Lots of folks think fat-shaming is perfectly acceptable. More than that, lots of folks think fat-shaming is actually a good thing, because with shame as a motivator, perhaps those darn fat people will stop being so fat. It doesn’t work, though — shame is not a catalyst for change. It is a paralytic. Anyone who has ever carried extreme personal shame knows this.

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I was groped at work by a woman. My immediate response was to pretend it never happened. My solution was to hold myself responsible and try to “learn from the experience” and “do better in the future.” If that’s how I handled a minor transgression, what must the cultural shame for a major one feel like? But the truth is, she never should have groped me. And I still have trouble believing that.

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