San Francisco Weight Czar Virgie Tovar on Why Eating Less Cake Is Oppression

TOVAR: “CRFI. If you’re like many women, you’ve been to a birthday party or a small office gathering, an event that’s meant to bring people together. There’s swinging tunes, some adult beverages, and good convo. And then it comes time to cut the cake, and someone decides to ruin everything.”
UNKNOWN FEMALE 1: “oh my God, that slice is huge. That slice is bigger than Beyonce’s paycheck. Can you cut me half of half of that?”
TOVAR: “A Cake Related Fatphobic Incident, or CRFI, is that moment when it’s time to eat delicious cake, and it’s interrupted by a moralizing impulse. Inevitably, there’s always someone at the party who has to declare publicly that their slice is too large, and that the person who’s cutting the cake, almost invariably a woman, must do some disproportionate amount of labor in order to accommodate their need to feel superior. Let’s take a look.”
UNKNOWN FEMALE 2: “Can you do a little bit, just like?”
UNKNOWN FEMALE 3: “Can you like scrape all the frosting off and cut it in half and give me two forks, because I’m sharing?”
UNKNOWN FEMALE 2: “Smaller, like a little bit more, like tiny, no, like less, less than what you’re — smaller, please.”
UNKNOWN FEMALE 4: “Could you just cut my piece into 12 equal symmetrical little pieces and put each one into a tiny little Tupperware so that I can have a bite for each month of 2018? Thanks.”
UNKNOWN FEMALE 2: “Smaller.”
TOVAR: “Let’s take a step back and view what’s happening through a critical feminist lens. CRFIs typically happen in environments where there are primarily, or exclusively, women. Women are disproportionately negatively affected by diet culture because diet culture maps onto sexism. Like many parts of diet culture, there is a significant performance component. You have to others that you are being good. Controlling how much you eat is part of what it means to be a quote, ‘good woman.’ This kind of behavior is a way for people to keep other people in check through food, moralizing, surveillance, and policing. These are the mechanisms that are at the core of diet culture and weight control. The idea that you can position yourself as superior to others through self-control and self-denial is super sexist. CRFIs have a history of creating a hierarchy among women and ultimately in maintaining misogynist expectations.”