I am so sorry I failed.- Rosie Waterland June 13, 2017 As a fat woman who used to work there and tried daily to make them understand this stuff. “Why would you tell me this?”įucking gobsmacked. “Am I supposed to be grateful you provided a sturdy chair?” she asked. In tweets from May, Gay complained of interviewers who told her they did “special things” to accommodate her weight.
#Roxane gay twitter essay series#
Are there going to be sturdy chairs? Are the chairs going to have arms? How wide are the arms? How low is the chair? It’s just a constant series of questions that you are asking yourself every single day before you go into any space, and it’s exhausting because people don’t think, they just assume that everyone fits in the world like they do.” “It’s very stressful because you just never know if there a space that is going to accommodate me. It is always our top priority that all our guests feel welcomed, relaxed and at ease.”ĭuring the interview Gay spoke about how the world was not built to accommodate people like her. The apology said that the “many requests” made by Gay’s publisher “were asked in good faith by her publishing team to make Roxane feel as comfortable as possible and we willingly answered all questions and complied with all requests. We are mortified to think she would ever believe this to be the case or that we have upset someone we so deeply admire and respect.Īs soon as we became aware of her feelings about it, we took down the written post, edited the podcast intro and changed the podcast description to remove all references to the questions asked by her publishers and about details she said she found upsetting. In no way did Mamamia ever intend to make Roxane Gay feel disrespected and we apologise unequivocally that that was the unintended consequence, including to her publishing team who organised the visit and made the requests in good faith. We believe the conversations sparked by Roxane’s book are vitally important for women to have, and are disappointed our execution hasn’t contributed in the way we intended … I don’t want to say fat so I’m going to use the official medical term: super morbidly obese.”Īs a publisher that’s championed body diversity and representation in the media we’re deeply apologetic that in this instance we’ve missed the mark in contributing to this discussion. “You see, Roxane Gay is … I’m searching for the right word to use here. “I would normally never breach the confidence of what goes on behind the scenes of an interview but in this case … it’s a fundamental part of the story. Speaking on her podcast, she said the “breach of confidence” was justified. She continued: “How many steps were there from the to the door of the building? Were there any stairs? How many? How big was the lift and was there a goods lift? How many steps from the lift to the podcast studio? There was also a lot of talk about chairs – making sure we had one sturdy enough to both hold her weight and make sure she was comfortable.”