Friday Anti-Fluff

This isn’t fluff, nor does it have anything to do with being fat. I’m posting it in part because it’s the reason why I haven’t had the time or energy to post anything for a long while, and in part because it continues to weigh on me and the more publicly I express myself, the more that feeling goes away.

When I was an undergraduate (which I was up until all of six weeks ago; sometimes I forget that), some of my work was plagiarized by another student. It was difficult for me to tell anyone. I was certain that they would just tell me what the plagiarist told me, directly or implicitly: that it wasn’t a big deal, that I must have given permission and was therefore ultimately responsible, that he had some kind of right to take my work and claim it as his own.

I felt a loss of power, a loss of self. This same student also abused and sexually assaulted me, but (and it feels really strange to say this) the plagiarism was ultimately more traumatic and dehumanizing. The assault was an attack on my body; the abuse I was able to recognize and unlearn the terrible things he taught me to believe about myself. But the plagiarism was an attack on my intellect, an attack on my right express myself and to have my accomplishments publically recognized. I don’t mean to dismiss anyone else’s experiences of assault and abuse, but this is mine, and this is how I feel.

When I finally worked up the courage to report him I figured things couldn’t really get worse. If they didn’t believe me, that would hurt, but at least I’d know. At least I’d have tried. And if they did believe me, justice would be done. Universities took this sort of thing seriously; at least that’s what everyone has always told me.

Soon I realized that there was something worse than people not believing me: people believing me and still somehow believing that the plagiarist didn’t deserve to be punished. Professors who had such little respect for me, my work, and the principles of academic honesty that they would defend someone who stole from me—despite not doubting his guilt—to the point of granting him awards and honors in the subject in which he plagiarized. Department heads and administrators willing to turn their heads and close their eyes, to pretend that they had no power or that something that would (or at least should) reflect poorly on the department and the school wasn’t any of their business or concern.

It’s difficult to recover from having your work stolen, but even more difficult when that theft is accompanied by a loss of faith in justice, the academic system, and people you once respected. It’s hard to keep from losing heart altogether; what reason do we have to put our best work and our passions into something, when someone else can steal it and no one in power will care?

They say that success is the best revenge, but they’re wrong. Justice is the best revenge; success is just a consolation prize. And success in what? When I was certain that there was no way that something like this could happen, that no school, no department, no professor would logically see this as right or even acceptable, I was certain I wanted to go into academia. Maybe I could still be successful there, successful enough to feel that I’ve had my revenge. But the last thing I want to do is watch this happen all over again to someone else and not have any power to stop it.

I might start posting here again; I don’t know. I’m certainly not leaving the Fatosphere entirely. But this blog brings me back sometimes to things I’d rather forget. Finding the Fat Acceptance movement right at the point where I was gaining a lot of weight and starting to feel terrible about myself, right at the point where I was being reassured by an abusive boyfriend that my fat body was perfectly acceptable because it pleased him and learning that what I felt about myself was irrelevant, right at the point where I needed something to latch onto to build my confidence, acknowledge my rights as a person, and help me feel like I was worth something—finding Fat Acceptance was ultimately a big step in getting me out of that relationship. (I’ve tried to write a post about this a hundred times here, but I kept deleting it, kept not knowing what to say. I never knew I’d be able to get it out in one sentence.) And now that things have ended this way, sometimes I feel like there are too many bad associations. Maybe I’ll be able to move past them and claim my own space again, but I don’t know.