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Reclaiming the word fat was the most empowering step in my progress. I stopped using it for insult or degradation and instead replaced it with truth, because the truth is that I am fat, and that's ok. So now when someone calls me fat, I agree, whereas before I would get embarrassed and emotional.

Beth Ditto

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Beth Ditto
Age: 43
Born: 1981
Born: February 19
Model
Musician
Singer
Singer-Songwriter
Songwriter
Searcy
Arkansas
Mary Beth Patterson
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Empowering
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Insult
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Whereas
Progress
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Reclaiming
Word
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Degradation
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Truth
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More quotes by Beth Ditto

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A few years back, when my style was punk grandma, I picked up an amazing pair of sandals - orthopaedic ones, with really thick soles. I've given them away to a friend now, because these days my look is more 1980s substitute teacher gone wild.
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I'm not sure that I am able to feel embarrassment.
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I worshipped Ethel Merman and I worshipped Ethel Merman a lot. It's incredible - Ethel Merman was a conventional singer. Her naming her child Ethel Merman, Jr., was, to me, one of the coolest feminist things.
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I was always being told off at school. The teachers would say: 'Everyone's talking, but you're the one I can hear.
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I knew that if I wanted to stop being a pushover I had to get comfortable with small rejections myself. That took some work, but because of it I can now say no to other people with a clear conscience.
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Portland is a place where you can find a community as a feminist, a vegan or a fat activist. Artists, musicians, knitters, and filmmakers can all meet like-minded souls. It's proved the perfect place for me and all my punk friends.
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I always think that people think that women in music are always angry. I'm not angry. Rock 'n' roll music made by men is so much more over-the-top aggressive than when a women says you and they're screaming it, it's like, 'Oh my God!' I'm like, 'Have you heard rock music made by men?'
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As with most phobias, the fear of flying does make some sense, but if ever there was a fear worth quashing then this is it. After all, life is short, and there's a great big world to explore out there.
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For me the greatest revenge of all is having a happy adulthood, waking up in my gorgeous turquoise bedroom in the morning beside a person who really inspires me. That's the best revenge a girl-loving-girl from the Bible belt could possibly have. And, importantly, it's healthy.
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Instagram is a Roman arena of insults. Everyone is a lion, but it is fun.
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Because I didn't have any queer, lesbian, female role models I hated my own femininity and had to look deep within myself to create an identity that worked for me. Pop culture just doesn't hand us enough variety to choose from.
Beth Ditto
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I support love any healthy way you can get it.
Beth Ditto
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I have no control over what people think of me but I have 100% control of what I think of myself, and that is so important. And not just about your body, but so many ways of confidence. You're constantly learning how to be confident, aren't you?
Beth Ditto
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For years now I have run a kitchen-sink punk salon in my house, called Salon du Gay. In the early days, people would pay for a riot grrrl bob or a passable bleach job with a mixtape, $3 or a selection of baked goods - whichever they could afford. More recently though, with Gossip doing well, I've performed these punk hair transformations for free.
Beth Ditto
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I always was really confident about myself, about my voice, myself as a person, my body, all of those things, but as a songwriter - I just didn't identify as a songwriter at all.
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I really worshipped Mama Cass a lot. Mama Cass, who was really fat and she didn't lose weight. Yeah, she went on diets but for the most part of her life and the better part of her career she was a big person.
Beth Ditto
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I feel dance and pop music genres are extremely female and extremely gay. When it comes to art and pop culture, queers are f - king weirdos. We don't have gender rules that tell us what we can and can't be. We just make it up as we go along. We have full creative license to be whatever we want to be.
Beth Ditto
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Someone told me once that Lucinda Williams takes six years between albums, and that's what stuck to me it's like, you really are a factory. You don't do things to make them, on your own time.
Beth Ditto
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I can take care of a house, and some people I meet, I think, 'You don't even know how to make a bed.
Beth Ditto
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I'm passionate about color. My best friend and I sit and look at Pantone books for fun.
Beth Ditto