Fat shaming and making fun of fat people

And if you assume that I have not been bullied, ever, let me assure you i have. I was bullied through middle school AND high school. I was called horrible names by several different boys. Did it permit me to slap them? NO. Did it affect me for a long time afterwards? YES. Words hurt, and verbal abuse is wrong. But somehow justifying your behavior with physical violence is 1000 times WRONG.

Well I'm going to go ahead and disagree with you there because I actually do think that physical violence, or the threat of it, is justified against bullying on occasion.

Take my friend. She has a beautiful 15yr old daughter who stopped going to school because she'd been bullied so much she had to be treated for anxiety. Some little cow in her year at school wasn't happy that a boy she fancied liked my friend's daughter so her and her equally sad little friends started a campaign against her. They started up rumours on Facebook that she slept around, they even photoshopped a few naked images and pretended they were her. They picked on her at every opportunity at school and it snowballed until even kids from other schools were attacking her on Facebook. My friend did the 'proper thing' - she went to the school and they followed their procedures.

Shall I tell you what the school's procedures consisted of? Well first there was a 'no blame' policy enacted where they got the ringleaders together in a room with the victim and said "Sarah (that's not her real name) is feeling very upset, what can we do about it?" The ringleader replied "Smack the **** out of her". The ringleader got a letter home to her parents and the 'no blame' policy ended. Next came 'Restorative Justice' and when sitting in the waiting room for that little meeting to go ahead my friend was treated to verbal abuse by the little cow's Father (who felt she was a little angel) and the little cow herself sat smirking the entire time. The meeting got nowhere. My friend then reported the harassment to the police, who very helpfully suggested she talk to the school and perhaps contact Facebook to get report abuse.....about as much use as a chocolate teapot then. Back to the school - well they decided to remedy the situation by taking the victim out of the class and putting her in a different class....nice going, let's ostracise the victim. This went on and on and on for nearly a year with this poor girl going from a bubbly teenager to a withdrawn, stressed lass who stuck to her Mum's side like glue. It ended when my friend happened to see this girl on her own one evening and she took the opportunity to push her up against a wall and tell her that if she continued destroying her daughter she wouldn't rest until the girl's every day was a living misery. THEN it stopped.

Sorry, but if school policies are ineffectual and the police won't get involved then I can't see any reason why a kid would go through something that, you yourself admit, can effect you for years when quite often a short, sharp shock is enough to both stop the bully and restore some of the victim's self-esteem.

Well I'm obese and frankly I used to hide away, slink around in the shadows and generally live my life like a bloody great apology for existing. If you're obese you absolutely will have had comments shouted at you at some point. In my case, I'm pretty active for an obese person, I've always had dogs and I've always walked a lot. I use to walk with my eyes glued to the floor hoping nobody would notice my passing...particularly if I was passing youngish blokes who do seem to be the ones who like to comment on a female's relative attractiveness to them.

Then one day I was out with my Mastiff, and as I was walking towards 2 guys who looked to be in their mid-20s, I heard one say to the other "Look at the size of that dog, it's enormous!" and the other looked at me and snickered "Which one do you mean?" Up to that point in life I would have slunk away, eyes to the ground and felt a bit teary. That day I had a total 'Falling Down' moment, and despite being a 5ft4" middle aged woman, I felled the guy with a full force kick to the crotch (yay for Brashers' walking boots...they're heavy beasts) and a smash round the head with a plastic retractable dog lead for good measure.

Since the day the worm turned, I rarely get a comment. I've lost a bit of weight since then, but that's not the reason because I'm still obese. The reason is that I walk with my head-up and instead of looking like prey, I'm guessing I'm giving off predator vibes because I feel 100% confident that if anyone thinks they can try to ridicule me they're not coming out of the situation unscathed.

So yup....though it's not politically correct, I do feel that the first step to losing weight is to feel good about yourself as you are and the first step to doing that is to stop taking shyte from idiots who feel that they have to validate their place in this world by making others feel insignificant and unworthy.

But you know what? I'm not a thug. I'd shrug it off as the ramblings of an idiot desperately trying to justify their criminal act and walk away.

I'm not a thug and calling me an idiot doesn't exactly cover you in glory sweetheart.

I ridiculous comparison if that is what you were going for??? where is the equivalent behavior?

That wasn't a comparison, it was an example of a situation where I believe violence, or the threat of it, is justified in dealing with bullying. It was in response to a posting saying that violence is never justified when dealing with bullying. I don't know about you, but I tend to find that actually looking at what people are quoting in their response helps to get a sense of the context.

are you kidding me... a stupid man makes one stupid comment and you feel it is appropriate to use physical violence against him.

Ok, clearly some people aren't reading properly before jumping on the opportunity to demonstrate what fine, upstanding, morally robust paragons of virtue they are. I'll tell you what, I'll bullet point it:

1. Throughout my life I've dealt with such comments by slinking away, not saying a thing and then spending a good amount of time feeling terrible about myself.
2. That particular day, which was a few years ago now....not last week, not yesterday.....an idiot made a comment and with no forethought, with no premeditation I flipped out, kicked him in the danglies and whacked him round the head with a dog lead. I exploded. I wasn't thinking, I wasn't even seeing straight (tunnel vision) and when I got home I puked.
3. The guy was NOT injured - he was shocked (obviously), but he got up, threw a few choice words about what he'd do if he ever saw me again and walked away with his friend.
4. The guy still lives in our small town - in fact he's an unemployed, tracksuit wearing plonker who, when he's not breeding, seems to spend most of his time hanging around outside the pub smoking dog-eared looking roll-ups with his mates and delighting passers-by with his towering wit and intelligence.
5. Although what I did was totally unplanned and obviously not a smart thing to do given he's bigger than me, younger than me and fitter than me, I have no regrets because that one act gave me the confidence to not worry what people think of me. NOW when I get a comment (which is rare), I have enough barbs in my verbal armoury to cut deep and make that person think again about picking on people for no good reason.

...and lastly...

6. I really don't care if my actions get a few random people on MFP in a froth of moral outrage....it's not as though you have any significance to me or my life. The outrage makes me smile frankly, because it's not my blood pressure going up whilst frantically hammering away at the keyboard in an all-fire rush to tell me what a 'thug' I am :laugh:

Were you charged with assault & battery for your physical response to verbal abuse?

Nope and frankly the consequences of my actions were the last thing on my mind because here's the thing.....it's a 'camel's back' situation. A person can take nasty comments week in and week out for a long time (in my case it stretched back to school where I was bullied badly for my weight), but everyone has a breaking point and when they reach it they're either going to implode or explode. I exploded and at the time I absolutely, 100% wanted to hurt him as badly as I'd been hurt down the years. I literally had tunnel vision. I had so much adrenaline pumping through me I puked when I got home!

So that's my words of advice to people who do fat shame....have a care because people do have breaking points and you don't know if you're going to be the straw that breaks that fat camel's back.

Of course the other thing is that the guy would never have reported me - how would that conversion have gone? "Hi officer, I want to report being beaten up. Can I describe the attacker? Yes, she was short, fat and middle-aged" Would he wait around for the sound of a police officer snickering to stop?

Personally, I think what you did -- whether he deserved it or not - was physical assault, and the guy should have complained to the police. And whether or not the police would "snicker" at the guy, they still should have charged you with assault and battery. It doesn't matter if you're obese or not, what you did was wrong. Nobody has the right to put their hands, or their feet, on another person's body part in an act of violence.

It sounds like you're still harboring some serious anger regarding how you've been treated. I think your energy and efforts would be better put to use in getting rid of some of that, instead of bragging about how you turned a verbal assault (which is abusive mentally but not physically) into a physical one.

And, if you're a mom, I do hope you haven't shared this story with your kids, who would read that as: "Mom says it's okay to kick a man in a very sensitive area if he verbally assaults me." No, the words HE said did not justify the reaction you gave.

ETA: I have a black belt degree in Tae Kwon Do. While I thankfully have never had to use it, I do like to think that I can really hurt someone if they deserved it. What self defense training taught me is this: verbal abuse does not justify physical abuse. Only when the verbal abuse turns physical does it deserve to be returned in kind. AND, kicking a man in the crotch is the best way to get him even angrier and potentially more violent towards you. If you REALLY want to damage someone, go for the eyes, the throat, the shins and the kneecaps. THOSE are the "sweet spots".

Totally. It's wrong to assault someone like that, even if they teased you.