This journal is friends-locked. If you're really that interested in reading about our lives, leave me a comment here and I'll add you back if you interest me.

If you are a fuckwit or you dislike rats or children, you might as well not bother. I define fuckwittery as follows: misogyny, bigotry, anti-choice rubbish, fat phobia, spouting uneducated shit about mental illness and/or people living on benefits. I probably won't like you much if you're whiny or type with less accuracy than my four-year-old, either.

I've been friends-locked for a while, I just never had a banner. The otters were begging for an airing.

Now we have a car (forgot to mention that, Fred got a car!) I'm looking forward to being able to take Orion out for regular day trips to nice places. This is the list of places I have so far:

Manor Farm
Royal Victoria Country Park
Queen Elizabeth Country Park
Devil's Punchbowl
Eastleigh Lakeside Steam Railway
Paulton's Park
Marwell Zoo
Mid Hants Railway Day Out With Thomas
Southsea Castle
Blue Reef Aquarium

So local (Hampshire and surrounding areas) people, please recommend me your favourite places to go for day trips, especially those that are kid-friendly. :D

If you have ever sent an email to more than one person at a time, or if you have ever forwarded an email that you thought was really important (virus warnings, cute kitties and 'hilarious' jokes), I beg you to read my newest page: Why BCC is Important: A Public Service Announcement. This page is based on an email I sent out a while ago, which I thought might be useful for the general public. Seriously, read it. You could be saving yourself and your friends a lot of annoyance and frustration.

To all the mums and feminists, and that huge number who are both - let me introduce the Carnival of Feminist Parenting. The Carnival of Feminist Parenting is a new monthly carnival, highlighting some of the very best writing about issues in feminist parenting, particularly feminist motherhood.

The first edition will be published at Mothers For Women's Lib on Sunday 14th June 2009. The deadline for submissions will therefore be Sunday 7th June 2009.

Submissions can be made using the Carnival Submission Form. Feel free to submit your own posts or those of someone else. If you think it’s relevant to feminist motherhood/parenting, then it probably is.

Today, ladies and gentlemen, I want to talk to you about fat. Specifically I want to talk to you about fat phobia and thin privilege. It's disturbing to me how many people are unaware or unwilling to believe that fat phobia exists, and how many thin/'average weight' people are either unaware of or refuse to accept the privileges they have over fat people.

So, what is fat phobia, and what is thin privilege? For a start, the 'thin' in 'thin privilege' does not mean "size zero". It means "of 'normal' weight". Some examples: If you can walk into Top Shop, Miss Selfridge or any other high street fashion shop and know their size range includes your clothing size, you have thin privilege. If you can book a flight without fear that other passengers will hope like hell they're not seated next to you or worse, that you will be refused entry to the flight because of your size, you have thin privilege. If you can happily travel by car or bus or train and know that the seat will be built to accommodate your arse, you have thin privilege. If you can visit your doctor without being constantly berated about losing weight and having every physical malady you suffer attributed to your size and nothing else, you have thin privilege.

Fat phobia is thin privilege in action. Fat phobia is the media's insistence on sensationalising the 'obesity epidemic' and consistently and continuously painting fat people as lazy, unhealthy slobs. Fat phobia is in the general public's pervasive and misguided belief that fat automatically means unhealthy (I'll come back to that later). Fat phobia is in the refusal of clothing manufacturers to accommodate fat people when designing clothes, meaning that the majority of us end up spending twice as much in our 'specialty shops' as a thin person would on the high street. Fat phobia is in the medical professionals too lazy and indoctrinated to do their jobs, instead sending us away every single time with the instruction that if we lose weight, we will magically no longer be depressed/have CFS/have a broken leg (I'm kidding, sort of, but it really is that bad). Fat phobia is this society, which operates on a fat=bad belief and systematically beats down anybody who dares to disagree.

Many of my thin friends - women especially, women whom I otherwise think of as good, intelligent, progressive women - get massively defensive when I talk about fat phobia and thin privilege. "But skinny people are oppressed toooooooo!" I hear. Yeah, I get it. You went into a shop and ZOMG that top was too short/hung wrong on you. But do you know what? I didn't even bother going in, because I knew I was four sizes larger than even the largest size they offer. You tell me you know how I feel because that top 'didn't fit you right'. We have totally different ideas on what 'doesn't fit' means. To you, it means it didn't flatter you. To me, it means it didn't actually cover the intended body part. You were walking along the road and someone shouted that you were too skinny, or told you to put some meat on your bones, or blah blah blah? It is not the same as having the entire world consider you evil, the bane of society, and too stupid to know what's good for you.

I said I'd come back to fat=unhealthy and how fucking ridiculous that is. I was going to in this paragraph, and then realised that Kate Harding said everything I wanted to say, and far more articulately than I could have hoped. I suggest you go and read her post before you comment with a ridiculous and misguided statement like "Don’t you know there’s an obesity epidemic?" "Don’t you know that fat kills?" "Haven’t you ever heard of Type 2 diabetes?" "Don’t you realize how much money this is going to cost society down the line?" "Won’t someone please think of the children?"

Here in the UK, at this very moment, there are politicians who want to make obese people pay for their NHS treatment. Many of you might well be going "as well they should, fat people bring it all on themselves!" Well quite aside from the fact that as I've discussed, fat people are no more unhealthy than thin people, think about it properly for a second. How would you put that into practice? Firstly, would obese people have to pay for all their medical treatment, or just the stuff that could be caused by unhealthy eating/lack of exercise? How would you determine what caused what? Would thin people also be charged for things that could be caused by unhealthy eating/lack of exercise? How about this - how would you determine how 'fat' someone had to be before they were required to pay?

BMI, you say? Well quite aside from the fact that the Body Mass Index is a crock of shite, you'd then have a hell of a lot of athletes (many of whom are considered 'obese' according to their BMI because of their muscular build) being asked to pay for their NHS treatment. Using the BMI, it's utterly unpoliceable. The only way to do it would be to go into intimate and personal details or by looking at people. He's a fattie, make him pay. She looks thin, give it her for free, even though it's entirely possible her take-away diet is the cause of her heart attack. And aside from all that, the whole point of the NHS is that it is fair and accessible to all. The heroin addict who's dying of an overdose has exactly the same right to have his life saved as the nun who's fallen down a ladder. It's universal health care. If you start making fatties pay, where do you stop? Alcoholics? People who don't visit a gym three times a week? People who don't eat their 'five-a-day'? People who break their leg while skiing or horseriding (after all, you brought it on yourself by participating in a dangerous sport!)?

Of course some fat people are unhealthy. Some thin people are unheallthy too. It really chaps my hide that fat people are immediately considered unhealthy when I, all sixteen-and-a-half gloriously wobbly stone of me, eat better and am more active than every single thin/'normal weight' person I know. A thin person who eats nothing but greasy take-away is still considered 'healthy' because of their thinness, as long as they don't divulge their earing habits. But the thin person is thin! so people/doctors generally won't bother asking about their eating habits because they don't think they need to! I on the other hand, on my home-cooked, all-vegetarian, low-fat, high-fibre diet, am not only questioned but disbelieved when I explain my eating habits. You can almost see their thoughts behind her eyes. "If she really ate that healthily, she wouldn't be fat. She must be stuffing her face with crap and too embarrassed to admit it."

And you know what? I shouldn't have to explain my eating habits to anyone. I shouldn't have to feel like, in fact, know that, people immediately put me in the category of 'unfit' and 'unhealthy' just by looking at me. I shouldn't have to put up with total strangers and 'well-meaning' friends and family members offering unsolicited advice on how I can make myself small enough to fit into their version of 'healthy/attractive'. I shouldn't be expected to starve myself and make myself miserable in an attempt to shrink myself that will not work before a doctor will take me seriously and give me the treatment I need. In short, I should not be treated as subhuman simply because my size doesn't please people.

And you thin people? Yes you, and you, and you over there thinking "but I'm not thin, I have a bit of a belly and I want to lose ten pounds!"? A lot of the time you are part of the problem. I've written before about listening to people go on about their weight, and admittedly I was in a shocking mood when I wrote it. But the sentiment remains the same. When you say "I'm so fat" or "I feel fat", the unspoken ending to that sentence is "...and that's a bad thing." And by implying that fat is a bad thing, you are insulting me.

I don't care how many times you tell me "But I don't mean you!" or "But you're not that fat!" or even "It's fine for other people but I'd feel better if I was thinner!" - you are being fucking offensive. By implying that fat is a bad thing - even the tiny amount you have on your skinny ass - by saying fat is bad you are saying there is something wrong with being fat, and if you are saying there is something wrong with being fat you are saying there is something wrong with fat people, and if you are saying there is something wrong with fat people you are saying there is something wrong with me. However you try to paint it, every time you moan about how 'fat' you are, it is a personal insult because of all those unspoken implications which you'll tell me you don't mean but they are there.

Want to know how you, thin or 'average-weight' person (yes you, in the corner still muttering about those ten extra pounds, I mean you), can be an ally to fat people? Stop moaning about being fat. If you want to exercise and eat well, then that's a really good thing and I'm happy for you that you want to be healthy. But don't make it about fat. Don't talk about how so-and-so has put on weight. Don't listen to people who gossip about other people's weight. Stop telling fat people that you know just how they feel unless you are or have been a fat person. You don't. I know you think you do, but you can't and you don't. Stop seeing fat as the ultimate evil. Stop saying "oh, I can't eat that, I'm on a diet." Diets don't work! No, not even if you call them 'lifestyle changes'! By going on a diet when you're of average size, you're perpetuating the fat=bad belief, and (here I go again) being personally insulting. Stop talking about the 'eeeevil obesity epidemic!!!1!', stop blindly believing what you've been spoon-fed about obesity and health.

Most importantly, stop shaming fat people. Seriously, if shaming us made us thin, there wouldn't be a single fat person left in the world. That means not offering fat people advice on 'how to lose weight', especially unsolicited advice. It means not talking as if being fat is the worst thing that could possibly happen to you. It means not poking your fourteen-year-old niece in the belly and telling her she's filling out. It means not behaving and talking like a privileged asshole when you're talking about weight, be it your own or someone else's.

With a bit of common sense and intelligence, we could erase fat phobia entirely. It starts with me. It starts with you. It starts with everybody who gives a shit about truth and dignity. It starts with every person who is willing to take a stand, to call people out on their fat jokes, to question the status quo, to stand up to their doctor when he or she starts spouting untruths about obesity and health, to accept their weight and stop seeing fat as the enemy. It's not. Hatred is the enemy, misinformation is the enemy, the media with its obsession with flat bellies and non-existent arses is the enemy. Say it with me. Fat is not the enemy. Fat is not the enemy. Fat is not the enemy, and I for one will not treat it as the enemy for one minute longer.

My dad emailed me last week. He was thinking of running the ten-mile Great South Run in October and wanted to know whether I could think of a worthy charity for whom he could raise money by running it. My gut reaction was "Rape Crisis, Rape Crisis, oh god they need the funds right now!" and he agreed that they were indeed a worthy cause. Then all sanity flew out of the window and before I knew it, I was signing up to run it with him.

Let me give you a little background on my running history: I have none. I'm 5'8" and 17st 3lb (and counting), which puts me squarely in the 'Obese' category according to my BMI (which as we all know is a crock of shite, but there it is). I haven't run further than twenty yards for the bus since I was fourteen years old. My exercise level is zero and my diet, though vegetarian, atrocious. I am not what you might call an ideal candidate for the Great South Run. But here I am, and I've paid the thirty-four quid entry fee so I'm bloody well going to run it, damn it.

Ginge (my best friend) decided he wanted to run it with us too, and though considerably fitter than I am, he still doesn't have much running experience. So this evening we did week one, day one of the Couch-to-5K running plan. This is apparently a way of getting your arse off the couch and running five kilometres within nine weeks. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, except some stomach pain and the nagging feeling that I need to invest in a sports bra.

After that, we'll just keep going and going until we reach our target - ten miles is 16.1km. Take To The Streets, in conjunction with the Great Run website, has a training plan which allegedly gets you all the way to ten miles, so we'll probably use a combination of the two.

I was waiting for Rape Crisis to register with Justgiving and then remembered I've been using EveryClick to help raise money for Rape Crisis for some time through their web search (oh yes, you should go and do that too) and have found that they make sponsorship pages there too. So for now you can sponsor us or pledge to sponsor us at Everyclick. Thanks!

So watch this space - if only for the hilariousness of watching a fat girl try to run ten miles.

I do not have the time or the patience for attention-seeking, especially where something so ridiculous as weight is involved. You all know my views on weight, fat-positivity and size acceptance. Frankly it is a drain on my tolerance and self-restraint to read continuous "ZOMG I IS SO FAAAAAT!!!" posts when the writers in question are so evidently either trying to get attention, or so fucked up that they don't realise how insulting it is to me to read such things.

When you post about how fat you are, and therefore disgusting, I honestly feel violent. Does it not occur to you, friends list, that the majority of you are three or four whole dress sizes smaller than me? And that by implying that your weight is disgusting, you are in turn implying that my own is virtually unbearable? Does it not occur to you that if you are actually considered 'underweight' or 'normal' by everybody (including medical authorities) but yourself, you might just be being a wee bit insensitive and offensive? More importantly, do you have any idea how ridiculously stupid you sound?

I am happy with my body, I love it unconditionally, and I refuse to subject myself to condescendingly fatphobic rubbish just because I consider you my 'friends'. You are quite welcome to post about your weight problems and moan about them like a pathetic teenage girl; just don't expect me to read it. From now on when I read this rubbish the poster will be removed from my friends list - not because I dislike you, but because I refuse to spend time with bigots and hatemongerers in real life, and refuse to do so in my online life either.

Frankly, it hurts my head to listen to it - and like everyone else I deserve to have a safe space where I am free from this sort of patriarchal, self-loathing crap. If you were posting racist or homophobic sentiments I would do this, and I'm taking a stand against fatphobia because it is equally offensive to me.

So now, if you find yourself no longer on my friends list, you know why. I apologise for spending such a long time explaining this, but it's been irritating me for such a long time, my even temper was beginning to erode. Thanks for reading, people.