Women Want Facebook to Stop Asking If They’re Feeling Fat

[eridani]

http://www.takepart.com/article/2015/02/26/women-want-facebook-stop-asking-if-theyre-feeling-fat?cmpid=tpdaily-eml-2015-02-26

If you’re one of Facebook's 1.35 billion monthly users, the question is probably a familiar one. But did you know that the social media giant also offers you a preprogrammed option to tell your friends and family on the platform that you’re “feeling fat” or “feeling ugly”? Now it’s coming under fire, thanks to a petition from two U.K. residents and the body positivity movement they’re affiliated with.

On Monday, two activists from Brighton, England, 22-year-old Charlotte and 21-year-old Vicky, launched a petition on Change.org that asks Facebook to “Remove the body-shaming ‘I Feel Fat’ & ‘I Feel Ugly’ status options and emoticons from all versions of Facebook.” The duo created the petition along with Endangered Bodies, a global movement of women who are challenging “the current toxic culture that promotes negative body image.”



Having “feeling fat” and “feeling ugly” as status update choices “promotes and supports the endless torrent of judgment and pressure to be perfect felt by young people across the world,” wrote Charlotte and Vicky on the petition. “We do enough comparing as it is, we don’t need a status update to make it even easier to feel bad about ourselves.”

Many users of Facebook simply type in a status update without taking advantage of all the buttons at the bottom of the input box. However, if you click on the smiling emoticon icon, the platform gives you the option to “add what you’re doing or feeling.” Most of the choices seem harmless—you can say you’re excited, sad, annoyed, even hungover. The emoticon’s face changes to reflect the emotion you choose.

The emoticon for “feeling fat” doesn’t look too happy, and it has a double chin. Meanwhile, the emoticon for “feeling ugly” seems to indicate that having a big nose, thick eyebrows, a mustache, and wearing glasses is unattractive.

[Skittles]

1. it still floors me, the popularity of that crap site

[santroy79]

2. how silly

dont select the " i feel fat" selection. Geez ...... seriously who cares? Its a option. If you dont like it then close your facebook account.

oh and by the way "feeling fat" is a feeling in today's world .... people use that as a term to describe how they feel


you cant control how people feel

[eridani]

3. Fat is an objective body mass index number, not a "feeling" n/t

[santroy79]

4. u serious? I think we all know that

but in todays world lots of people use it also to describe how they feel. Doesnt matter what the correct term is. Facebook didnt just pull that term out of thin air

[ismnotwasm]

5. It's actually trying to change the dialouge about women and weight

As well as point out that women's self esteem shouldn't be so closely tied to weight. The only issue that belongs with weight is health, and that's personal.

So the program is a bit more complex

[cyberswede]

6. So remove the option and people who want to can type it in

Doesn't seem too difficult.

Does it bother you that women want to affect a minor change like that? It's clearly not "silly" to the people who are concerned about it.

[eridani]

7. Nope--Facebook pulled it out of a diseased culture

And we should support that because why?