Uniform – Phillippa Finter

I didn’t raise my hand in the last two years of high school for fear of the tight fabric of my uniform straining against my enormous arms. In my mind if I raised my hand, everyone would see that my 16 year old tuck-shop-lady arms were actually taking up the entire room.  The shift of my blouse would show folds of skin, while I held the gigantic appendage up, adding to the shame and drawing attention.  So I kept my hand down, my arms down, my head down, my armpits unable to breathe through my restrained posture, creating a funk throughout the day from sheer suffocation.

My questions unanswered. My ideas unheard. I remained silent, not risking attention to my uneasy low-self esteem, spilling out of the chair, my thighs squeezed under the desk. I made sure that the material I’d cut from elbow to armpit for circulation was never exposed, holding it tightly hidden under my arms. Bound and gagged.

The walk to school in the morning would leave sweat patches under my arms and discoloration over time, no matter how many times I scrubbed and soaked the fabric with bleach.  Dirty and lazy was the only way to read me in the school halls, regardless of what I might have been.  I became aware of the silent head-shake and the words “childhood obesity epidemic” going through the minds of teachers when they saw me.  It was there, angry and pitying.  A nasty strain on them.

Complaining is admitting to being someone human inside this body, to existing where I shouldn’t as an epidemic in our society. Showing weakness often opens floodgates of opinions from others.  Their feelings about my body and what it means to them overwhelms me as I reassure them and agree to make a pact of shame. Again.  It began at the age of 6, when I was alone with a friend of my mother who grabbed my inner thigh and whispered menacingly into my ear, “You’ll have to get rid of this“. Surely that’s not assault? It’s just concern.

Never are you completely yourself as a fat person, you are a preconception of others emotions on the subject. Your identity rests on the predictable conversations in coffee shops and comment sections when that girl, with her tightly held arms, strains against the fabric to have a voice. Fat is one of the last bastions of casual prejudice among the more progressive corners of society. The obsessive, angry and sneering culture of fat hatred transcends politics.  Bringing everyone together in a fit of anger and disgust, “We’ll have to get rid of this“.