Tag Archives: identity

Imagining Freedom

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Bags are unloaded directly onto the tarmac in Fort Chipewyan.

Bags are unloaded directly onto the tarmac in Fort Chipewyan.

We like to be free in this country

—Alexandre Laviolette, 1897, Chipewyan minor chief and negotiator of Treaty 8 at Fort Chipewyan

I am sitting on a tiny plane bound for Fort Chipewyan, Alberta, admiring the letter that Alexandre Laviolette wrote to the police authority in 1897, indicating that his people would not stand for any infringement on their hunting and fishing rights. “I think myself a man same as you, and I would not step back for your gun.” Continue reading →

FFG Respectfully Responds to Fat: A User’s Guide

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Lion in front of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Lion in front of the Art Institute of Chicago.

I am in my element, learning new things in a foreign land with people I have never met before. While attending a cultural studies conference in Chicago, I have chosen panels according to my interest rather than my expertise. Skipping the talks about art, medicine, and museums, I am listening to arguments about the politics of American comedy, the exploitation hidden within contemporary bicycle culture, the challenges of researching Klan robes, and the surprising links between mandated monogamous love and American national identity. I am also paying attention to the embodied performance of each speaker. Continue reading →

Your Daughter is Listening: Guest Post Written by My Sister Lorrie

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Lorrie's blog, strong armsby Lorrie

I have always wondered whether or not I would go through a mid life crisis. As I approached and then passed age 40, I thought “what could possibly happen?” Then whamo! I was hit square in the stomach with a major personal crisis in November. When I was explaining this experience to a friend at Starbucks one day, she likened it to being clanged on both sides of the head with large cymbals. She said it was a wake up call and she was right.

Since then I have done a lot of thinking about who I am and how I see myself. Continue reading →

Pregnancy and Engorged Womanhood: Guest Post by HissyFit

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One of the most accurate representations of pregnancy I've seen: http://cdn.parenting.kidspot.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/pregnancy_sleep_640x360.jpg

One of the most accurate representations of pregnancy I’ve seen: http://cdn.parenting.kidspot.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/pregnancy_
sleep_640x360.jpg

When  one is 36 years old and pregnant for the first time, the changes that one’s body initiates are shocking. Throughout my adult life I have been in control of my nutritional and fitness regimen – splurging when I wanted to, directing bodily outcomes when specific goals were sought. With pregnancy, however, even my best attempts to control my rapidly expanding flesh are unsuccessful. No matter what I eat or tone, my belly – and my breasts, and my hips, and my veins – are following their own paths, growing larger, more engorged, more alien with each passing day. Continue reading →

Gorilla Hands: A Female Powerlifter Confronts Body Ideals (Guest Post by babyeaterlifts)

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My nickname through part of my undergraduate degree was “Gorilla Hands,” and the story behind this moniker is as follows: the boyfriend of a girl who lived on my floor during my short duration in the dormitories told his girlfriend that he thought I was “really cool, but that I have huge hands.” This girl—whose name I can no longer remember and am feeling vaguely guilty for it—relayed her boyfriend’s observation to me as I sat with her and a few other dwellers of the fourth floor of our dorm. I joked that I had “hands like a gorilla” and “Gorilla Hands” stuck. Continue reading →