EP. 15 — Stephanie Yeboah

IWEIGH-015-20200708-StephanieYeboah-ACv01-DYN.mp3

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to another episode of “I Weigh” with Jameela Jamil. I hope this finds you well. I’m fine. Nothing’s changed. Gone nowhere. Done nothing. I am nothing. I feel embarrassed doing the intros for these now because just I’ve, I’ve nothing new to report. And also, there’s so many more interesting and terrifying things happening in the news. So I guess myself has just been consumed by the outside. I wonder if you feel the same. Thank you so much for your lovely messages about Catherine Bohart’s episode last week, where we talked at length about mental health, in particular, OCD. I’ve received so many personal and loving messages and messages from people who’ve passed it on to family members who are struggling with the condition. And so I really, really appreciate the recommendations you send me. And I really want to know who you want me to continue to talk to and what you want me to talk about, because I could do with all the learning and all the info so that I can make this podcast exactly what you want. This week’s guest is really special. And she’s someone that if you aren’t following her on Twitter, I suggest you do. Not just because she’s very funny, but she’s also very smart and she’s unbelievably resilient and transparent online. Her name is Stephanie Yeboah. Some people might have known her before as “Nerd About Town”. She was a famous fashion blogger who’s now kind of moved into more of a style icon and an activist face. She, she works within what you, what she used to describe as a body positive movement. But now it’s become more of the fat acceptance movement because the body positive movement has been taken over by thin, predominantly light skinned, if not white influences who just show off their very traditionally acceptable bodies and then just say hashtag BodyPositivity. It’s become this slogan that’s been taken over by capitalism and materialism. So it’s no longer a social political movement that was there designed to help people who were being medically discriminated against and societally discriminated against because of the way that they look, because of how their body functioned or because of the size of their body. That’s what the body positive movement was, was originally for. And now it’s become like a fancy slogan. So Steph works within the fat acceptance movement, and she’s one of the leading voices within that movement. She’s so, so special. She has a new book coming out soon, coming out this September called “Fattily Ever After: The Fat, Black Girls’ Guide to Living Life Unapologetically”. And I think it’s going to be wonderful. And this episode today is a kind of glimpse into who she is and what that book will be about. We talk about all things to do with race and body and loneliness and skin bleaching and mental health. She was so brutally honest with me and she’s someone I respect so much. Hilariously, Stephanie and I met by just fighting. We just argue with each other. We didn’t know each other, didn’t know anything about each other, and just used to have consistent misunderstandings and just didn’t really get along for the first couple of months and then in DMs, while the rest of the world thought we were still fighting, just became quite good friends and started to understand that we were on the same side, we have all the same views. And a lot of our our anger towards each other earlier was just Twitter born misunderstandings and other people fanning the flames and just nonsense. And so I really like it when people who are moving within the same movements come together and recognize the bigger cause and, and recognize the similarities they have rather than looking for the differences. She’s someone that I’m really glad to have in my life and I learn a lot from. I’m super inspired by. And she’s had such an interesting and at times heartbreaking and inspiring life. And I think you’re really going to enjoy getting to know her. So this is the fabulous Stephanie Yeboah. Stephanie Yeboah, you are an award winning journalist, public speaker, fat acceptance activist and soon to be author. Welcome to “I Weigh”. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:04:21] Thank you for having me. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:04:23] Thank you so much for being here. So nice to meet you off the Internet. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:04:27] I know, right? Finally. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:04:29] We’ve been-. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:04:29] Finally. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:04:30] Yep, we’ve had a filthy secret affair sliding into each other’s DMs for-. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:04:34] We have. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:04:34] Two years now. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:04:35] We have, it’s been two years already, that’s mad. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:04:38] Yeah. I know. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:04:40] Yeah, it’s been. Yeah, it’s great though. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:04:43] It’s been real. It’s been real. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:04:45] It’s been real. Yeah, that’s the way to put it. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:04:45] We’ve gone through the full, we’ve gone through the full cycle of a friendship. We’ve fallen out. We’ve made up. And now we’re here. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:04:54] Yeah. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:04:54] I have so many questions for you because you have always been one of my favorite voices within the body positive movement and the fat acceptance movement. And increasingly, over the last two years, as your profile’s risen, it’s been really cool to watch more and more people look to you as an inspiration. And I don’t want to pressure you, but something of an authority on this subject sometimes. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:05:18] Oh, God. I try. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:05:21] And so I feel like no one can answer a lot of these questions better than you. So within your work, would you say it’s body positivity or fat acceptance? Which one would you prefer? 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:05:31] First, I would prefer, I would prefer fat acceptance. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:05:35] Okay. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:05:36] I think. Yeah. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:05:37] So with, so how did you find the fat acceptance movement? What’s been your history with your body? 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:05:45] So ever since I can remember, I have always been extremely insecure about how I looked. In my family unit, I was the biggest one. My mom, my brother, my dad. Well, not my dad, but my mom and my brothers are like tiny. They’re like very petite, and my dad is like really big and tall. And so I was like the fat one in the family. And so up until the age of 11, everything’s fine. Went to primary school and I got good stuff. But secondary school happened. And puberty happened. And I was being bullied, like on my first day of school all the way up until I finished school. And it wasn’t just words. It was also sort of being beaten up and having, you know, acid thrown on me and having people throw stuff at me. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:06:36] Acid? 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:06:36] Yeah. So when I used to do chemistry, there was a particular incident when I was partnered up with somebody in our chemistry class and our teacher went out to another room and one of the boys that bullied me threw a chorus of liquids, which I think, I can’t remember the name of the acid, but it wasn’t like a strong, strong one, but it was strong enough to kind of burn my neck. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:06:57] Burn the skin, yeah. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:06:57] Which is why my neck is a bit darker than the rest of my body. But he poured it on the back of my neck as I was working. And that was like a whole thing in secondary school. And it was there that I was taught how to hate my body and how different my body was to all of the other girls growing up. I then developed depression when I was 14. I started doing a lot of self harm. I started sort of throwing up after I ate, sort of going through the whole eating disorder process. But because I’m fat, you didn’t see, people didn’t see it as an eating disorder. They saw it as me doing something good for my weight. So regardless of the fact that I was throwing up, regardless of the fact that I was calorie controlling and, you know, my mom put me on Weight Watchers when I was 12 or 13 and I started eating 800 hundred calories a day. And I was really doing everything possible in order to lose the weight. People didn’t see it as a disorder. And so these emotions manifested as I grew up and the dieting became a lot more extreme. I never wore anything strapless. Didn’t start wearing dresses until I was 20, I think. And it wasn’t-. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:08:11] And you look fucking brilliant in them, by the way. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:08:14] Oh thanks so much, I love them so much now, you can’t get me out of them. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:08:17] ‘Cause she’s also a style icon. I mean, a lot of people are listening to this, but if anyone’s watching it, we’re fucking dressed the same today. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:08:22] We’re dressed the same. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:08:24] Look at us. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:08:24] It’s like. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:08:24] Give it a little stand. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:08:25] It’s like something kind of-. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:08:25] Give it a little stand. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:08:25] It’s like something kind of giving you some boobs, giving you sort of “Death Becomes Her”. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:08:32] Yes. I was just going to say, it’s “Death Becomes Her’, oh my God, we look like we’re trying to get laid at a funeral. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:08:37] Oh God. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:08:40] Ok, so you were. That’s such an interesting. That’s such an interesting point. The one about the fact that eating disorders can exist outside of people who are just, who weigh 90 pounds. No one, no one looks at anyone other than that as having an eating disorder where it’s, I’d say, most of the people I know who definitely have disordered eating are all big enough that one would think that they have things under control. If not, some people think that they’re not doing enough. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:09:07] Yeah. It’s an interesting one because even within, it seems like even with that community, I don’t want to call it a community, but that world of eating disorders, there’s still a standard of beauty there and that is slim white woman. And anything that falls outside of that, it’s your more-, you’re less likely to be believed, even with men, less likely to be believed, it has to be something else. It can’t be an eating disorder. And so I went through that for about five or six years. And then I went to New York after I graduated from uni. I started my blog around the time, but it was mostly me talking about tech and comic books and all of that kind of stuff. And I went to New York for three months, so I stayed in, where did I stay? In Harlem. And I was staying above these women who were downstairs. There were three plus sized black women and they were the most unapologetic, beautiful, confident women I had ever seen in my life. And they were dressed up to the nines, looking amazing and so confident. And in my head, I was like, that’s what I want. That’s what I want to, you know, that’s what I want to do. I don’t want to be wearing leggings and cardigans on the beach. Like I want to embrace my body and my stretchmarks and my rolls. And I would talk to them every day. And, you know, they would give me, you know, amazing bits of advice and, you know, learning how to love my body. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:10:27] Do you remember any of that advice? 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:10:30] A lot of it was just, I mean, the main thing that I took from that was to just be, to take up space and to be loud and don’t ever diminish yourself either mentally, physically or emotionally in order to make people that have privilege feel better about themselves. And that was the thing that really stuck with me. And so when I came back to the UK, I was like, OK, I’m going to start doing this fashion thing because I love fashion. And, you know, a couple of stores that I like, have just starting plus size. So me being able to express my identity through fashion really helped me learn how to love my body. And it also taught me that I have such a long way to go to unlearn all of the toxic fat phobic thoughts that I had been harvesting my whole life. And so I started to talk about that on my blog and combine it with mental health. And I also sto-, started to talk about the things that I would observe on TV. You know, how we’re portrayed, represent-, representation and all of these other bits and pieces that I thought, hang on a minute. This isn’t cool. I want to see more of this. There should be more of this. And so I came across the fat acceptance movement on Tumblr. And back then, it was just, it was amazing. It was just full of photos of all of these plus sized black women. Some of them were naked. Some of them were half naked. Some of them had written these amazing, beautiful poems about their bodies. And I just became submerged in it. And as soon as I got in there, I didn’t look back because I thought, oh, my gosh, there are women that are shaped like me, but they are like rocking this outfit and they are showing their stretch marks and they don’t have the typical or the socially acceptable hourglass shaped body. But yet, they love themselves and they are full of so much joy. And that’s what I want. I feel safe in this environment. This is what I have needed my whole life and so that’s what kind of started the ball rolling for me. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:12:27] It’s so interesting that you talk about taking up space. I think that’s something that I think about a lot. And I wonder why when I was younger and I was chubby, what it was about me, in particular, that felt like I had to starve myself more than any of the other girls. I went to school predominantly full of white girls. And I think there was a part of me that already felt different for having darker skin. And so therefore, you don’t want to draw any attention to yourself. I was super tall. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:12:53] Yeah. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:12:53] And I think there’s a part of me that didn’t just want to be thin so I could look like the models in the magazines and, and attract the boys. But also because I was, because I was trying to just disappear almost like a wallflower, you know what I mean? Like, I didn’t want to be the target of anyone’s, of anyone’s cruel words. I just didn’t want anyone to see me because I wasn’t white. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:13:16] It’s a multilayered thing, isn’t it? Because it’s like when you are, it’s like you’re already tubby or fat. And then you add to being dark on top of that, it’s just so many targets for people to hit. So it’s like you kind of want to eliminate the one that you have the most control of at that time so that you feel less visible. And a lot of the time, weight is the one where I guess we have the most control of in regards to restriction and eating and exercise and things like that. And yeah, I definitely see where you’re coming from in terms of sort of combining race and ethnicity with being plus size as well. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:13:49] Well, also, let’s talk about race and ethnicity within the body positive movement, because that is also something that comes up. You know, we don’t see a lot of dark skinned plus sized women. And I know that you’ve definitely been on a journey throughout your life with your skin color. And, and I know that you’ve spoken before about like using bleaching products and stuff. You’ve been incredibly open about that. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:14:12] Yeah. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:14:12] And I think that’s also a really interesting conversation about where you’re at now with being beautiful, dark skinned black woman because the representation is still fucking minimal. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:14:23] Yeah. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:14:24] Yeah. It’s always mixed race people or light-, more light skinned people or it is people who also have the like, who have the hourglass, the Ashley Grahams and people like that, who still have the kind of, yeah, exactly. And no disrespect to those women. They are out there doing things that are progressive and, and I’m sure we’re incredibly challenging for them. But that has become the acceptable archetype for the plus sized woman. And we still aren’t seeing women who are, I guess the term is, is this offensive? The Apple shape. Which I think is personally gorgeous and lovely, but people who don’t have a tiny waist. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:14:59] Yeah. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:14:59] And so talk to me about your journey with your skin color. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:15:03] Yeah, so with my skin color. So in most of, well not most of, maybe a few countries in Western Africa and in Asia as well, like skin bleaching is a huge deal. And that’s mostly leftover from the colonial times and the British because I’m from Ghana and so Britain invaded Ghana, colonized it. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:15:24] So unlike Britain. God. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:15:25] I know. God. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:15:26] Really weird. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:15:30] I’d say they sort of, you know, left over these horrible ideologies that white is right. The lighter you are, the better you are. And so all of these things. And so within our culture, it’s just been a thing where if you want to be successful, if you want people to like you, if you want to be attractive, you need to be light skin, mixed race. That was what was-. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:15:52] Drummed into us. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:15:53] Beautiful. Drummed into us. You know, I’d watch, come home from school. Watch, you know, “MTV Base” such a throwback. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:16:00] Oh, my God. I lived on “MTV Based”. Trevor Nelson is God. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:16:05] Yes. I love him. And I’d watch all of these like R&B and hip hop videos like, you know, darker skin rappers using lighter skinned or Latina women. And it’s just like what is so wrong about my, my skin, my skin type. And so similar to what you said earlier about trying to minimize yourself in school. For me, it was it, it was the same as well. So I was, you know, plus sized and darker skinned. And I remember there was a girl at my secondary school who was in the year above me, and she was perhaps maybe a size smaller than me, but she was light skinned. And I just remember, you know, maybe she was, you know, a lot more confident in herself. But she never got picked on. She never got bullied. You know, all the boys fancied her. And I was just like, what? But what about me? It must be my skin tone, because in secondary school, a lot of the time, you know, having, being with a “lighty”, quote, unquote, was the trend at the time. And after school, I would go to the local black hair shop, pick up some, pick up some bleach and cream, which had a banned ingredient in there. But they would sell them under the shelves. And I would come home and I would start bleaching every time I would have a shower, when I would moisturize instead of the cocoa butter or the moisturizer that I would use, I would use this bleaching cream. And it went on for a couple of years until I started to see my skin. It started to get lighter. But what I found was that it was this really horrible sort of phlegm colored kind of gray. It was just gross, it looked unhealthy, basically. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:17:46] Yeah. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:17:46] It was an unhealthy lighter shade. And I could tell that my skin was just, it was horrible. It was deteriorating like. Yeah, it was, it was a really harsh time. Also, it stung a lot. I would, 0 out of 10 not recommend because of the high amount of mercury, I’m assuming, there was quite a high amount. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:18:07] Jesus. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:18:07] And so. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:18:08] It’s so bad for you. It’s, it’s incredibly prevalent in my country. And so because for us and I don’t know if this is a shared belief, but in Pakistan and India, if you are dark skinned, then the connotation is that you are someone who works outside. You are someone who has a job in which you work outside. And therefore, that’s why you’re darker and you are associated with a lower caste. You are associated with poverty, and so they don’t, but also, weirdly, if you are thin, you look poor. So they don’t like thin. They don’t particularly tend to favor thin women. They like curvier women because it’s a sign of wealth. It’s like you have the money to eat, but also you better be light skinned so that we know that you’ve been inside not doing any gardening. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:18:51] This is exactly the same. Oh my God. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:18:54] It’s so fucking twist, it’s so fucking twisted. And the way that it, it sort of just drips through each generation. It’s so fascinating to me. And the, the fuckin’ adverts. Oh, my God. These are the adverts that we have over there, which is like you’ve got the, you’ve got two Indian guys and one’s lighter skinned and one’s darker skin and the darker skinned guy walks past some girls and they all ignore him and some of them look at him with disgust. And so then the hot one hands him this “white is right” type product, this bleaching product. So he tries it, he comes back light skinned and suddenly all the girls are throwing themselves all over him. It’s such a cultural sickness that just-, and I understand it. I’m not judging anyone who does it, but it further perpetuates our epidemic of, of colorism that is still going on now. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:19:39] Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, definitely. It is exactly the same in, in Ghana, in some parts of Nigeria as well. It’s like you are nothing if you are not lighter skinned. You are poor, you are destitute, again as well, if you are slim as well. It’s like, you know, you come from a poor family, you’re not eating, all of these things. And so it took for my skin to start, you know, displaying really horrible sort of symptoms for me to be like, okay, I need to stop doing this because it’s so accepted in our, in our culture. And I was so weirded out by the fact that nobody was doing anything about this. It was just like, well, yeah, if you want to be successful, you need to lighten your skin. And so I stopped doing it and it took about maybe eight months to a year for it to come back to its original color. So it it did eventually come back, thank God. But after that experience, I was like, why am I damaging myself for the opinions of people that don’t know or like or love me? It just didn’t make sense in my head as to why I was doing it. And so, yeah, I stopped doing that. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:20:44] You sort of given your entire attitude towards your exterior skin and, and flesh. A full emoti, basically. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:20:52] Yeah. Yeah, my teens was an interesting time. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:20:56] Oh my God, it’s like a war zone inside our brains. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:20:59] Yeah. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:20:59] And we’re roughly the same age. How old are you? 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:21:02] 30. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:21:02] Yeah, right. So I’m 34. Like we grew up around the same time with the same icons. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:21:06] Same age. Yeah. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:21:06] We were there when fuckin JLO was considered curvy. Do you remember? It’s like on, and do you remember? 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:21:12] Do you know that’s so weird thinking back on it now. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:21:13] People and like-. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:21:14] It’s like, really? 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:21:15] And you watched back all the films of, all the JLo films. This is no, no disrespect to JLo whatsoever, you know, but it’s, I would watch back all of her films and all the jokes are about her thighs or her being big or someone not being able to carry her. Do you remember “Love Actually” and Martine McCutcheon being considered like thunder thighs and fat. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:21:33] Oh, I know. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:21:34] “Bridget Jones’s Diary” like slim Renée Zellweger go in for a jog, looking thing. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:21:38] I know. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:21:38] But all the jokes about her weight. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:21:39] It’s terrible. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:21:39] It was mad. So I remember thinking Kate Winslet was big and, and like I was, oh, she’s my representation. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:21:48] Yeah I know. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:21:49] She’s a UK, US Size 6. It was mad. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:21:50] It was weird, isn’t it? The fatphobia was rampant back then. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:21:55]  Yes, of course were fuckin’ fucked. Well done for getting out of all this shit. And you know-. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:22:01] Oh thank you. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:22:01] I honestly, I’ve suffered with an eating disorder for maybe 20 years now. But it’s been very, very interesting journey. And I’m so glad to have this conversation with someone who has lived a very different experience inside of that, ’cause I think it’s important to know about. We’re gonna go to a quick break and then we’re going to come back. And we’re back. OK. So we’re just going to pivot back now towards fat acceptance and representation. I want to talk to you about dating. It’s something you’ve been very candid about publicly. And, you know, you’ve talked about how you’ve had to fight for your own sense of self acceptance, which is a huge fucking journey. But let’s also talk about the acceptance of others towards you, because that’s a separate fight. Not only are you fighting to love yourself, you’re also fighting for acceptance from others. What’s your experience been like with dating? 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:23:02] To put it simply, just a cesspool of fuckery. It’s been terrible. It’s just-. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:23:10] That’s your next book titled. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:23:12] Honestly, like it’s actually in the book. I had to use that line because I was like, it’s just, it’s been terrible. And I kind of want to sort of make a point that obviously this doesn’t apply to every single plus sized woman because there are plus sized women in amazing, you know, loving relationships. But for me, it’s just been a case of existing in my body in two sort of parallels. On one hand, I’m invisible, completely invisible because of how I look. On the other hand, I’m hyper visible in the fetish hypersexual way. So from my teens up until the age of 25, absolutely, you know, no action, no dating, nothing. My first boyfriend was when I was 25. My first everything, actually, he was my first kiss. My first, like everything. We were together for two years and then he broke up with me because he said I wasn’t the right type of fat. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:24:10] What? 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:24:10] Which is. Yeah, so he, he didn’t have a fetish for plus sized women, but he liked bigger girls. And even though my body didn’t change after two years, he kind of up and said, you know, he likes an hourglass shape, which at the time I was still on my body positivity, self love journey. So when I was hearing that and, you know, this is with somebody that I thought I was gonna build a life with and, you know, we had a great relationship. It broke me completely. So, yeah, 2017 was just a terrible year in terms of my confidence. My self-esteem had crumbled. I thought to myself, I’m never going to meet anybody. Nobody likes how I look. After a few months, you know, I, actually it took me two years to get over that relationship. But in the interim, I thought, let me try and put myself back out there. Go out with some friends. Try and develop a bit more confidence. Go on the apps. And-. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:25:05] How were the apps? 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:25:05] Yeah, it’s the apps. The apps. They are. I mean, which one am I not on? I’m on all. I’ve just hedged my bets. I’m on all of them. And for the most part, it seems to be the case of I match with somebody, then they somehow find my Instagram because a lot of the time you can link your Instagram or something to the app. They found my Instagram. They comment on the fact that I’m plus size, even though I have full length pictures on my profile and then they unmatch. So that’s kind of like the cycle of what I get. I’ve gone on a couple dates-. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:25:37] They comment on you as if you’ve somehow tried to catfish them. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:25:41] Yeah. So they’re like, oh, I didn’t know that you were this big. And I was like, I’m literally wearing a dress, full length dress in my profile picture. Like, I mean, I just, I don’t get it. But when it comes to apps, those are the kind of things that happen. And I tend to you know, I don’t really tend to get matched a lot on there. The times when I have matched, and I’ve gone out on a couple of dates. There was one date that I went-. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:26:03] Oh God.I know about this one. Yeah, go on. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:26:04] There was one date. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:26:06]  Tell, tell us. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:26:07] Wait, which one? Oh, my God, there’s a few. There was one date I went on-

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:26:08] OK. Give me your top three. Give me your top three, mate. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:26:11] The top three. OK. So the first one was-. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:26:17] This is the top three cesspool fuckery dates that I’m looking for. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:26:20] Yeah. OK. OK. So the first one was, so we went out, I can’t remember, somewhere in Clapham. And before this we had followed each other on Twitter. And as we were going on the date, we were having a great time, you know, getting to know each other. And then he went to the la-, the bathroom. I checked my phone. I, I think he tried to block me, but he didn’t realize at the time I could still read his timeline because I noticed that I was suddenly not following him anymore. So I think he did that thing where he soft blocked me, you know, when they block you and then they unblock you, so that you don’t follow them. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:26:57] Oh no, I didn’t know about that, I’m going to do that. Yeah. Gone on. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:26:59] Oh gosh, yeah, that’s like such a-. No, that’s like, that’s like a huge thing. And so I realized I wasn’t following him anymore. Oh, let me just pop on to his timeline, only to find that when he was in the bathroom, he was texting our date live. And he was saying, oh, I’ve just met with this fat check. I didn’t know that she was this huge, but I’m still going to try and fuck anyway. See what it’s like. And-. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:27:24] Oof, Steph. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:27:24] I was like, okay. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:27:27] Fucking hell. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:27:27] I really had to try and keep it together. He came back to the table and all I did was show him a screenshot of what I just read. And I got up and left the table. Never heard from him again. Blocked him. All of that. All of that stuff. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:27:43] Good. What a fucking prick. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:27:44] Yeah. That was. That was really horrible. I’ve been on a couple more dates where I’ve met up with the person and as I’m walking towards them, they’re like, Oh, sorry, you’re not my type. And they’ve walked off. There was one where I, I. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:28:00] This is bananas, though, because no one can see you. Right now. ‘Cause they’re listening on the podcast, perhaps, but you’re so fucking beautiful. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:28:09] Oh, stop. Oh, thank you.

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:28:10] No, but you are. No, but you actually are. Like you’re actually a beautiful person. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:28:15] Oh thank you. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:28:16] And so that just makes no, what a bunch of fucking idiots. Go on. So what was the next one? 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:28:20] I know. So the next one, which is number two, is I met up with this guy. It was like a one night stand kind of thing. So I’ve never really done anything like that. But I was like, oh, let me just, let me just try and see. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:28:33] Yeah. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:28:34] Did it. So he came to my flat. He was talking about the fact that he lived in, like, this really big house on his own. And he was really rich and all that kind of stuff. And I was teasing him throughout. I was like, oh, why are you so rich? Why are you, oh gosh, I hope he doesn’t listen to this. Oh, fuck it. I don’t care. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:28:52] Oh yeah, fuck this guy. Truly. Go on.

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:28:55] Fuck it, I don’t care. So throughout the day, I’ve been teasing him about the fact that he was really rich or whatever. And so after we’d done the deed, I was like, oh, so you know, how come you have this like seven bedroom house in Putney or whatever the case may be? And he said, oh, it was gifted to me from my, from my parents, it was gifted to them by the grandparents and so on and so forth. And I was like, okay, how, but why, where did the money come from?  That’s when I should have just said, nothing at all. Because he then went on to say that, well, the, the, the story that everybody knows is that my great, great, great grandparents used to trade in sugar, but actually they were slave owners in Jamaica. So that’s where I got all my money from. And my grandparents supported apartheid. So that’s the reason that I date black, plus sized women because I have a lot of white guilt. I hope you don’t mind, Steph. We were in bed at the time and I had just clocked that I had just slept with a colonizer. And I was like, considering what I do in regards to the, all the social justice things, I was like, I need to take this to my grave. What the fuck? But I’m saying it now. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:30:01] Well, it’s not your fucking fault. But Jesus. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:30:04] Even thinking about it now, I cringe because I like the way he just said it, just so-. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:30:09] Casually. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:30:10] Confidently. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:30:10] Also, also as if it’s like that’s his reparations is to give you his white dick. That’s very strange. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:30:18] It was shit. It was shit. I’m sorry. I was like I went through all of that for like two minutes. Yeah, it was. The shitty thing. Ever. I was so disappointed, and so that was the thing that happened. Which, looking back, I find it quite funny, but at the time, I was like, this is not, this is pure fetishization. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:30:37] No, that’s historically horrifying. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:30:42] He has a bit of like jungle fever. Like, don’t bring it my way. I don’t want any of it. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:30:45] No, I know. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:30:46] Fucking disgusting. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:30:49] And then there was the date where you found out about a bet. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:30:53] Yeah. So this is. Yeah. So this is the one that I’ve spoken about in public and that was the one that went viral. And basically this is a guy that I’ve met on an app and he was very nice. He seemed really lovely. It was around the time where I was still a bit, I wasn’t good at trusting guys a lot. At this time, it was my first day in about a year or so. So I was very nervous and, you know, didn’t really know what he was about, but he seemed nice. And so we’ve been on our first date and it was lovely. Like, I was really looking out for, like, fuck boy signs. I was really, really looking out for it. But everything he did was great. He even brought me a present, with like a little aloe vera, which I thought was really cute because we were talking about plants beforehand. He was telling me that he told all of his friends about me and, which I should have seen as a bit of a red flag. But anyway, saying that I was a blogger and all of these things. First date was great. Went home, chatted, thought he was cool. Met up for the second day. That was also great. The third date, we slept together and then afterwards, didn’t hear back from him again. And I just thought to myself, well, I guess that’s just dating, people are just, you know. Didn’t really think too much about it. I was just like, eh, okay. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:32:12] Yeah. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:32:12] Fine. Cut to a couple of months later. I’m, you know, it must have been like 10 p.m. I’m on Twitter, as per usual, arguing with people. And I get this email-.

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:32:25] You and I, you and I have that in common. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:32:30] Yes. And, and I get this email from this guy and, called James and I’m like, who the fuck is James? So I log into the email and basically the email says, Hi, Steph, you don’t know me, but I am named name redacted’s friend. He told us about you when he was coming on the date with you. I just wanted to let you know that the reason that you haven’t heard back from him was because we dared him to go on a day and sleep with a fat girl. He ended up winning 300 pounds. And the reason I wanted to share this with you. I don’t want you to be too upset. But the reason I wanted to share this with you is because I’ve read up on some of the stuff that you do and you know, that you’re an activist. And this recently happened to, like, I think a friend or a cousin of his, who was plus size. That recently happened to her. And it’s had me thinking about how we treated you. And I know you don’t know me, but I just wanted to let you know that that’s the reason why you haven’t heard back from him. And I read it and I reread it and I checked the email address to see if it was like a fake email address. And then I just reread it again and I just burst into tears because I was like-. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:33:41] What the fuck did that even feel like? What did that? There’s so many layers to that. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:33:43] My heart just started hammering against my chest because I felt so humiliated and so objectified, dehumanized to think that, you know, this is somebody that potentially I thought he could be really cool person to date, only saw me as like a piece of meat. Like a, like a dare, like a joke. It just made me feel like, is this it for me? Am I not worthy of finding true love? Am I not worthy of being desired? Am I only just gonna be, you know, approached by people that have fetishes or people that want to win dares or like old, old ass uncles, like is this? 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:34:23] Yeah, it makes you feel, it makes you feel like you’re in a fucking circus. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:34:27] Yeah, it ma-, it made me feel like a zoo animal. And I was just like, is this all I’m good for? Like, am I not worthy of finding love or being found attractive? And I just cried for like two hours. And then I wrote a tweet on Twitter where I quote tweeted myself, because when I went on the day I tweeted on that evening, like my makeup and how I looked and I said, oh, this is the first date I’ve been on in how many months, and I’m so nervous. So I quote tweeted it and I said, Oh, by the way, guys. Update. He only went out with me because da da da. And at this time when I didn’t hear back from him, I blocked him on everything, because that’s why I tend to do, like if I don’t hear back from someone, I’m like, what’s the point of you? 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:35:06] Existing. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:35:06] Being my friend, so I blocked-. Yeah. And so I didn’t have any way to contact him. Didn’t want to contact him anyway. I didn’t want that conversation. And so that tweet started to go, it started to pick up numbers. And I was like, okay. And when I tweeted it, it was funny because that is such a common thing that happens within the plus sized community. So when I tweeted it, I didn’t think that it was going to go viral because, again, the people that I follow, I forget, are majority within the plus sized community. So sometimes it feels like I’m just talking to like 30 people on Twitter. But then it started to pick up numbers and then it went. Yeah, it kind of went viral. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:35:45] And I remember, I remember the comment section of that, because the comment section wasn’t just, it wasn’t as many people being horrified as it was also. So many people having shared experiences. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:35:58] Yeah. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:35:58] That was the thing that was really striking to me, is that for so many, that would be such a shocking situation. And yet it hi-, it shed light on the fact that this is a common practice of, of abuse of women within that community. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:36:15] Yeah. And one thing that I found out as well, when that whole thing was going on, ’cause I, I went off of Twitter, I think, for like three or four days. And so I received loads of emails from women all over the world who this had happened to. And one common thing that I found, which I think I saw in about maybe 36 emails, so much so that I had to Google it because I had to make sure that it was like, like what the fuck? Was this thing called “Fat Girl Rodeo”, which is also a thing that men do and which is a dare and basically bit of a trigger warning here. But it’s basically when men dare their friends to have sex with a fat girl and then while they’re having sex, they whisper something really fatphobic into the girls’ ear and then they time how long they can stay inside the girl before she throws them off. And that’s a thing. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:37:06] Oh, my fucking God. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:37:08] So whoever, whoever’s got the longest time wins the money. So it’s basically like rape. But it’s fine because we’re fat. We’re not going to get anything better. So let’s just deal with it. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:37:19] That’s such an interesting point, by the way, because this definitely such, I remember when I was fat as a teenager. The only kind of boys who would ever show me any kind of attention were the ones who felt like they didn’t have a chance with anyone else. And I would be grateful for whatever I was given. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:37:42] Yeah. Yeah. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:37:42] You know what I mean? They would make no effort, they’d be super creepy and scary with me. And it was just like you will eat what you’re given. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:37:50] Yeah, it’s horrible. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:37:50] You’ll eat this raw, rotten, moldy dick. Because you’ll eat anything. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:37:58] Exactly. Yeah. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:37:58] And so that is a really interesting thing of the fact that I think some, some people can treat a fat person’s body as a sort of dog’s body, where it’s just like, you know. And that also, you know, you and I have spoken about this privately before, but massive part of all of this comes from representation. Right? We have seen throughout the whole of not only pornography, but especially in film, there is such, there’s such a tale of always the, the bigger man with a slender woman. We’ve seen that be normalized forever. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:38:30] Yeah. Yeah. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:38:32] But we’ve never seen much of the bigger woman with the slender man or with anyone really. Normally if there’s a woman who is bigger on screen, she’s, she’s not even got a love life and she’s just there. Just sort of wanking on her own, like cheering on her thin friend, as she goes off on her string of dates. There’s no, there, the dialog is missing for, for fat women finding love, unless it’s a joke, unless she’s had a, had a concussion and therefore is now dating someone very slender and handsome and successful. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:39:05] Yeah. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:39:05] You know what I mean? There’s always some sort of injury involved for a fat woman to find love in film. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:39:10] Also, be confident, in order for her to be confident she must have had to hit her head or, you know, suffer some kind of memory loss. Because why? Why can fat, how can fat people be confident? It’s not a thing. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:39:21] And why else would she be the protagonist otherwise rather than just the funny fat friend? 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:39:25] Exactly. Exactly. There’s, there’s and I think there has to be a change within representation and how we’re seen, because we can. I’m just so tired of that trope of the funny, funny, fat friend who doesn’t have their own character arc. All they do is exist to support the slimmer friend or the more attractive friend. And it really sends a message to society that fat women. Well, yeah. I was gonna say fat men, but like you said, we see a lot of normalized fat men with slim women. Even in cartoon. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:39:54] My favorite boyfriend. Yeah. My first boyfriend was ten stone heavier than me and no one blinked. Truly, like no one thought that that was a big deal at all. That he was. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:40:04] Yeah. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:40:04] Three times my size. We were just a couple. And I think people just assumed that I must just be really in love with him. But I know that the other way round that’s considered shocking to some. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:40:15] That’s considered shocking. And then you get a documentary made on it on TLC. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:40:18] Oh, my God. Yeah. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:40:21] Which is a whole other thing. But yeah, I think even, you know, “Family Guy”, “American Dad”, cartoons, you’re seeing fat men and slim women, but the other way round. It’s like women’s bodies are policed so much that it’s like it’s, it’s almost like a disgusting kind of circus when it’s a fat woman and a slim guy. When I was in my first and only relationship, my ex at the time was very slim, athletic. And the comments that we would get on Instagram and in real life as well. I would have women chattin’ him up in front of me because they must’ve thought that, I don’t know, I was a colleague or something like that. And I just wish that we could stop this trope of fat women only existing to highlight how amazing this socially acceptable body is. It’s about time that we had our own stories to tell. Because fat women are not a monolith. We are not homogenous. We have our own lives. We can be successful. We can be, you know, beautiful. We can have the great jobs. We can have a beautiful love life. We can have kids. We cry and laugh at the same things. We are not, you know, an alien race. And, you know, the one time that I saw a plus sized woman having a sex scene with a slim man was on an episode of “Empire”. This was-. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:41:41] Gabby. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:41:42] It was with Gabby. Yeah. Like a few years ago. And I remember watching that. And I was like, yes, this is what I’ve been wanting to see. This is like the representation we need, plus-sized, darker skinned black woman looking amazing, living her best life. Until I hop onto Twitter and the comments were just horrendous. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:41:59] Oh my God. The comments, the pictures, the memes that we’re sent. I just, that really hurt my heart. But I think Gabby took it very well. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:42:07] She did. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:42:08] Considering It. But I imagine that must have really hurt her in her soul. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:42:13] Yeah. We shouldn’t, we shouldn’t have to go through this. Fat women can be sexy. We’ve got women like Lizzo, who I mean, she is just out there just representing for us and being amazing. But yet even she is still being policed by, like Diddy for twerking on camera or by people, you know, who go to a basketball game and start complaining that, you know, she’s got her ass cheeks out when you’ve got cheerleaders who’ve got the same thing out. But because they’re slimmer. It’s not a problem. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:42:41] Yeah. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:42:42] And yeah, I just wish that we could stop this whole sort of almost mummification as well, because-. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:42:49] So that was just it. Yeah. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:42:49] We’re hypersexualized. Yeah. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:42:50] I was going to say. So we have these two kind of stereotypes of the fat woman, in particular with the fat black woman, where she is either, as you were just about to say, I believe the Mammy, which is like, I’m asexual. I’m just here to, like, make everyone laugh and feed everyone and look after everyone. And I’m gonna-. My shoulders are just here, they’re not here to be rubbed. They’re here to, like, soak up everyone else’s tears. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:43:14] Yeah. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:43:15] And so, or you have, or you have the hypersexual, like hypersexual, sort of like bordering on pervert, sort of like randy woman who, who is just desperate for sex with absolutely anyone. The way that she looks at men as if they are like a a piece of, you know, like a piece of meat and the way that she speaks and how desperate she is and just as if she’s just 24/7, fat women are just thinking about sex all day. That’s the trope that we’ve seen throughout all of these movies. And even when, you know, you and I were talking about earlier and even in films where you have men playing fat women, those are always the two stereotypes that they will stick to. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:43:59] Yeah, yeah. If it’s not, you know, “Big Momma’s House”, then it’s Rasputia from “Norbit”.You know? 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:44:05] Oh my god, yeah. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:44:05] Very hypersexual, very Mammified, I think, you know, I think the Mammy thing does play into race a lot more, but it’s just this thing of we cannot exist as normal people. We have to be at one end or the other. I get that in society, sometimes the portrayal of plus sized women as being hypersexual. I can get how that can be empowering for some women, of course. But when it gets to the point where it’s almost like a fetish, when it’s almost like a pornography type thing, that’s when it becomes worrying because we are so much more than almost having this hunger. No pun intended, this hunger to have dick all the time. Like that’s not the be all and end all of being a plus size woman. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:44:56] There’s no romance, there’s no romance. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:44:58] There’s no love that comes with that dick. We want the romance. You know, we want to be, we want to be told that were beautiful and we want to be told that we matter. And that, you know, we will be loved unconditionally. We want to be told all of these things. It’s not just about the penis or the vagina. And equally, this whole sort of asexual-, asexuality of plus sized black women, especially matriarchs and older plus sized black women, is so damaging. It’s, it’s just. Yeah. I think it’s something that’s very much rooted in a lot of, you know, racist Hollywood tropes as well and, you know, descending from, you know, the slave era and all of these things. And, you know, the women at the time are only good for one thing, which is breeding or looking after the kids. And that is something that has stayed so strong in Hollywood. We either breed or look after the kids. And there has to be some kind of medium to that. There has to be. One can be very loving and amazing and, you know, giving. But we can also have sex appeal. But it doesn’t have to be the two extremes. We can exist with both things and be fully fledged human beings. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:46:12] Absolutely. Really well said. All right. We’re gonna go to a quick break and then we’re going to come back. And we’re back. OK. So we’ve discussed representation. We have discussed the definite need for body positivity. And. And also this is something that you and I sort of crossed paths with negatively, like years ago at the very beginning of our relationship, where we had this sort of tug of war over the fact that I was personally saying that I couldn’t, I couldn’t subscribe to body positivity because I, I can’t get to positivity about something that society has taught me so much to hate. Right? I have to get to, I personally have to get to a place of neutrality because I don’t know, with the amount of body dysmorphia I have and two decades of eating disorder, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to get to love my body. And I recognize that I’m saying this as a slender person who is societally living within confines where I’m not subjected to medical discrimination or to general societal abuse over my size. But I couldn’t, I can’t get to neutrality. And I think that I would love for you to explain the importance of body positivity when it is used for the people that it was actually designed for. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:47:37] Yeah. No, of course I think so with body positivity. It first kind of started, it showed its head in the late 50s, early 60s. But it was a very small movement at the time. I think it hap-, I think it went on for maybe like five, six or seven years or so. And it was started by predominantly black women and Jewish women as well. And then trends started to come in. So we had at the surfer trend and it kind of went back to, you know, being all about Farrah Fawcett, Hollywood coming out of the water. So, you know, one of these trends that we had in the 70s, 80s, 90s. Didn’t really see a lot to do with body positivity or fat acceptance until I want to say 2007, 2008. At least that’s when I started to recognize it. And at the time, it was under the term fat acceptance. And where we found this was on places such as Instagram and Tumblr and LiveJournal and all of these, and blogger.com and all of these microblogging sites where people had the opportunity to really, you know, talk about their bodies and how different they looked and celebrate other women that looks like them. So when this movement started, a lot of people were using hashtag FatAcceptance, especially on Tumblr. And what it became was it became a community to uplift and to highlight plus sized women. It was created by plus sized black women. But it was a community where specifically fat women could come and talk about their fatness and the things that they faced in a safe space filled with women that looked like them. So it was a very tight community. And there were also loads of communities on Facebook as well, under the FatAcceptance hashtag. And then after about a year or so, the community started to use the body positivity term. So a lot of us started to use it interchangeably. So fat acceptance, body positivity and the body positivity community was to, to celebrate bodies that didn’t have societal privilege. And so, for the most part, it did stem from plus sized, you know, larger far bodies, disabled bodies. Bodies that are not seen as, as westernized standard of beauty, aesthetically pleasing or have you. And it was 2011 to 2012, where a lot of influencers started getting involved. So that’s when we kind of had the rise in the UK and the US of plus sized influences. So we had people such as Gabi Fresh, who I know you’ve had on your show before, who I love her. She’s ama-, she’s like one of the, one of my idols in terms of the movement. Nicolette Mason. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:50:33] Cece Olisa. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:50:35] Yeah. Kelly B. So many amazing American plus sized women who started blogs and journals just talking about fashion and being fat and dating and all of these things. And it slowly came over to the UK as well. And so a lot of us started creating plus sized blogs. And what happened was when brands started realizing that, oh, it’s not just skinny bloggers and slim bloggers who we can sort of use to create content. We can actually use plus sized bloggers as well. We start to see brands create plus-sized clothing, which was great. I think that’s one of the great things about body positivity, is that it really kickstarted a lot of mainstream brands to start incorporating plus size into their, into their thing. And then we noticed that Body Positivity hashtag was starting to become a lot more prominent. It was such a, it was such a positive space for people to just celebrate themselves and post up pictures of themselves in bikinis and underwear. Because our aim was to normalize fat bodies. So the same way you open a Victoria’s Secret catalog and see, you know, slim women in bikinis and stuff. We wanted to see the same for plus sized women because we thought, well, if we’re going to have the representation that we deserve and if we want to be treated like normal human beings, we have to start seeing ourselves in the media. So a lot of us started, you know, posting pictures of ourselves in bikinis and all of that kind of stuff. It was all great. And then what we noticed was brands and casting agencies started picking up on body positivity. But the problem was, was that we, the bodies that we existed in weren’t seen as sexy to the public. They needed somebody, they needed spokespeople that were, you know, a bit heavier but were still seen as really fuckable. And so that’s when you have the hourglass shape. The Ashley Grahams, you know, the-. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:52:35] Still straight size. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:52:36] Big bums. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:52:37] Yeah. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:52:36] Flat stomachs, you know, all of the things. And so these women became the, they became the spokespeople of body positivity. All of these bodies that had societal privilege and that were seen as socially acceptable. We’re now speaking for us. And what we found was that fatter bodies no longer had a safe space for us to celebrate ourselves because what body positivity had done was it created a new standard of beauty. So in order for brands to work with plus sized influences, you normally had to be white, high cheekbones, flat stomach, big bum and just very, very beautiful. And so a lot of people who were in the body positivity movement just started retracting and started going back to, you know, using the FatAcceptance hashtag because it was like, well, this movement is no longer for us. It doesn’t serve us anymore. We don’t get the representation. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:53:29] Also, it went beyond the fuckin, it went beyond the just the having the slightly more curvaceous models and actresses being made the spokespeople. It became thin people with abs, you know, like people from made in Chelsea, in-. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:53:45] Yeah. Fitspiration. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:53:47] Yeah. Fitspiration, but hashtag BodyPositivity. I mean, I am a good example of what happens. Like which I was completely out of control of. I’d come out the gate saying that I can’t do body positivity because I can’t love myself. I don’t want to think about my body. Right? Which is a whole other, we can get into this for like two seconds. But I recognize that there’s a difference where, there is a great privilege in even being able to say, I don’t want to think about my body. If you are someone who is bigger than society says is acceptable. You don’t have that luxury. You don’t have that privilege of saying, well, I do want to think about my body because the world continues to remind you of your body all day, every day, everywhere you fucking go, everywhere, every doctor that you go to won’t listen to your symptoms and will dismiss everything as just your weight and everything as your fault and may insinuate that you are lazy and you are to blame. And therefore, I’ve had tons of friends, it’s even happened to me when I was younger, when I was bigger the, like things like polycystic ovaries and endometriosis in my friends and all these different things. Like all of these different conditions get missed because all the doctors are obsessed with is the exterior and they look at fat and health as a direct correlation, which we can get into in a second. But I just wanted to explain, because I know a lot of people when I got centered as like the face of body positivity, no matter how many times I begged for people not to do that, I would see people defend me online just being like body positivity should be for everyone. And I think you and I both did the work there to be like, no, and so did every other great fat activist in the world said that, no. For anyone listening to this body positivity, we all, we do want everyone to love their bodies. But the body positivity movement is a specific socio-political movement that isn’t for people who aren’t literally constantly discriminated against. They have to love their bodies because of how much the world hates their bodies currently, which we’re hoping will be a shift. I’m not fat-splaining to you, just so you know. I’m just saying that for anyone else out there who, who knows or feels like they should defend me because it is completely correct that there’s been a pushback against me as the face of body positivity. Trust me, I’ve found it as frustrating and upsetting as anyone else, especially because you remember this back in 2012 when I gained like five stone and got hounded by the media and ridiculed for like six months and I had pictures of my fucking bare ass when I was bending over to pick up my keys outside my house, were on the cover of Now magazine and Closer and all these different tabloids. I couldn’t escape it. And so at that time, rather than get a trainer or lose weight or do one of the diet sort of endorsements. I was like, I’m stayin’ big. I’m keeping this. I like this. I’m having a great life. I’m going to figure out a way to embrace this body and push back and stop, in activism. And I, you know, I had a little bit of movement. I got to speak at Parliament. I released a couple of clothing, clothing lines. Back in the day and I was speaking about all the same things I’m saying now, but no one listened to me. Really. Back then, Steph. Because I was big. So they mostly, people would call me jealous, bitter, lazy. They’d say, well you’ve lost your figure, so that’s why now you’re fighting against beauty standards. And so what’s frustrating for me is that now I’m slim again, because the years have passed, I’m no longer on the medication. I am saying almost verbatim the same things I said when I was big. And now I’m on the cover of every magazine. Now I’m championed as the person who invented the concept of body positivity, which I certainly am not. And I’ve been centered in the conversation. I literally beg journalists not to use that term and they still use it in all of the headlines. So I get centered as the, as the person who is spearheading this movement that I’m not responsible for. And I have wanted to apologize always, like wherever I can to the activists like you who’ve been doing the work. But I’ve genuinely I’ve, I’ve asked magazine covers to put women of different sizes and, and disabilities on the covers with me. And they say either you can’t have the cover and then the conversation doesn’t get had. Or you do the cover on your own and then you can have the conversation. And I’ve been constantly trying to weigh up which one helps the movement. And so I totally recognize how fucking frustrating it has been to watch someone who is slender with the sort of societal pretty privilege be completely pushed to the front of this. But I promise you, I just was trying to make sure the conversation was had, because if not me, then who? Who else with this platform is talking about this shit? This is me self aggrandizing, but people stay away from this conversation. And so I’ve never known what to do. And that’s why I’m really glad to now have this moment where I can just fucking send to the people that started it. But, but that’s, I don’t want people to stand up for me. People who listen to this, about this, because it is always incorrect when I get centered in this conversation. I’m here, I’m here about eating disorders and body neutrality. And that’s my lane. And I promise, I’m going to stay in it. But anyway, so an interesting thing between your experience and my experience as activists for fat acceptance, me as an ally and you as someone who is kind of one of the people spearheading the movement, is concern trolling. Talk to me about concern trolling. What is concern trolling? 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [00:59:27] Concern trolling is a way for people to use fatphobia against plus sized people against fat people without, quote unquote, “feeling bad”. So what they generally try to do is they go through the health route. So, for instance, an example, is if I was to post a photo of myself in a bikini and post it on Twitter. Then I would get a flurry of comments from people saying, oh, you’re going to die in five years. Oh, but you’re, you know, you must have diabetes or diabetes isn’t going to look good on you. Your blood sugar level, da, da, da. All of these, they rattle off a list, a medical form of conditions for me without knowing anything about my medical history, without knowing anything about, you know, what has happened to me and my body. They literally see my body, can’t really work out why somebody who, whose body, you know, conforms to what society sees as disgusting is suddenly feeling so confident and so in a way to kind of make themselves feel better. They try and knock that confident person down by trying to use allegedly legit information. And so concern trolling is, yeah, basically a way for people to be assholes. But they think by using health, it’s, it’s fine. They get to have, you know, unsolicited comments about other people’s bodies, even though they don’t do it to other people. If there are other people that are, you know, doing things that may be allegedly harmful to their bodies, it’s fine. It’s glamorized. But everything else, with fat bodies, it’s like absolutely not. This is the most disgusting thing we’ve ever seen. And you’re going to die when you’re 40, which is the thing that I get the most. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [01:01:12] It’s, it’s fucking mad. But also what we see is you have very, very clearly unnaturally underweight people, people, it’s like some people are naturally very skinny, but some people are smoking and promote, like promoting a lifestyle that is incredibly unhealthy. No one worries about what’s happening to them. No one cares about their osteoporosis or what they’re doing to their fertility or to their body or to their vital organs. Their kidneys, their heart, their, their minds. No one ever concern trolls them. We have sympathy for anorexic people, people who are visibly anorexic or visibly starving themselves. And we look at them as having almost too much self-discipline. You know, this poor perfectionist. The suffering, we must be delicate, we must never make fun of it. Personally, we must never, we mustn’t skinny shame and we mustn’t make them feel bad because they have a a mental health issue. And we must protect them. Poor little fragile thing. And yet anyone over a certain size is just, it’s just a free for all. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [01:02:12] Oh yeah. We brought it on ourselves so we must get all of the hate. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [01:02:15] Yeah. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [01:02:16] Because this is something we’ve made ourselves do. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [01:02:18] Where do we go from here? That’s the question. Because we know what’s wrong. We know what’s wrong. We know about the double standards. We know about the colorism. We know about the patriarchy. What are the steps that we feel like society needs to take in order to, in order to move forward and evolve and get with the damn times? 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [01:02:39] I think one of the main things that needs to happen is a huge change within the media. And by that, I mean not just, you know, the entertainment industry, but also people behind the scenes. Casting agencies, PRs, marketers. For the most part, you know, before I was a freelancer, I was working full time with NPR as the only black person there. And, you know, in my career leading up to this and other jobs that I have been, that have been surrounded, you know, with NPR marketing. I’ve always been the only fat person, the only black person. And these fields are predominantly very white centric and also, you know, very slim. And I think in order for there to be change, we need to have a lot more diversity behind the scenes. So when it comes to casting agents or when it comes to PR executives, we need to see women of color, men of color, fatter women, disabled women, women, you know, within the queer community, because we can only have change if we have people behind the scenes who want to see that change and who want to see themselves represented on TV. You know, in books, literature, whatever the case may be. Because if you, if you keep having cis het white people, straight, slim people, you know, having control over what gets seen on TV, they’re only going to be replicating what they see as their normal, their everyday normal and their everyday normal is going to be people that look like them. So we need to have so much more inclusivity behind the scenes so that we can somehow get to, to get some kind of representation. Because even using myself as an example, when I used to work in influence marketing before I went freelance because I was the only black person there and I had to, you know, do outreach to brands and brands would say, okay, we want to work with ten influences on this product. And a lot of the time, all the influences, I would always pick were always black and fat because I’m like, I want to see this person and I want to see this representation and I want to see how they would create this content. And there needs to be that kind of continuity behind the scenes. I think it’s also important for allies as well to do basically what you’re doing in terms of highlighting people within communities who don’t perhaps have as big of a platform, but have something really important to say. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [01:05:03] Yeah. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [01:05:03] I’ve always said it’s so important for allies to not, you can definitely talk about a cause without centering yourself. And you can also use your platform to uplift other women who may not have as big as a platform. So I think that’s something that you’re doing, which I think is amazing, which I think is incredible. And I think if more people could just talk about it, as well. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [01:05:26] Yeah. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [01:05:27] Then hopefully we can get to a place where bigger women, bigger people are just seen as the norm instead of always being, you know, shot down all the time. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [01:05:37] And we need to learn that you have to stop shaming people into trying to get them to look a certain way. It never works. It always leads to some sort of non-intuitive lifestyle, whether that means exercising more than is good for you or less or, you know, eating more or less. Just the shame aspect is something I keep hammering home to people that, to parents out there who are listening to this, who have a child who they, you know, they feel like should be slimmer. Don’t shame them into any kind of lifestyle decision. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [01:06:03] No. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [01:06:03] Acceptance and self love and self care is going to lead to the most intuitive decisions that’ll stop you from either starving yourself to the point that you are, quote unquote, underweight or overweight. I hate these terms, but the most important thing is to just promote self love, because when you love yourself, then you’re going to honor your body with the best intuitive decisions. And regarding allies, I, I cannot wait for the time where the people are having these conversations in the magazines, are the people who are living that experience itself. I, I, I’ve continue to be so frustrated by it and and will just keep hope, hopefully be able to keep pushing that conversation onto the people. Because I think what we’ve, what we found, for sure in the media, is that the media are proud of themselves for now, having these conversations about fat discrimination, fat acceptance, but they don’t, they want to have the conversation, but they don’t want to put the fat woman on the cover of the magazine and that’s why they choose someone like me. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [01:07:02] Yeah. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [01:07:02] Or, you know, even Iskra. But like Iskra is bigger than I am. They, they know that I can still wear the couture, and I can still wear the sample sizes. But then I’ll have this big buzzy conversation. And I recognize the evils of that. I’m glad that I now, that I’ve been able to have the conversation and, and that the conversation has been had. But I definitely, definitely want to help in any way I can to push this forward now to having the fucking conversation with the people who are living that experience. And I thank you for your support of me. And I support you in everything you do. I think you’re so, so important. You are so radical in the way that you speak so truthfully online with no filter, almost sometimes too much no filter, like me. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [01:07:48] Oh, I love it. Though hard to go home. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [01:07:51] Oh my God. You and I, yeah, it’s amazing. You and I don’t get into more trouble. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [01:07:54] I know. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [01:07:55] But the amount of stuff you have had to tolerate in order to be that public person and take on that, that responsibility of speaking up for your community, not that you’re trying to speak for them, but you’re speaking up for them. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [01:08:12] Yeah. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [01:08:12] And you are putting yourself in the front line of that and taking on all of these numerous challenges and different people’s opinions on you. Thank you so much. Because you make such a difference to people’s lives. And I know so many, countless people from around the world, not just England, who look to you as a source of strength and inspiration. And I know that that sometimes takes its toll on your mental health. And that you have to-. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [01:08:35] Oh, thank you. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [01:08:35] You have to move through all of that. But it’s incredibly inspiring and cool of you. And thank you from, on behalf of the world for that. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [01:08:44] Thank you. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [01:08:45] No, honestly, I know sometimes it feels like it’s not, just not worth it. There’s only so much of a battering one can take. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [01:08:53] Yeah, there’s only so much you can do and take.

JAMEELA JAMIL [01:08:53] I know. I know. And, and I’ve seen what happens with you sometimes. And, and I recognize that it wears you down. But I, I want you to know just forever that it’s not for nothing. You are reaching more people than you realize in ways that you can’t even understand because people are probably too shy to even tell you. But I’m thrilled to have you on this podcast. Before you go, will you please tell me, Stephanie Yeboah, what do you weigh? 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [01:09:17] I weigh my relationships with my family, my close relationships. I weigh myself in my, I like to say quirky sense of humor. I weigh myself in the fabulous ways in which I’m able to put an outfit together, especially when we don’t have a lot of options in plus size. I think I do pretty well there. I weigh my creativity and my vulnerability in talking about issues that are important to me. And I weigh my sensitivity and empathy towards others as well. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [01:10:02] Yay. Thank you so much. And I can’t wait to speak to again. You have a book coming out later this year called “Fattily Ever After”. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [01:10:10] I do. I do. Yes. 3rd of September. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [01:10:13] Indeed. And so everyone will have to go and preorder that book. And now you have a sense of just how fabulous Stephanie is. And she’s a really great writer, one of my favorite writers on the whole of the Internet. And loves you lots, mate. 

STEPHANIE YEBOAH [01:10:29] Love you. Thank you so much. 

JAMEELA JAMIL [01:10:29] No worries. Thank you so much for listening to this week’s “I Weigh”. I would also like to thank the team, which helps me make this podcast. My producer, Sophia Jennings and Kimmie Lucas, my editor Andrew Carson, my boyfriend, James Blake, who made the beautiful music you are hearing now and me, for my work. At “I Weigh” we would love to hear from you and share what you weigh at the end of this podcast. You can leave us a voicemail at 1-818-660-5543, or e-mail us what you weigh at IWeighPodcast@gmail.com. And remember, it’s not in pounds and kilos, it’s your social contributions to society or just how you define yourself in life. And now we would love to pass the mic to one of our listeners. 

I WEIGH COMMUNITY MEMBER [01:11:13] I weigh being 22 and not having it figured out yet. I weigh being a daughter to both a mother and someone who is no longer around. I weigh being a sister. I weigh being confident. I weigh being a writer and a creator. Even if the creations aren’t always what other people expect them to be. “I Weigh” being an impasse. I weigh my privilege, an acknowledgment of that. I weigh my opinions, as Roxane Gay said, they take up a lot of my weight. I weigh being sober. I weigh transferring from universities and I weigh being still. Thank you.