Do Donuts Discriminate Against Fat Women? – An Autobiographical
I never chose to be plus sized. It just happened.
Valkiry Wagner
I was born skinny. Weight wasn’t an issue until I turned fifteen. My mother would emotionally eat. She would make cakes, cookies, muffins, all the delicious delicacies that make one plump, but to also cure heart aches and pain. When school became hard, when the bullying was too severe, I would walk through the front door and there was my mother sticking out her hand to dessert. My mother had no intent in making me fat. She was just being my mom, trying to feed the hunger of my pain.
Weight wasn’t our only issue at the time. Both my parents were looking for work. Myfather would yell, “It’s time for you to get a job!” – his voice echoing through the entire tiny apartment. He got me to work that summer at the worst place for a plus sized person. A donut shop – a certain big-brand donut shop that will go unnamed. The beginning half of my first day at work, everyone was kind. My coworkers were all of Indian descent – tiny frames, long black shiny hair, and dark eyes. I had gotten attention because of my long blonde ponytail, my hazel eyes, and great makeup skills.
My boss, Abu, trained me instantly. After three hours of scrambling and messing up simple orders, finally he gestured that it was time for my lunch break. He spread his long arms, showing me that I could have anything I wanted for my break. So on my first day, I scanned the fresh, sweet smelling donuts.The strawberry frosted donut along with the chocolate one dimmed in the most angelic light. The french cruller donut showed its perfect artistic spirals. The jelly donut sat upright with its middle perfectly plumped. I just had to choose the jelly donut. That choice of food was a mistake. Abu’s bushy brows raised up and his head spiraled, gesturing to my new coworkers.
“She will only eat a donut?” a coworker, said.
The rest of the women laughed. I bowed my head in shame. I dragged my feet into the dark basement where employees were allowed to have their break. I sat there staring at the sparkling coated jelly-filled donut. It was my favorite but I didn’t want to eat it. The donut had made the first impression of me. The next couple of weeks, days, and months, were the hardest of my life. My parents lost their jobs, and we had no food, so I did what I was told to do when I closed the shop. I took the majority of the remaining bagels, donuts, and muffins to feed my family. My co-workers from the night shift pointed, laughed, and stared. The next day the morning shift knew that I had emptied the shop because to them I was an extremely hungry, greedy, fat person. Every time I clocked in and brought the fresh batch of already made donuts to the display behind the register, the morning shift asked, “Kitty why are you so fat? You need to lose the weight. You take up room in this tiny shop. We can’t pass by you to make the coffee”.
One of my coworkers, an older woman who only drank the green tea and ate one half a of donut, said “Kitty you need to come to my program. Many overweight Indian women have lost the weight so fast. Here is my card. I am trying to help you.” Her heavy accent echoed through the store. My face was hot and the redness flushed my cheeks. The customers on the line stared as I was addressed about my weight before them. The constant nagging of my weight didn’t hurt as much as when Abu wanted to charge my lunch meal. My fellow employees were spreading rumors that I was eating combo meals when they did the same. They always made sandwiches, bagels, hash browns, and even milkshakes for their lunches.
So I did the same. I was tired of only eating one donut, especially when my coworkers gave me the short end of the stick so that I could cover their shifts without asking or having my consent. Of course I would be the only person charged and deducted of pay. Everyone else happily sat their tiny frames into the basement and ate their combo sandwich meals. My checks came with lesser amounts each week. My coworkers ate ice cream and fruit smoothies in the summer, they emptied the hot chocolate machines in the winter, secretly ate all the new flavor donuts for holidays, and I went back to my single jelly donut because it seemed that I had to pay the price because of my weight.
I was only one hundred and seventy one pounds at the time, but I had spiked up to one hundred ninety five. The stress of my home life, the stress of the bullying that followed my soul from school to the shop, and the new health complications I faced made things worse. New employees came and quit but they were all the same. They joined in on the fun of pointing out my overweight body shape. There were two new male employees who joined the team. One sang me indian love songs and was convinced that I would be his new wife so the female employees backed off. The second new guy occasionally slipped by me while I was busy with customers, to slide his hand on the butt of my jeans. I told him it was sexual harassment. He sneered and laughed. There were no cameras of course to capture the creep because the only thing the camera saw was me eating all the donuts.
By the end of the year, I quit crying to Abu. I did not want to cry. I wanted to yell in their faces, scream at the top of my lungs about how rude they were. Although I was overweight, I was still a human being who worked hard, a young woman who stayed extra shifts to clean the store, who woke up early and took care of customers who were of my culture. More Spanish speakers came to the store to enjoy my coffee, sandwiches, and my company. I was not worthy of this treatment and the discrimination that I had faced. I was a seventeen year old girl. My tears streamed down as I practiced my speech to Abu highlighting all the parts of the rude remarks and the unfairness of the deduction on the paycheck.
“Kitty, we are just making fun. Fun for you to laugh. I never called you fat and I don’t know who is doing it.” These were all lies and it shouldn’t have happened. My nosey coworkers cracked the basement door open to listen. He claimed he did not know who talked about my weight, but it was all of them. I gave him my letter of resignation and walked out.. I took one last glance at the donuts. The strawberry and chocolate frosted sprinkled donuts sunk its rainbow sprinkles into the frosting. The chocolate glazed donut laid sideways not wanting to look at me. The jelly donut flattened its plump belly. The french crullers’ ornate swirls went jagged. The donuts and my coworkers were staring hard at me as I took off my apron, my name tag, and hat. I dropped it on an empty table as my tears flew into through the door and into the sidewalk. It was time to leave the donuts.
Right after this experience I found another job. Retail was better than fast food I first thought. Yet the outcome was the same. I got the same questions and rude remarks about my weight, especially by a new manager whose sole purpose was to be buff to the Gods. He would question the asthma medications I took, (which I suspect he thought were steroids because he highly “did not advise” them), and ask me if I ate cheese burgers with fries everyday. Again, I quitted.Yet I found out something about myself. At 18 years old I was a young woman who suffered enough with discrimination. It seemed that the world was cold and I couldn’t be accepted for who I was as a person. It didn’t matter how many quick shifts I took, how much cleaning and preparation I did, how many times I pleased customers, my weight outshined my personality. My weight was the only thing people could see. The day I quit the clothing store, I looked at my managers in the eyes and said “I’m going back to college. I’m going to make something out of myself, and be treated with respect because of my intelligence, my personality, and my dedication to succeed. This job isn’t for me.”They smirked. That day I held my head up proud. I became an English major and started writing.
Valkiry Wagner
Valkiry Wagner is a YouTube Partner and Makeup Artist. She spends her time within the creative arts with face and body painting, writing fictional and nonfictional pieces, cospainting characters from comic books and movies, and the list goes on! She is a 26 year old female who strongly believes in inspiring and healing others through her writing!
