I think they came out of a grassroots movement.
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Sam
Okay.
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Hannah
And I think
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Hannah
they're sociological in that they are social theory. But
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Hannah
I don't think that they like come from
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Hannah
sociologists. I think they come from activists.
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Hannah
You would more likely read about them in a disability studies class than in a sociology class. Matter of fact,
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Hannah
I never read anything explicitly about disability for my whole undergraduate education until my fourth year when we read,
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Hannah
Stigma by Erving Goffman,
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Hannah
And
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Hannah
kind of had to seek out writing on disability on my own in the then-thriving
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Hannah
feminist blogosphere, the,
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Hannah
2010s,
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Hannah
But yeah, I'm going to talk about the medical and social model of disability, and I'm going to share a little bit about my experience with them
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Hannah
as a disabled person.
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Hannah
So
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Hannah
the earliest use of
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Hannah
these phrases that I could find,
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Hannah
in any kind of literature was from 1955. This was a,
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Hannah
psychiatrist,
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Hannah
who worked with mentally ill people. And his name was Doctor Thomas Zasz.
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Hannah
It's difficult to track the evolution of these phrases, but
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Hannah
they became,
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Hannah
key to arguments for inclusion that eventually led to legislation like the Americans with Disabilities Act.
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Hannah
So the gist of it,
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Hannah
the medical model of disability is,
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Hannah
what most people use to talk about disability.
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Hannah
It
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Hannah
purports that disability is an aberration that exists within an individual person.
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Hannah
It might be an aberration in their physical body, or it might be an aberration in their brain. But it is something about a person that is atypical. And according to the medical model, it is a wrong thing. It is a bad thing.
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Hannah
And under the medical model, the goal is to eradicate that aberration and change the individual so that they instead more closely conform to what we imagine as the typical body or brain.
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Hannah
You might think of Autism Speaks campaigns talking about finding a cure and eliminating autism.
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Hannah
The social model challenges that idea. It holds that variation between people is natural. And these differences only become disabling when the technology, norms, or discrimination in a society cause exclusion or limitation.
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Hannah
An obvious example is a paraplegic person and they use a wheelchair to move around.
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Hannah
Someone thinking along the lines of the medical model would be really doctor, like a doctor, or, you know, a well-meaning loved one, parent, friend, would want to see that paraplegic be able to walk.
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Hannah
And we see lots of stories about,
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Hannah
people relearning how to walk.
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Hannah
And it's like, it's great when people can learn how to walk.
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Hannah
It's not always possible.
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Hannah
And when it is possible, it's not always possible 100% of the time.
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Hannah
The social model would advocate for ramps, elevators, wider doorways,
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Hannah
in buildings and spaces that the wheelchair user needs to move through. And so the wheelchair then becomes,
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Hannah
not disabling or limiting, but the tool that that person uses to move through the world,
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Hannah
When I was growing up as a disabled kid, I have Erb's palsy.
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Hannah
That's what my disability is called. I feel like it should be Hannah's palsy because Erb doesn't have it, and I do, but he was the one who named it.
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Hannah
It is an injury to a bundle of nerves in the left shoulder.
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Hannah
And this usually happens in a birth injury.
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Hannah
Something called shoulder dystocia.
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Hannah
If your shoulder gets,
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Hannah
dislocated while you're moving through the birth canal.
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Hannah
The other time that you hear about people having a Erb's palsy is usually a motorcycle accident. So, you know, be careful on your motorcycles.
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Hannah
And like I mentioned earlier, it's a it's a visible disability. You can see that my wrist doesn't straighten, that my thumb is not opposable that my hand and arm are smaller on the left than on the right.
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Hannah
That I can't lift my arms all the way above my head or my left arm. Rather, I can't lift it above my head. I can't put it behind my back.
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Hannah
I can't rotate my
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Hannah
forearm.
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Hannah
On my left side.
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Hannah
So I would get questions about this a lot when I was a kid.
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Hannah
And one of the questions that I would get was, Is it really difficult for you?
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Hannah
And, you know, my, my instinctive answer was, no, it's not, not any more so than anybody else. And I had to think about why that is. And so what I would say to my friends was,
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Hannah
What if everyone else in the world had three arms and you only had two? They would probably think that's really difficult for you.
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Hannah
Because they're used to having three arms to do everything with. And you only have two, but you wouldn't think that it's difficult because you've just only ever had two arms. That's just what your body is. So you always learned how to do everything with only two arms.
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Hannah
And that conveyed how I felt pretty well,
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Hannah
and was a fun thought experiment.
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Hannah
But what I didn't realize at the time was that I was presenting the social model of disability. And if we take that scenario
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Hannah
further, we can imagine that.
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Hannah
In a society where everyone has three arms, then all of our built spaces would be designed for people who have three arms. I'm trying to imagine what a kitchen would look like for somebody who had three arms.
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Hannah
Our cooking implements might look different. Maybe there would be three,
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Hannah
nozzles on the, the faucet instead of two.
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Hannah
Definitely. It would be easier to wrangle your cat into the carrier when you have to take them to the vet, because I always say you can't possibly have enough arms for that task.
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Hannah
So
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Hannah
the technology in the spaces that would have been built for the three armed people, that would be what would be disabling to the hypothetical two armed person.
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Hannah
And I think this also illustrates a big difference between what it's like for someone who has an acquired disability versus a congenital disability.
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Hannah
I type 80 words per minute.
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Hannah
I'm very proud of the fact that I type 80 words per minute. I do that with six fingers. I type with my right hand over the keyboard and my left index finger hovering over the shift key.
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Hannah
And
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Hannah
I just learned how to type that way. It was middle school. Everybody's social life existed over AOL Instant Messenger, where we would put out My Chemical Romance lyrics and green italics as our away messages.
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Sam
Hopefully that that doesn't put an age on you.
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Hannah
That's okay. I can have an age on me.
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Hannah
But,
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Hannah
you know, I had to learn how to type.
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Hannah
And everybody else also had to learn how to type. And that was just the method that I used to learn how to type it was the method that was available to me.
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Hannah
But say I hadn't gotten Erb's palsy in a birth injury, I'd instead gotten it in a motorcycle accident.
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Hannah
As an adult, I would have had to relearn how to type. I would have had to relearn how to tie my shoes, how to button up my shirt, how to brush my teeth, how to,
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Hannah
dress myself, how to live.
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Hannah
So I think
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Hannah
that's not super relevant to the social versus medical model concept, but I think it's,
00;14;01;11 - 00;14;07;21
Hannah
it's a handy little tangent because I think that people with acquired disabilities,
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Hannah
or people who are, are the loved ones or caretakers of disabled people,
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Hannah
will tend to more instinctively understand this in terms of the medical model and people with
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Hannah
congenital disabilities, which is to say, disabilities that are either,
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Hannah
part of
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Hannah
the genetic expression of our bodies,
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Hannah
or that were acquired right at birth, will tend to identify more with the social model because we don't have an imagined other self that is non-disabled.
00;14;40;05 - 00;14;52;27
Hannah
And it is probably pretty deep into the conversation for me to issue this disclaimer, but you might have noticed that I call myself a disabled person and not a person with a disability.
00;14;52;27 - 00;14;54;10
Hannah
And there is
00;14;54;10 - 00;14;56;14
Hannah
nothing wrong with,
00;14;56;14 - 00;15;02;13
Hannah
preferring to call yourself a person with a disability. I just personally prefer to call myself a disabled person.
00;15;02;13 - 00;15;06;18
Hannah
I do tend to align much more with the social model of disability.
00;15;06;18 - 00;15;14;13
Hannah
And I see disabled as an adjective, like many other adjectives that apply to me, like Jewish or female or
00;15;14;13 - 00;15;15;25
Hannah
brown haired.
00;15;15;25 - 00;15;20;14
Hannah
And I don't really see it as particularly a good or bad thing.
00;15;20;14 - 00;15;21;03
Hannah
And so
00;15;21;03 - 00;15;29;19
Hannah
I don't love what's called person-first language, because sometimes the argument in favor of person-first language is that the disability is,
00;15;29;19 - 00;15;36;05
Hannah
a negative aspect to ourselves that we should distance ourselves from and instead center our personhood
00;15;36;05 - 00;15;37;22
Hannah
before the disability.
00;15;37;22 - 00;15;46;06
Hannah
That's not how I feel about my disability. I think it's just a value-neutral thing about me that I don't need to distance myself from.
00;15;46;06 - 00;15;48;27
Hannah
And so that's why you'll hear me using that language.
00;15;48;27 - 00;15;54;11
Hannah
But I would, of course, if I was talking about somebody who preferred person first language, use the person first language,
00;15;54;11 - 00;15;57;25
Hannah
So those are the social and medical models of disability.
00;15;57;25 - 00;16;03;13
Hannah
Can you talk about the social and medical models of health?
00;16;03;13 - 00;16;04;02
Hannah
Absolutely.
00;16;04;03 - 00;16;06;14
Sam
The context of the
00;16;06;15 - 00;16;08;09
Sam
social and medical models
00;16;08;10 - 00;16;10;01
Sam
is something that
00;16;10;02 - 00;16;14;05
Sam
I get confused about a lot, because I'm thinking about it from a
00;16;14;06 - 00;16;16;03
Sam
medical standpoint, or at least what I
00;16;16;04 - 00;16;18;20
Sam
learned briefly in pharmacy school.
00;16;18;21 - 00;16;19;22
Sam
So the earliest
00;16;19;23 - 00;16;23;24
Sam
I could find a reference to certain perspectives on health.
00;16;23;25 - 00;16;24;15
Sam
would be
00;16;24;16 - 00;16;30;05
Sam
in a paper by Leland in 1974 entitled A New Perspective on the Health of Canadians.
00;16;30;06 - 00;16;34;13
Sam
Leland talks about three fields of health.
00;16;34;20 - 00;16;38;01
Sam
There's the biomedical, which is very similar to the medical model,
00;16;38;02 - 00;16;44;17
Sam
of disability that we talked about. And then there's also a environmental field and a lifestyle field.
00;16;44;18 - 00;16;47;24
Sam
And so these aren't one for one
00;16;47;25 - 00;16;49;01
Sam
with the
00;16;49;02 - 00;16;51;24
Sam
medical and social model of disability,
00;16;51;25 - 00;16;54;28
Sam
which is why I think we had some difficulty communicating at first
00;16;54;29 - 00;16;59;12
Sam
But if we were to talk about the biomedical
00;16;59;13 - 00;17;02;17
Sam
determinants of health, that would include stuff like genetics,
00;17;02;18 - 00;17;06;27
Sam
any biology and pathophysiology that is inherent,
00;17;06;28 - 00;17;08;09
Sam
or that happens to the body,
00;17;08;10 - 00;17;12;22
Sam
There's the environmental aspect which looks at
00;17;12;23 - 00;17;13;28
Sam
culture,
00;17;13;29 - 00;17;22;08
Sam
income, education, the physical and social environment, what health care services are available. And then there's the lifestyle
00;17;22;09 - 00;17;23;08
Sam
determinant of health.
00;17;23;09 - 00;17;25;29
Sam
To me, the lifestyle and the environmental,
00;17;26;00 - 00;17;27;19
Sam
the borders between that is a little
00;17;27;20 - 00;17;27;29
Sam
fuzzy.
00;17;27;29 - 00;17;38;09
Hannah
Yeah, totally. Because you're going to eat way more fruits and vegetables. If there are fruits and vegetables in your neighborhood, you're going to walk more if you can safely walk in your neighborhood, etc..
00;17;38;09 - 00;17;55;08
Hannah
Before you continue, there was something that I read in something that you wrote early on that was really striking to me, which was like, you were establishing a working definition for health. I don't know if it was from this Leland guy.
00;17;55;08 - 00;18;06;08
Hannah
But you defined health as a person's ability to fully live the life that they want to.
00;18;06;08 - 00;18;14;28
Hannah
And I think that that's a beautiful thing to keep in mind while we talk about these three categories of health, because,
00;18;14;28 - 00;18;23;08
Hannah
we might not always think of health that way. We might initially think of health as, like how closely,
00;18;23;08 - 00;18;27;29
Hannah
does your body and its functions conform to
00;18;27;29 - 00;18;31;13
Hannah
whatever the imagined norm or ideal is?
00;18;31;15 - 00;18;34;18
Hannah
So I think it's really great if in the medical field,
00;18;34;18 - 00;18;37;13
Hannah
we can instead think about health as
00;18;37;13 - 00;18;40;09
Hannah
to what degree are you living the life that you want to live?
00;18;40;09 - 00;18;41;17
Sam
Exactly. And,
00;18;41;18 - 00;18;43;07
Sam
that was kind of where I was going
00;18;43;08 - 00;18;44;13
Sam
With this view of the,
00;18;44;14 - 00;18;45;29
Sam
different determinants of health,
00;18;46;00 - 00;18;49;16
Sam
the medical, the environmental factors, the lifestyle factors.
00;18;49;17 - 00;18;52;03
Sam
Ultimately, I think,
00;18;52;04 - 00;18;55;21
Sam
even on the environmental and lifestyle side,
00;18;55;22 - 00;18;58;13
Sam
these factors tend to get subsumed into
00;18;58;14 - 00;19;00;04
Sam
the normal,
00;19;00;05 - 00;19;02;02
Sam
the statistical norm.
00;19;02;03 - 00;19;05;03
Hannah
Is it the statistical normal or is it just like what
00;19;05;03 - 00;19;06;06
Sam
We want to perceive.
00;19;06;08 - 00;19;12;14
Hannah
Yeah. Like, well, what we want the statistical norm to be because the norm is actually what like a size 14.
00;19;12;24 - 00;19;13;04
Sam
yeah.
...
00;19;16;08 - 00;19;25;02
Hannah
So what does that have to do with the book? A lot. You can probably tell. Yeah, that a lot of the stuff that we just talked about
00;19;25;02 - 00;19;30;11
Hannah
has pretty major implications and owes a lot to Fat Liberation.
00;19;30;11 - 00;19;30;27
Hannah
Yeah.
00;19;30;28 - 00;19;33;10
Sam
I can't begin to stress enough how
00;19;33;11 - 00;19;37;29
Sam
Aubrey Gordon's perspective, how important that is in the book,
00;19;38;00 - 00;19;40;03
Sam
and she even says this at one point
00;19;40;04 - 00;19;43;13
Sam
"Fat people see things straight-sized people don't."
00;19;43;14 - 00;19;44;09
Sam
And that's
00;19;44;09 - 00;19;45;00
Sam
just kind of
00;19;45;01 - 00;19;47;00
Sam
a fact of our reality.
00;19;47;01 - 00;19;59;01
Hannah
You know, even though she's talking about a lot of really unfortunate realities about bigotry and systemic oppression, a lot of the things that she shares are heartbreaking.
00;19;59;01 - 00;20;04;17
Hannah
But I think when something is written beautifully and in a really human voice,
00;20;04;17 - 00;20;06;00
Hannah
by someone who can speak
00;20;06;00 - 00;20;09;16
Hannah
really plainly and concisely,
00;20;09;16 - 00;20;11;22
Hannah
that that can be,
00;20;11;22 - 00;20;18;03
Hannah
really life affirming to read. I found it really affirming to read. And there were parts of it that I really identified with.
00;20;18;03 - 00;20;20;16
Hannah
I don't want to,
00;20;20;16 - 00;20;23;03
Hannah
say or imply that
00;20;23;03 - 00;20;29;04
Hannah
all of the ink that has been spilled about fat liberation might as well have been spilled about disability liberation or that,
00;20;29;04 - 00;20;29;28
Hannah
they are one in the same.
00;20;29;28 - 00;20;30;14
Hannah
They are not.
00;20;30;14 - 00;20;35;12
Hannah
And I think a really key difference is something that she gets at pretty early on in the book
00;20;35;12 - 00;20;39;09
Hannah
where she's talking about the implicit bias study that that Harvard,
00;20;39;09 - 00;20;42;02
Hannah
has had up on their website since, like.
00;20;43;11 - 00;20;44;06
Hannah
Early 2000.
00;20;44;06 - 00;20;44;27
Hannah
And
00;20;44;27 - 00;20;52;21
Hannah
This implicit bias study measures people's unconscious attitude toward different identity markers.
00;20;52;21 - 00;20;59;15
Hannah
And what it is found is that over the past roughly 25 years,
00;20;59;15 - 00;21;05;25
Hannah
attitudes toward people of color, queer people, disabled people,
00;21;05;25 - 00;21;06;08
Hannah
and
00;21;06;08 - 00;21;06;29
Hannah
other
00;21;06;29 - 00;21;08;07
Hannah
marginalized groups,
00;21;08;07 - 00;21;08;25
Hannah
have
00;21;08;25 - 00;21;11;13
Hannah
gotten more positive or at least less negative.
00;21;11;13 - 00;21;15;01
Hannah
And attitudes toward fat people have gotten
00;21;15;01 - 00;21;16;02
Hannah
more negative.
00;21;16;02 - 00;21;19;04
Hannah
She also writes about how fatphobia,
00;21;19;04 - 00;21;24;23
Hannah
can be used as a stand-in for racism and classism,
00;21;24;23 - 00;21;29;15
Hannah
and, and other types of discrimination that, like, are
00;21;29;15 - 00;21;34;18
Hannah
not as socially acceptable anymore in their naked forms. But,
00;21;34;18 - 00;21;41;12
Hannah
fatphobia is a more socially sanctioned way to hate on people in those marginalized groups.
00;21;41;12 - 00;21;43;19
Hannah
And I think
00;21;43;19 - 00;21;59;06
Hannah
disability is one of those identity markers that people wouldn't feel so comfortable, just openly abhoring, but feel more comfortable if they can cloak it in contempt for fat people and fat bodies.
00;21;59;06 - 00;22;03;23
Hannah
And she even shares this really heartbreaking story in the chapter about,
00;22;03;23 - 00;22;05;01
Hannah
airplane travel.
00;22;05;01 - 00;22;07;14
Hannah
About somebody,
00;22;07;14 - 00;22;11;24
Hannah
harassing her and asking to be moved so we won't have to sit next to her on the airplane.
00;22;11;24 - 00;22;24;10
Hannah
And you know how she felt experiencing that, especially after having, you know, gone through all of the preparation that she always goes through before flying, which is more than I think,
00;22;24;10 - 00;22;28;02
Hannah
a straight-sized person like you or I ever has to think about before air travel.
00;22;28;09 - 00;22;28;25
Hannah
Yeah.
00;22;28;25 - 00;22;30;06
Hannah
And as.
00;22;30;06 - 00;22;31;16
Sam
just to interject real quick.
00;22;31;17 - 00;22;32;02
Sam
I was just
00;22;32;02 - 00;22;32;26
Sam
flying,
00;22;32;27 - 00;22;38;14
Sam
the other day, and I was amazed at how thin the seats are. Like,
00;22;38;18 - 00;22;40;02
Hannah
Oh, my God, they're so small.
00;22;40;02 - 00;22;40;10
Sam
Yeah,
00;22;40;10 - 00;22;41;01
Sam
I was
00;22;41;02 - 00;22;42;19
Sam
already feeling cramped.
00;22;42;20 - 00;22;43;13
Sam
And
00;22;43;14 - 00;22;45;24
Sam
she goes into that in the book about how
00;22;45;25 - 00;22;47;03
Hannah
How much smaller they've gotten
00;22;47;12 - 00;22;50;06
Sam
How much smaller they've gotten since the deregulation of the airline industry
00;22;50;29 - 00;22;51;28
Sam
Which is
00;22;51;29 - 00;22;57;28
Sam
it's something else to say about the book that not only does she bring her experience to this, but she does good research
00;22;57;29 - 00;22;58;22
Sam
that is
00;22;58;22 - 00;23;00;06
Sam
backed and supported by sources
00;23;01;04 - 00;23;07;26
Sam
There are some things that she says that I think maybe warrant a little more research.
00;23;07;27 - 00;23;08;11
Sam
There are
00;23;08;11 - 00;23;14;25
Sam
some things that she says from a medical standpoint that I think maybe deserve more nuance or more discussion. But for the most part,
00;23;14;26 - 00;23;15;19
Sam
as someone who
00;23;15;20 - 00;23;22;19
Sam
does not seemingly have a medical background, she does a very good job of parsing the evidence for
00;23;22;20 - 00;23;23;16
Sam
and against
00;23;23;17 - 00;23;24;28
Sam
quote unquote, obesity.
00;23;26;02 - 00;23;28;17
Hannah
And, to get back to that
00;23;28;17 - 00;23;29;28
Hannah
anecdote about her
00;23;29;28 - 00;23;39;03
Hannah
being harassed on the airplane, so the guy comes up to her at the end of this flight and says, "Just so you know, I wouldn't have done this if you used a walker."
00;23;39;03 - 00;23;40;01
Hannah
And I think that that's,
00;23;40;01 - 00;23;43;20
Hannah
a really clear example of fatphobia.
00;23;43;20 - 00;23;44;22
Hannah
Stepping in
00;23;44;22 - 00;23;49;00
Hannah
and taking the part of a
00;23;49;00 - 00;23;54;05
Hannah
less socially acceptable form of hate which would be disablism.
00;23;54;05 - 00;24;08;25
Hannah
And so I think that, I, I, I've yet to find a fat person or a fat writer who would begrudge disabled people, you know, who are reading and identifying with
00;24;08;25 - 00;24;11;16
Hannah
their essays and, and articles and books.
00;24;11;16 - 00;24;12;12
Hannah
But,
00;24;12;12 - 00;24;13;26
Hannah
it's not 1 to 1.
00;24;14;14 - 00;24;15;24
Hannah
But I think, like,
00;24;15;24 - 00;24;27;27
Hannah
we can understand the fat experience in terms of the social and medical model of disability, because one of the first buzzwords that comes up in relation to fatness is health.
00;24;27;27 - 00;24;28;19
Hannah
And
00;24;28;19 - 00;24;36;26
Hannah
I think a lot of the work of fat liberation activists is to try to communicate,
00;24;36;26 - 00;24;47;21
Hannah
how much of the problem is not in their bodies, but instead in the, the culture and built environments that they are navigating.
00;24;47;21 - 00;24;49;12
Hannah
And even,
00;24;49;12 - 00;24;52;25
Hannah
Aubrey Gordon argues pretty compellingly,
00;24;52;25 - 00;25;00;11
Hannah
throughout the book, a lot of the adverse health problems can also be attributed to chronic stress,
00;25;00;11 - 00;25;03;07
Hannah
or avoiding seeking out medical care,
00;25;03;07 - 00;25;04;13
Hannah
because of fat phobia.
00;25;04;20 - 00;25;05;04
Sam
Yeah.
00;25;05;05 - 00;25;05;27
Hannah
And
00;25;05;27 - 00;25;11;11
Hannah
I think that is really similar to what disabled people have been saying
00;25;11;11 - 00;25;14;12
Hannah
for many decades now.
00;25;14;12 - 00;25;18;27
Hannah
That the things that are wrong are not things that are wrong
00;25;18;27 - 00;25;23;12
Hannah
with us, but things that are wrong with the spaces that we are trying to move through.
00;25;23;12 - 00;25;29;11
Hannah
And that if more could be done to include us and to treat us as humans,
00;25;29;11 - 00;25;33;00
Hannah
who deserve to be in public life,
00;25;33;00 - 00;25;36;03
Hannah
to physically access public spaces,
00;25;36;03 - 00;25;40;02
Hannah
that we would be far less disabled.
00;25;40;02 - 00;25;41;20
Hannah
Not disabled,
00;25;41;20 - 00;25;49;16
Hannah
as a value-neutral descriptor. But disabled as like an action that is happening to us, you know?
00;25;49;16 - 00;25;49;27
Hannah
Right.
00;25;49;28 - 00;25;57;00
Hannah
So, yeah, I really I really identified with that line of thinking and appreciated how well it was argued.
00;25;57;00 - 00;26;02;04
Hannah
And another thing that she took pains to say in the book and that she takes pains to say,
00;26;02;04 - 00;26;07;00
Hannah
on her podcast and, and in her speaking segments is,
00;26;07;00 - 00;26;08;09
Hannah
something along the lines of
00;26;08;09 - 00;26;10;22
Hannah
"You can't love yourself out of discrimination."
00;26;10;22 - 00;26;15;08
Hannah
You can't love yourself out of systemic oppression, that because,
00;26;15;08 - 00;26;20;18
Hannah
body size is something that we tend to conceive of as an issue of insecurity.
00;26;20;18 - 00;26;23;11
Hannah
That a lot of
00;26;23;11 - 00;26;24;16
Hannah
rhetoric that
00;26;24;16 - 00;26;34;22
Hannah
might market itself as that liberation is about learning to love your body, love your stretchmarks, love your big thighs, love your jiggly arms.
00;26;34;22 - 00;26;35;04
Hannah
And
00;26;35;04 - 00;26;38;29
Hannah
that is the way to liberation and self-actualization.
00;26;38;29 - 00;26;51;06
Hannah
And she says, you know, "No, if we if we can't get hired, if we make.." what, how much less per year than a straight-sized person, like tens of thousands of dollars less per year on average? Yeah.
00;26;51;06 - 00;26;51;13
Sam
I don't
00;26;51;13 - 00;26;53;20
Sam
remember the exact quote in the book.
00;26;53;21 - 00;26;54;15
Sam
And also,
00;26;54;15 - 00;26;55;29
Sam
beyond just the
00;26;56;00 - 00;27;00;10
Sam
decrease in salary, but the increase in medical costs, which,
00;27;00;27 - 00;27;03;13
Sam
as we said before, can come from
00;27;03;14 - 00;27;06;13
Sam
the lack of access to medicine, whether that be,
00;27;06;14 - 00;27;08;25
Sam
lack of access to services
00;27;08;26 - 00;27;09;17
Sam
and,
00;27;09;28 - 00;27;12;01
Sam
even just health equipment, because,
00;27;12;02 - 00;27;17;07
Sam
hospitals' and doctors' offices don't carry the appropriate equipment to be able to
00;27;17;08 - 00;27;18;11
Sam
help these people.
00;27;18;12 - 00;27;27;23
Hannah
Or the hoops that you have to jump through in order to get care for something that would be relatively straightforward for somebody like you and I to get care for.
00;27;27;29 - 00;27;28;10
Sam
Right?
00;27;28;10 - 00;27;32;04
Hannah
Yeah. Learning to love and accept yourself will not
00;27;32;04 - 00;27;37;24
Hannah
undo all of that doing. Yeah. And I it's a similar frustration
00;27;37;24 - 00;27;39;27
Hannah
that I often feel,
00;27;39;27 - 00;27;42;14
Hannah
when I try to explain,
00;27;42;14 - 00;27;42;29
Hannah
that
00;27;42;29 - 00;27;44;10
Hannah
I wish I could just
00;27;44;10 - 00;27;51;26
Hannah
be treated like everybody else. I, I, I wish that people would assume competence
00;27;51;26 - 00;27;53;22
Hannah
and just know
00;27;53;22 - 00;27;59;00
Hannah
that just because I can't do things in the way that they do things, it doesn't mean I can't do them.
00;27;59;00 - 00;28;01;29
Hannah
There are other ways to do things, and,
00;28;01;29 - 00;28;09;09
Hannah
and the answer I get a lot of the time, because, you know, when I'm expressing this, I'm not doing it quite so calmly is,
00;28;09;09 - 00;28;15;14
Hannah
"I don't know why you act like it's such a big deal. You just need to get over it and, like, learn to love and accept yourself."
00;28;15;14 - 00;28;27;06
Hannah
I've never been in a job interview where my ability to do the job was not called into question based on my disability. No amount of self-love will change that. But,
00;28;27;06 - 00;28;29;00
Hannah
I've been sat down and told.
00;28;29;05 - 00;28;30;29
Sam
Because it has nothing to do with, you.
00;28;31;02 - 00;28;31;21
Hannah
No!
00;28;31;21 - 00;28;36;06
Hannah
it wasn't my idea. I it wasn't my idea,
00;28;36;06 - 00;28;51;12
Hannah
to think that there is something wrong with me because my left arm is smaller and has a smaller range of motion than my right arm. Right. That idea came from other people in the world around me.
00;28;51;12 - 00;28;56;13
Hannah
The insecurity to the degree that it ever still exists, didn't like spring forth from me.
00;28;56;13 - 00;28;56;27
Hannah
It was,
00;28;56;27 - 00;29;00;20
Hannah
ingrained in me through all of these life experiences. And that's why self-love
00;29;00;20 - 00;29;08;10
Hannah
will never be the complete answer. Because, and it's great. I love self-love, I do it all the time. But,
00;29;08;10 - 00;29;19;02
Hannah
I can love myself so hard. And I'm still going to be walking down the street sometime this summer wearing a tank top because it's 90 degrees and someone's going to stop me and ask to pray over me.
00;29;20;02 - 00;29;24;18
Hannah
Because they they want God to cure what ails me.
00;29;24;18 - 00;29;28;07
Hannah
I can get to a point where that hurts less.
00;29;28;08 - 00;29;28;16
Sam
Yeah.
00;29;28;17 - 00;29;33;14
Hannah
I am at a point where that hurts less. I am at a point where I can laugh it off.
00;29;33;14 - 00;29;40;18
Hannah
But self-love isn't the answer to this cultural belief system that
00;29;40;18 - 00;29;45;03
Hannah
disability is something wrong with a person that must be eradicated.
00;29;45;03 - 00;29;53;28
Hannah
Self-love is also not the answer to this cultural belief system that says that fatness is something wrong with a person that must be eradicated.
00;29;54;02 - 00;29;54;15
Sam
Yeah.
00;29;54;16 - 00;30;14;14
Hannah
And both of those statements can be hard for people to hear because they think of disability as something that inherently shortens the length of your life and detracts from your quality of life. And they think of fatness the same way.
00;30;15;09 - 00;30;16;06
Hannah
And
00;30;16;06 - 00;30;26;03
Hannah
not only is that not true fatness and disability, neither of them inherently lower your quality of life or shorten the length of your life.
00;30;26;03 - 00;30;27;06
Hannah
But also.
00;30;27;06 - 00;30;33;25
Hannah
Even if they did, even if being disabled meant that you have a shorter lifespan and,
00;30;33;25 - 00;30;39;13
Hannah
you can do less things with your one wild and precious life,
00;30;39;13 - 00;30;48;09
Hannah
even if being fat meant that, why would that mean that we should treat people as less than?
00;30;49;04 - 00;30;51;24
Hannah
And that's something that you've
00;30;51;24 - 00;30;54;03
Hannah
you've shared some ideas with me about.
00;30;54;21 - 00;30;55;27
Sam
In terms of?
00;30;55;28 - 00;30;58;09
Hannah
The just-world fallacy.
00;30;58;13 - 00;30;59;06
Sam
Yeah.
00;30;59;07 - 00;31;02;07
Hannah
But you've shared maybe without the phrase, the just-
00;31;02;07 - 00;31;06;00
Hannah
world fallacy, but you've talked about this Christian worldview.
00;31;06;02 - 00;31;10;28
Hannah
Whatever is typical, whatever is ideal is thought of in this world view
00;31;10;28 - 00;31;11;09
Sam
Yeah.
00;31;11;10 - 00;31;12;04
Hannah
as
00;31;12;04 - 00;31;15;09
Hannah
the natural state of things and therefore a moral good,
00;31;15;28 - 00;31;27;29
Hannah
and so if something is abnormal and differs from the ideal, then it must indicate that there was a moral failing somewhere along the line.
00;31;28;24 - 00;31;33;28
Hannah
And what I said in response was
00;31;33;28 - 00;31;46;09
Hannah
that I think it's really easy to fall into that line of thinking, because the feeling of disgust feels as if it's so ingrained,
00;31;46;09 - 00;31;49;18
Hannah
it's just a reflex within your body,
00;31;49;18 - 00;31;50;00
Hannah
Right.
00;31;50;01 - 00;31;51;22
Hannah
like hunger or thirst.
00;31;51;22 - 00;31;52;04
Hannah
Yeah.
00;31;52;05 - 00;31;54;26
Hannah
When actually disgust is a learned reaction.
00;31;55;11 - 00;31;56;26
Hannah
And
00;31;56;26 - 00;32;06;06
Hannah
people might feel disgust for someone whose gender presentation doesn't align with what they expect, somebody whose body has,
00;32;06;06 - 00;32;10;06
Hannah
more fat on it than the observer wants it to,
00;32;10;06 - 00;32;10;26
Hannah
or somebody
00;32;10;26 - 00;32;15;20
Hannah
who has a visible limb difference or deformity.
00;32;15;20 - 00;32;20;23
Hannah
All of these things might invoke a disgust reaction, a learned disgust reaction.
00;32;20;23 - 00;32;29;00
Hannah
And the line of thinking might be, "Well this disgust reaction must be because I'm, I'm observing something that is unnatural and bad."
00;32;29;07 - 00;32;29;20
Sam
Yeah,
...
00;32;33;15 - 00;32;35;00
Hannah
And I will say to
00;32;35;00 - 00;32;40;02
Hannah
any listeners what I also said to you, Sam, on our first date, which is you should listen, the maintenance phase.
00;32;40;08 - 00;32;41;00
Sam
Yeah.
00;32;41;01 - 00;32;42;17
Sam
Another place that,
00;32;42;18 - 00;32;43;25
Sam
Aubrey Gordon
00;32;43;26 - 00;32;45;00
Sam
shines.
00;32;45;00 - 00;32;46;25
Sam
Shines and shares her thoughts.
00;32;46;26 - 00;32;50;09
Sam
I would say, because I know personally,
00;32;50;10 - 00;32;51;16
Sam
with podcasts,
00;32;51;29 - 00;32;52;11
Sam
that
00;32;52;12 - 00;32;55;05
Sam
it can take some time for me to get invested in a podcast.
00;32;55;16 - 00;33;01;09
Sam
So I would argue that if you read the book and you like the book,
00;33;01;10 - 00;33;03;09
Sam
then I would highly recommend the podcast.
00;33;03;10 - 00;33;15;29
Sam
Just knowing that sometimes it's hard to start a podcast on a random episode and get deep into it, whereas if you read the book first, you'll have an idea of her perspective, and the podcast would just provide more of that.
00;33;16;00 - 00;33;20;29
Hannah
Yeah, you and I are so different. I find it so much easier to start with a podcast than to get through a book.
00;33;20;29 - 00;33;21;12
Sam
Well,
00;33;21;13 - 00;33;24;07
Sam
is that not just a perfect example
00;33;24;08 - 00;33;26;23
Sam
of everything you just talked about?
00;33;26;24 - 00;33;33;25
Hannah
Yeah, because people's brains can work differently, and it doesn't mean that one way is better than the other.
00;33;33;25 - 00;33;34;08
Sam
Yeah.
00;33;34;09 - 00;33;39;02
Sam
So how do we live in a society,
00;33;39;03 - 00;33;40;09
Sam
How do we
00;33;40;09 - 00;33;42;14
Sam
how should we take,
00;33;42;15 - 00;33;47;18
Sam
everything we've just talked about and apply it to our lives? Going out into the world?
00;33;47;19 - 00;34;08;18
Hannah
I hope that this is something that I practice in my life, but I think that we can always, like, reexamine and double down on these types of values, which is if somebody's body looks a way that you don't expect a body to look like. Don't worry about it, man. You're fine. You don't need to ask for justification.
00;34;08;21 - 00;34;31;07
Hannah
You don't need to resolve any tension about that. You can just notice it and then move on with your day. Or not notice! That you could simply not scan people's bodies for aberrations and flaws. But if you do notice something, something unusual about someone's body,
00;34;31;07 - 00;34;37;09
Hannah
just remind yourself that you're safe. You you don't need to resolve any discomfort.
00;34;37;10 - 00;34;39;18
Hannah
You don't need an explanation.
00;34;39;18 - 00;34;42;19
Hannah
You're fine. Likewise.
00;34;42;19 - 00;34;56;03
Hannah
if somebody's body differs from the norm or ideal in some visible way, and another person is being mean to them about it, step in.
00;34;56;03 - 00;35;05;16
Hannah
Be a pal. Aubrey Gordon suggests all kinds of great ways that you can be an ally to your fat loved ones.
00;35;05;16 - 00;35;10;15
Hannah
She talks about being mindful of eating in restaurants,
00;35;10;15 - 00;35;16;26
Hannah
making sure that you scope out places that people can easily get into.
00;35;16;26 - 00;35;19;16
Hannah
Leave the chair with more room for your fat friend.
00;35;19;16 - 00;35;26;06
Hannah
And, you know, if you see some dude harassing a fat lady on an airplane, tell him that he's being a jerk.
00;35;26;06 - 00;35;26;28
Sam
Yeah.
00;35;27;18 - 00;35;31;25
Hannah
Or harassing somebody with a walker. You can also tell him that he's being a jerk.
00;35;32;00 - 00;35;32;16
Sam
Yeah.
00;35;32;17 - 00;35;34;15
Sam
I would very much agree.
00;35;34;16 - 00;35;40;27
Sam
I don't think there are necessarily evil or bad people who are just looking for the bad.
00;35;40;28 - 00;35;45;10
Sam
As we've discussed, it's conditioned into us. And so
00;35;45;11 - 00;35;46;03
Sam
it's work.
00;35;46;04 - 00;35;54;14
Sam
And it may feel uncomfortable at first to notice something that makes you feel uncomfortable and not do anything to release the tension, like you said.
00;35;55;13 - 00;36;05;18
Sam
But it is so very important for the people that we live amongst that we're not trying to,
00;36;05;19 - 00;36;08;06
Sam
stigmatize people.
00;36;08;07 - 00;36;14;18
Sam
And one of the first ways that people get stigmatized is by their difference being highlighted.
00;36;14;19 - 00;36;15;20
Sam
Yeah,
00;36;15;20 - 00;36;25;16
Sam
Yeah. The one thing I wanted to say about how we can love in a society, and this is applicable to everyone,
00;36;25;17 - 00;36;33;21
Sam
whether you may be fat, whether you may be straight-sized, whether you may be thin, whether you're younger or older.
00;36;33;22 - 00;36;41;10
Sam
is to go back to that first part of the podcast, when we were talking about health and
00;36;41;11 - 00;36;46;27
Sam
how we define health, and this is something I've really honed in on the past year, is,
00;36;46;28 - 00;36;49;07
Sam
I don't want to see health as a virtue.
00;36;50;02 - 00;36;54;10
Sam
I don't want to see health as something that I cultivate necessarily, or something
00;36;54;11 - 00;36;54;27
Sam
that is,
00;36;54;28 - 00;36;56;03
Sam
moral.
00;36;56;11 - 00;37;05;22
Hannah
Yeah. I want to see it as something that I cultivate. But, you know, because I want to be able to do stuff like carry my groceries upstairs to my apartment. Yeah.
00;37;05;22 - 00;37;06;16
Hannah
Or,
00;37;06;16 - 00;37;09;02
Hannah
stay out all night dancing,
00;37;09;02 - 00;37;22;00
Hannah
at a mid-aughts dance party on the Lower East Side. Because I am, again, old. But not because I think it makes me morally pure or morally superior to other people.
00;37;22;00 - 00;37;29;21
Hannah
And certainly not because I think that it fulfills my quota for good deeds for the day. If I work out or eat a salad, it does not.
00;37;29;21 - 00;37;30;06
Sam
Yeah.
00;37;30;06 - 00;37;35;25
Sam
Health is the ability to live your life. And living your life is something
00;37;35;26 - 00;37;38;23
Sam
we each kind of figure out.
00;37;38;24 - 00;38;02;20
Sam
There's obviously going to be a lot of similarities between people, between what they need. And some of that can come from an objective, scientific standpoint, but a lot of it is going to be affected by the culture and society and community that you grow up in, and some of it is going to be self-determined. There might be things important to me
00;38;02;21 - 00;38;06;24
Hannah
Like climbing a wall made of plastic rocks.
00;38;07;04 - 00;38;08;05
Sam
That's a perfect example.
00;38;08;12 - 00;38;14;06
Hannah
I I'm not going to try that hard to climb walls made of plastic rocks, but I love it for you.
00;38;14;06 - 00;38;18;10
Sam
Yeah, exactly. And so in that sense, health for us can look
00;38;18;11 - 00;38;20;24
Sam
slightly different. But I think..
00;38;20;27 - 00;38;32;18
Hannah
I want a great big butt. And so maybe instead of climbing the wall of plastic rocks, I will be holding weights and squatting.
00;38;32;18 - 00;38;36;00
Sam
I can't imagine a better way to reach that
00;38;36;01 - 00;38;38;01
Sam
goal.
00;38;38;01 - 00;38;40;13
Hannah
And I hope for the more,
00;38;40;13 - 00;39;08;23
Hannah
medical care providers can adopt that attitude that you're describing, that health is a person's ability to live the life that they want. And so that involves understanding who they are as an individual and what their goals are and what makes them happy, and also advocating for a world that makes space for all kinds of people.
00;39;09;10 - 00;39;10;07
Sam
Yeah. I
00;39;10;08 - 00;39;13;25
Sam
again to refer back to Aubrey Gordon's book
00;39;13;26 - 00;39;22;01
Sam
she spends at least a chapter if not two on the subject of what we would more typically
00;39;22;02 - 00;39;23;06
Sam
call health,
00;39;23;07 - 00;39;23;19
Sam
her
00;39;23;19 - 00;39;25;19
Sam
interaction with the medical field
00;39;25;20 - 00;39;31;04
Sam
and what she would call on all medical providers to do,
00;39;31;05 - 00;39;44;18
Sam
and as crazy as it seems from such a seemingly caring profession, there's a lot of fat discrimination that comes directly from the medical community
00;39;44;19 - 00;39;45;06
Sam
and it's
00;39;45;06 - 00;39;48;13
Sam
justified and held up by the medical community.
00;39;48;14 - 00;39;52;07
Sam
And I think that might be more than we would discuss today.
00;39;52;08 - 00;39;53;01
Hannah
Yeah.
00;39;53;01 - 00;40;03;16
Hannah
Well, thank you for spending some time talking to me about how we can better love the people around us.
00;40;03;19 - 00;40;14;01
Sam
Yeah. And I appreciate you sitting down to talk with me as well. And I am really looking forward to this becoming a consistent thing.
00;40;14;02 - 00;40;17;25
Hannah
I'm looking forward to talking to you about The Substance.
00;40;17;25 - 00;40;18;25
Sam
Yes.
00;40;19;22 - 00;40;20;21
Hannah
I love you, Sam.
00;40;20;21 - 00;40;22;05
Sam
I love you Hannah
...
00;40;27;03 - 00;40;29;03
Hannah
You can take out the part about how I want a big butt.
00;40;29;03 - 00;40;30;12
Hannah
That I'm trying to grow my glutes