But Roxane Gay's requirements were different. When you're interviewing an international guest or someone very famous, there are always logistics to be organised. The intro on the original article before the podcast read: Gay's podcast interview for the Australian website came out on Monday, and though it has been taken down and amended, people have screenshots of the podcast's original description as well as the cache being available online.īoth now edited sections explained the planning between the website and Gay's 'people'. Mia Freedman is 45-years-old and was the youngest ever editor of Australian Cosmopolitan at the age of 24. Now, it seems like the offending journalist has outed herself to be Mia Freedman of MamaMia. Am I supposed to be grateful you provided a sturdy chair? Why would you tell me this? Is it that arduous? Come on. I just did an interview w/ someone who read Hunger and they said "we did a bunch of special things to accommodate you. Gay told Vice that this particular book tour has been 'more awkward than any interviews I've done before'.Īnd, back in May, Gay even Tweeted about some of those encounters. Gay has written about her body before, both in her books and online, but this is the most in-depth journey into her weight that Roxane has put on paper. She discusses the personal story of being gang-raped at 12-years-old and how her subsequent weight gain meant she struggled navigating the fat-phobic world she lives in. Hunger is 42 year-old Gay's new book which is about weight gained, weight lost, and all things in-between. Next time, I’d recommend they let their guests speak for themselves, and offer the same level of discretion and respect to all of them, no matter their size or the topic they’ll be discussing.Roxane Gay is the brilliant mind that brought us Bad Feminist, Difficult Women and the just-released Hunger: A Memoir of (my) Body. Meanwhile, Mamamia put out an “apology” that is nonetheless defensive about why Freedman did what she did, and doing the equivalent of “I’m sorry this bothered you,” rather than actually being apologetic about what was done.
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“Can she fit into the lift?” Shame on you Īs Gay puts it, this is all a “shit show.” It’s also frustrating that a purportedly feminist website and a self-proclaimed feminist fan of Gay’s work would get it so completely wrong and be so tone-deaf when it comes to fat women. The medical community has been offensive to fat people forever, with health professionals under and misdiagnosing them for actual medical conditions because they focus too much on “lose weight” as the catch-all solution for anything wrong with them. “Fat” is simply a descriptive word, “super morbidly obese” is a judgement about what fat means. Just because it’s the “official medical term” doesn’t make it inoffensive. Rather than following Gay’s lead about what she calls herself, Freedman decides that she knows better, choosing to use the “official medical term,” which to be honest, sounds way worse. In what universe would calling someone super morbidly obese better than just saying “fat.” For example, whereas she writes “I don’t want to say fat so I’m going to use the official medical term: super morbidly obese,” in the audio she says, “I don’t want to say fat, even though she uses the word fat about herself, so I’m going to use the official medical term: super morbidly obese.”Īnd there’s the main thrust of the problem right there. What’s interesting is that the written post leaves out some things that Freedman speaks in her audio intro. This written post is also the same intro that remains on the podcast. Sadly, the words Freedman used introducing and describing the interview were less-than-stellar. Gay talks about the experiences she describes in the book with candor and grace, and Freedman is very careful in her questioning, specifically talking about the fact that she understands the importance of words, and how easily the wrong ones can hurt. What’s sad is that the podcast interview itself is very good. Gay did the interview to promote her newest memoir, Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body, which according to The Daily Dot is about “the anxiety and humiliation that comes with existing in a world that deems you take up too much room, and won’t accommodate your experience.”
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Writer and “bad feminist,” Roxane Gay was being interviewed by Mia Freedman of the feminist Australian site Mamamia for their podcast. Usually, when interviewers are speaking directly with a well-known writer and activist whose latest book deals with issues of which that writer has first-hand experience, the interviewer’s best bet is to allow the writer to speak on the subject, giving them a platform rather than attempting to describe the experience themselves, or make the experience about themselves.