{The Body Liberation Guide} “If you weren’t so controversial….”
Hi friend,
There’s a new supporter reward in the Blanket Fort this week – Resources & Recs: Healthcare Providers!
This is an ongoing reference of existing weight-neutral and Health at Every Size®-aligned healthcare provider directories, as well as specific recommendations for doctors and other healthcare pros.
It’s very US-heavy right now, but I’d love to see it contain listings worldwide, so everyone everywhere should feel free to chime in. Join the Blanket Fort to add to the listings »
Today’s letter is the fourth in a four-part series (here are parts one, two and three).
“If you weren’t so controversial….”
Would it be possible to run my business without an activism component? Yes, of course, though it would be very difficult for me personally, since it’s hard for me to talk about photos, body image and self-confidence without talking about why we feel bad about our bodies in the first place.
But what can’t be escaped is that marginalized bodies are political and controversial, through no fault of our own. Even if I kept my mouth shut and only shared the shallowest feel-good body positivity content and offered shallow “empowerment” photography, my body would still exist.
My business will never look like the business of a photographer in a highly-privileged body, because the person in that body is treated differently.
Get good.
Businesses fail all the time. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), approximately 20% of new [U.S.] businesses fail during the first two years of being open, 45% during the first five years, and 65% during the first 10 years.
When we think about businesses, we don’t generally think of ourselves as having an obligation to “support” them. Either we give them money for something, or we don’t.
If a small business is succeeding, it’s doing capitalism correctly. If it fails, it’s on the business owner to improve.
There are lots of small business owners and sole practitioners on this mailing list, so feel free to chime in, but off the top of my head,
I cannot think of one single very fat small business owner who makes a comfortable living from their work.
A few are paying their bills, barely, as long as their bills stay small and they don’t dream too big. Many more are supported by partners, or make so little it doesn’t threaten their disability income. And the rest have vanished, as I talked about previously.
Is it really true that none of these people are, or were, good enough at business to succeed financially?
As video gamers say, “Get good.”
But how good is good enough, when your marginalized presence within the business makes running and marketing it a difficulty setting too high to handle?
And at what point is our assumption that struggling fat business owners are doing something wrong a reflection of how we’ve been taught our entire lives that fat people’s bodies are a reflection of their inadequacy, sloth and lack of intelligence?
Hi there! I'm Lindley. I create artwork that celebrates the unique beauty of bodies that fall outside conventional "beauty" standards at Body Liberation Photography. I'm also the creator of Body Liberation Stock and the Body Love Shop, a curated central resource for body-friendly artwork and products. Find all my work here at bodyliberationphotos.com.
