Who Turned Out the Lights?

“I can’t wait to meet you, Steph. I’ve even bought you a gift!“As I minimised the WhatsApp conversation on my phone, I was filled with dread about what the next evening would bring. It was a couple of weeks before Christmas and I was going on my first date since the end of my last relationship, two years ago. To say I was extremely nervous was a severe understatement.

I’d been talking to Robert* for a couple of weeks via Bumble and then WhatsApp, and all seemed to be going well. Since the end of my last relationship, I’d been a bit wary of the opposite sex and had gone into every new dating app chat with a degree of scepticism (especially as I am plus-size – more on this later), however Robert seemed different. He was funny, very intelligent, open-minded and ambitious and more importantly, accepted and preferred the fact that I am plus-size.

It seems a bit silly to have to declare something as trivial as one’s weight on an app, but due to how a large percentage of plus-size women are treated in the dating world, some of us choose to add a note about our weight to our profiles, almost as some kind of ‘disclaimer’. It’s even worse when your weight intersects with something such as race or gender.

Date night with Robert finally came around and I was practically bursting into flames with excitement. We’d agreed to meet in Clapham in southwest London for a couple of drinks. I arrived at the venue early and tweeted a cute picture of myself, telling my followers that I was out on a first date. Robert arrived and the date began. We had a great time during the three or so hours we spent together – we laughed, we exchanged hilarious date-fail stories, we spoke about our families, likes and dislikes…just normal date stuff, you know? He’d even bought me a little ornament for my room as I’d told him I was still doing it up, which was sweet.

 At the end of the night, we kissed and he said he wanted to see me again.A week later, and hours of speaking on the phone and texting throughout the night, we decided that he’d come over to my flat and we’d watch a few shows while I cooked (I know, I know, rookie mistake; like I said, I’m a dating newbie). Obviously, one thing led to another and we ended up sleeping together.

That was the last time I heard from him.Cut to this week when I receive an email from a friend of his. Apparently, Robert had shown my blog to his friends for ‘approval’. This friend tells me that in the interests of full transparency, he thought he should let me know that the reason I had not heard from Robert since our second date was because he had been dared to ‘pull a fat chick’ and – upon completing the dare – had won a sum of money his friends had pooled.

I felt sick. A wave of embarrassment and humiliation washed over me, and I went into my bathroom and cried. I had been terrified of meeting and talking to men for fear of them judging my appearance. As much as I know that I am an awesome person, I’m blindingly aware that the way I look is not what mainstream society considers to be ‘beautiful’, and that’s something I always have to think about and carry with me.

What should have been a lovely couple of dates – a bid to improve my confidence and self-esteem while tackling the shark-infested waters of dating – has turned into a teaching moment for me, and has definitely made me feel a lot more wary about dating in general and more importantly, trusting men.

Sadly, my story isn’t an isolated incident. We’ve all heard of sick pranks such as the ‘pull a pig’ game, which involves a group of men daring each other to hook up with the least attractive woman (in their eyes) in order to gain clout. There are tales as long as my arm from fellow plus-size women who have been duped or tricked in this way and frankly, a discussion needs to be had about it.

Dating as a plus-size woman, you see, is an exercise rooted more in patience and frustration than in romance. When you are not being ignored by prospective interests, you are either subjected to humiliation and abuse or you are fetishised for your weight. Either way, the abject failure to consider the feelings of the plus-size women in these situations is just another example of the ways in which we are not afforded the luxury of being treated as human beings. It highlights the lack of respect that some men have for women, particularly if they do not comply with social norms.

As plus-size women, we are not afforded the same humanity, care, love and respect as our thinner counterparts. This can force a monumental drop in confidence and either put us off dating for life or lead us to partake in more casual dating in an effort to prove our worth through sex.

Luckily (or maybe unluckily?) I had already deleted Robert’s number from my phone, after not hearing from him for a couple of weeks, so I have no way to contact and chastise him for what he did. I decided to ignore the friend’s email and used Twitter to tell my story, in the hope of opening up the conversation about the way plus-size women are treated. My aim was to raise awareness, and while I received some amazing, positive feedback, it also came with its share of trolling and horrible comments – almost all from men, who were either laughing at the situation or suggesting I change my appearance in order to be treated better next time.

I like to think that I’m confident enough and maybe numb enough to the whole experience and haven’t let it define me as a woman, but for those of us who are still on our journeys to finding self love and increasing our confidence, going through an experience where you are basically seen as an experiment can be battering.

Ultimately, what I’ve concluded is that men seem to undertake these ‘pranks’ as a way of gaining respect from their male friends at the expense of women’s feelings. Men, it’s time to stop being impressed by this toxic behaviour. It’s time to call it out, to hold each other accountable. Would you be as admiring if someone pulled a prank like this on a plus-size relative – on your sister, perhaps, or your cousin? Most of all, it’s time to start taking the emotions, perspectives and feelings of fat women seriously. Regardless of body shape, we all deserve to be treated with respect and basic common decency.

*Name has been changed

Inside Siberia’s isolated community of forgotten women. Photographed by Oded Wagenstein.

“In the remote village of Yar-Sale in Northern Siberia, live a group of elderly women. They were once part of a nomadic community of reindeer herders. However, in their old age, they spend most of their days in seclusion, isolated from the world they loved and their community. While men are usually encouraged to remain within the migrating community and maintain their social roles, the women often face the struggles of old age alone.It took a flight, a sixty-hour train ride from Moscow, and a seven-hour bone-breaking drive across a frozen river to meet them. I immersed myself in their closed community, and for days, over many cups of tea, they shared their stories, lullabies, and longings with me.On this series, the memories of the past, represented by the images of the outside world, are combined with the portraits of current reality.

By doing so, I tried to give their stories a visual representation. One that could last after they are already gone.  

(*Like Last Year’s Snow is a Yiddish expression – referring to something which is not relevant anymore)”

Every. single. cell, has to be ‘hand-filled’ with wet enamel, which has a texture very much like watercolor paint, allowed to set, refilled until the surface tension holds, and then fired in a kiln at a very precise temperature and time, which is different for each color. And then the enamel shrinks back to the edges of the cell so you have to let it cool, refill, and then fire again. I’ve had to refill a single cell as many as four times to get color fill.

Blues and greens are the easiest, so you do them first. You take the kiln to a slightly higher temperature, have a few more seconds of leeway before they go horribly discolored on you. Oh, and this is using a modern kiln with a precise, digital temperature controller, not whatever this dude had back in the 1920s which would have involved a lot of guesswork and standing by the kiln counting under his breath because enamel fires in SECONDS.

Guess which colors are the hardest? That’s right, REDS. The colors this stunning bracelet is full of. I LOATHE working with reds. Ten seconds too long, five degrees too hot, and they’re ugly, black-flecked disasters that have to be dissolved out with acid, not incidentally trashing the other colours you’d spent forever on too. Yay.

And when you’ve finally finished, having spend probably hundreds of hours getting all those tiny cells fired and filled? Time to sit down with a bowl of water and a hard grinding stone and grind every single one of them flat, my friend, because the enamel when properly filled actually domes up slightly. Yes, this part is still best done by hand, even today.

Don’t forget to repolish your gold, making sure to get out all the scratches left by your glass-polishing stone, and set all those diamonds and the cameo!

What’s that, you say? One of your glass cells fractured because you used a tiny bit too much pressure setting a diamond?

Dear me. Time to UN-set all those stones and go back to the kiln again. Have a lovely time!

If grandmothers around the world had a rallying cry, it would probably sound something like “You need to eat!”

Photographer Gabriele Galimberti’s grandmother said something similar to him before one of his many globetrotting work trips. To ensure he had at least one good meal, she prepared for him a dish of ravioli before he departed on one of his adventures.  

“In that occasion I said to my grandma ‘You know, Grandma, there are many other grandmas around the world and most of them are really good cooks,” Galimberti wrote via email. “I’m going to meet them and ask them to cook for me so I can show you that you don’t have to be worried for me and the food that I will eat!’ This is the way my project was born!”

The project, “Delicatessen With Love”, took Galimberti to 58 countries where he photographed grandmothers with both the ingredients and finished signature dishes.

Galimberti said many of the subjects for the project were selected serendipitously, picked while he was working on a project about couch surfing that explored the global phenomenon of staying in other people’s houses. Since Galimberti never slept in hotels while working on the project, he was able to come into contact with people who introduced him to grandmothers in the area.

Galimberti acted as photographer and stylist during each shoot with the grandmothers, taking a portrait of both the women and the food they made for him.

From top to bottom: 

Inara Runtule, 68, Kekava, Latvia. Silke €(herring with potatoes and cottage cheese). Grace Estibero, 82, Mumbai, India. Chicken vindaloo.

Susann Soresen, 81, Homer, Alaska. Moose steak.

Serette Charles, 63, Saint-Jean du Sud, Haiti. Lambi in creole sauce.

The photographer’s grandmother Marisa Batini, 80, Castiglion Fiorentino, Italy. Swiss chard and ricotta Ravioli with meat sauce.

Normita Sambu Arap, 65, Oltepessi (Masaai Mara), Kenya. Mboga and orgali (white corn polenta with vegetables and goat).

Julia Enaigua, 71, La Paz, Bolivia. Queso Humacha (vegetables and fresh cheese soup).

Fifi Makhmer, 62, Cairo, Egypt. Kuoshry (pasta, rice and legumes pie).

Isolina Perez De Vargas, 83, Mendoza, Argentina. Asado criollo (mixed meats barbecue).