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Fat pedagogy and microaggressions: Experiences of professionals working in higher education settings
Abstract
Fisanick suggests that fat professors feel compelled to overperform, which is an argument that is applicable to all areas of higher education, even beyond the classroom. Directors, coordinators, and administrative assistants in academic departments and units also experience this strain in which overworking and taking on too many responsibilities can somehow overcompensate for the societal belief that someone larger is less credible or knowledgible than someone in a thinner body size. Using a narrative inquiry approach, the authors examine how participants experience microaggressions in a university workplace. The research concludes by highlighting how body weight should be integrated into diversity training and programming.
... Some evidence from qualitative studies of fat microaggressions supports their pervasiveness and commonplace occurrence in everyday life among women in therapy (Akoury et al., 2019), employees in higher education (Hunt & Rhodes, 2018), and people across environmental settings and public spaces (Owen, 2012). Participants in these studies were fat people who described everyday experiences of being ignored and isolated from others, being shamed and embarrassed, being prescribed unsolicited exercise and eating advice to lose weight, and not being able to exist or participate comfortably across a variety of settings. ...
... 102). Employees in higher education discussed feeling condescended to and embarrassed due to weight shaming by their colleagues and supervisors, with one supervisor giving their employee a book on weight loss even after the employee expressed that it was unwanted (Hunt & Rhodes, 2018). The frequent exclusion caused by inadequate seating in daily life, including in therapy waiting rooms (Akoury et al., 2019), on public transportation, and in restaurants or theaters (Owen, 2012) represent environmental microaggressions that have led some people to avoid going out in public (Owen, 2012). ...
... An updated literature review was then conducted for any additional weight stigma measure published since 2012 and thus not included in the previous review, and their items were added to the initial item pool, resulting in a total of 391 items. Second, three qualitative studies that specifically investigated fat microaggressive experiences were reviewed (Akoury et al., 2019;Hunt & Rhodes, 2018;Owen, 2012), and 23 items were written to capture the experiences described. Third, Tweets that used #fatmicroaggressions, a Twitter hashtag created by blogger Melissa McEwan in late 2013, were reviewed. ...
Fat microaggressions are microlevel social practices in the form of commonplace everyday indignities that insult fat people and have been documented anecdotally and qualitatively. However, no psychometrically validated scale exists for measuring fat microaggressions, despite decades of microaggression research demonstrating their negative health associations. This research describes the development and construct validation of the Fat Microaggressions Scale across four studies. Study 1 focused on item development through a systematic review, qualitative analysis of Tweets using #fatmicroaggressions, and a Delphi review. Study 2 (N = 343) determined that a four-factor structure was appropriate in an online community sample of fat adults. Study 3 (N = 410) confirmed the factor structure in a new online sample of fat adults and provided initial evidence of construct validity. Study 4 (N = 197) found evidence of test–retest reliability and demonstrated additional construct validity. Our findings offer a newly validated quantitative measure of fat microaggressions and an initial framework for naming and categorizing these experiences, which may be used to advance the study of fat microaggressions.
... 42) and studies also document weight bias in nurses, dieticians, physiotherapists, and mental health professionals, which negatively impacts access to, and quality of, care (Chrisler, 2018;Nutter et al., 2018). Weight-based oppression is also evident in the workplace; besides being less likely to be hired in the first place, fat people are often paid less, perceived as less intelligent, competent, and reliable by supervisors, and typically not seen as leadership material and worthy of promotion (Hunt & Rhodes, 2018;Nutter et al., 2018;Rothblum, 2018). Research on interpersonal relationships indicates that fat children, adolescents, and adults can face social exclusion, harassment, and bullying (Nutter et al., 2018). ...
... The infamous tweet by a psychology professor, 'Dear obese PhD applicants: if you don't have the willpower to stop eating carbs, you won't have the willpower to do a dissertation #truth' was hardly an isolated incident (Burford, 2015); one study found that fat applicants to graduate school received significantly fewer offers after in-person interviews, even with positive letters of recommendation (Burmeister et al., 2013). Fat faculty members have also shared their experiences of weight-based oppression, from not being taken seriously by colleagues to promotion and tenure challenges to student resistance (Cameron, 2016b;Escalera, 2009;Fisanick, 2006Fisanick, , 2007Fisanick, , 2014Hunt & Rhodes, 2018;Lockard, 2015;McPhail, Brady, & Gingras, 2017;Patton, 2014;Pausé, 2012;Tirosh, 2006). ...
... Pedagogical matters have also received significant scholarly attention through personal narratives and empirical studies of the impacts and effectiveness of specific teaching strategies (Boling, 2011;Burrows, 2016;Cameron 2015aCameron , 2016aCameron , 2016bChrisler, 2018;Danielsdottir, O'Brien, & Ciao 2010;Dark, 2019a;Fahs, 2016;Farrell, 2016;Gard, 2016;Gullage, 2015;Guthman, 2009;Hopkins, 2011;Hunt & Rhodes, 2018;Jones & Hughes-Decatur, 2012;Kannen, 2016;Krieger et al., 2018;Land & Montpetit, 2018;Leahy, 2014;Norman & Petherick, 2016;Pausé, 2016Pausé, , 2019aRothblum, 2016;Russell & Semenko, 2016;Tirosh, 2006;Watkins, 2016;Watkins, Farrell, & Doyle-Hugmeyer, 2012;Watkins & Concepcion, 2014;Watkins & Doyle-Hugmeyer, 2013). Some have focused on the affective dimension of fat pedagogies such as students' emotional responses to particular strategies while others have problematized crisis discourse and pedagogies of shame, guilt, and disgust Hardy, 2013;Krieger et al., 2018;Leahy, 2009Leahy, , 2014Petherick & Beausoleil, 2016;Pike & Leahy, 2012;Rice, 2015;Russell et al., 2013;Russell & Semenko, 2016), including noting how pedagogies of shame are often directed not only at students but also at parents, particularly mothers (Boero, 2009;Petherick & Beausoleil, 2016;Pike & Leahy, 2012;Rice, 2015). ...
... Sizeism also has adverse effects at work, including in hiring, promotions, wages, and terminations (Puhl and Brownell, 2001;Puhl & Heuer, 2009;Hunt & Rhodes, 2018). In addition, sizeism affects personal relationships. ...
This content analysis of wellness-related library programs and programming materials seeks to discover the perception of larger bodies within library health programming. Fatphobia or sizeism is prevalent in the wellness industry and within healthcare. Libraries are trusted resources for health information. Informed by the fields of fat studies, we approached health programming in libraries by asking if larger people would feel welcome and able to attend. We examined twenty libraries’ programs over the past year as well as library conference programs and programming materials from several websites. There was little evidence of explicit sizeism, but some resources reproduced sizeist stereotypes and language. This presentation takes a fat pedagogy approach to focus on methods for ensuring access to all and expanding current definitions of inclusivity so that people with larger bodies recognize that libraries are welcoming spaces.
... Research examining the experiences of fat faculty members and staff employees in higher education demonstrate that, due to their weight, they are perceived as less credible, knowledgeable, and competent (Fisanick 2006;Tischner and Malson 2008). They are body shamed, verbally abused, and face weight-based microaggressions (Hunt and Rhodes 2018). The problems that are faced by fat people in higher education, it is suspected, are to be replicated in library spaces as well given their characterization as spaces of public spaces learning. ...
Weight stigma can be considered the last acceptable form of discrimination. This work examines the reasons why fat concerns should be undertaken by the discipline of LIS and the profession of librarianship. In imagining a fat future, we offer a call-to-action for fat scholars to centre their fat epistemology and to take up the methods of the discipline of fat studies. In conclusion, we offer an introduction to our research agenda in this area.
... Microagressions sering tertanam dalam pola ketidaksetaraan yang sistematis seperti, rasisme, klasisme, dan patriarki yang mengakibatkan tertutupnya peluang bagi individua tau kelompok yang terpinggirkan (Hunt & Rhodes, 2018). Terdapat korelasi yang signifikan antara frekuensi microagressions dan gejala depresi yang menunjukkan bahwa perilaku microagressions yang lebih besar berkaitan dengan gejala depresi yang lebih besar pula (Choi et al., 2017). ...
Microagressions merupakan penghinaan kepada individu atau kelompok yang dilakukan secara verbal ataupun non verbal, yang disengaja atau tidak disengaja yang dapat menimbulkan dampak psikologis individu atau kelompok yang menjadi sasaran. Microagressions memiliki dampak pada kesehatan mental individu sehingga diperlukan upaya untuk mencega perilaku microagressions siswa. Sehingga penelitian ini bertujuan untuk: (1) mendeskripsikan faktor-faktor penyebab terjadinya perilaku microagressions siswa; (2) mengkonstruk nilai-nilai TRINGA dalam teknik sosiodrama untuk mencegah perilaku microagressions siswa. Literature review menjadi metode penelitian yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini. Hasil penelitian menyebutkan bahwa terdapat enam faktor yang menyebabkan terjadinya perilaku microagressions siswa diantaranya faktor jenis kelamin, usia, daerah religius stereotype, asumsi inferioritas, asumsi non religious. Nilai-nilai TRINGA dapat digunakan konselor dalam memberikan layanan bimbingan kelompok teknik sosiodrama. Diharapkan peneliti selanjutnya dapat menguji keefektifan nilai-nilai TRINGA dalam bimbingan kelompok teknik sosiodrama untuk mencegah perilaku microagressions siswa SMP.
... Dissonance is typically caused by hypocrisies including (a) a newfound awareness of prejudice and discrimination, and an appreciation of the resultant harm they can cause, and (b) a stark realization that one may have contributed to such oppression as a function of one's contextually privileged identities. Thus, developing an ally identity against weight-stigma involves acknowledging that weight is often not controllable (Gordon, 2023;Lin & Stutts, 2020), that anti-fat bias exists (Lewis et al., 1997), that it is highly prevalent in workplaces , and that it is imminently harmful to employees (Hunt & Rhodes, 2018;Major et al., 2018). As individuals become more aware of interpersonal mistreatment and denigrating media representations of people in larger bodies (Ravary et al., 2019), along with global-scale prejudice, they are more likely to progress from the apathy stage. ...
... Another central observation is that faculty and employees report being body shamed, verbally abused, and subjected to microaggressions. Hunt and Rhodes (2018) report such activities in various contexts within higher education: student affairs, residence life, and enrollment management. Heath's (2021) dissertation also highlights this prejudice faced by fat employees and notes a lack of resources and support provided to fat individuals, prompting them to consider leaving employment in higher education. ...
Despite Library and Information Science’s engagement with other matters of social justice, nearly no scholarly attention has been paid to fat issues within the library. Through the critical lens of the author’s own experiences as a fat Library and Information Science scholar, a critical discourse analysis of online library furniture catalogues reveals the exclusionary ways in which they perpetuate fatphobic body size standards. Given that library spaces are often considered a cornerstone of modern democratic societies, and that librarianship claims to champion ideals such as universal access to information, the exclusion of fat bodies in library spaces is problematic.
... For individuals who feel that their age, weight, or other physical status gives them a disadvantage, more drastic opportunities are available (such as facelifts or gastric bypass surgery). Morgan (2011) laments that the "liberatory" discourses related to many treatments for obesity often disguise deep-seated oppression; other discourses relate to "health" themes but can also be considered as microaggressions (Hunt and Rhodes 2018). Although the individuals obtaining the appearance-UBIQUITOUS LEARNING: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL related treatments are construed as "finding their true selves," the treatments serve to reinforce unfortunate stereotypes as well as be physically unhealthy in the long run. ...
Abstract: Face-to-face classroom interaction in higher education contexts incorporates various aspects of personal appearance in its visual dimensions. The advent of online delivery of education (such as utilization of internet platforms including Blackboard and Desire2Learn as well as social media) is creating new spheres of intellectual communication along with new forms of representation of individuals, including selfies and manipulated photographs. For example, the growing popularity of avatars in higher education provides a new spectrum of representational choices for individuals. This article discusses issues involving personal image modifications in higher education and their implications for intellectual interaction and policy development as well as the monitoring of cheating and student impersonation. The ability to choose avatars with which to associate oneself or to alter one’s image digitally can be construed as liberating affordances and well within the spirit of creative higher education. Many of the narratives concerning the personal choices of image or avatar reflect themes of freedom, possibility, and the exploration of self-identity, although others lament the amount of time invested in these choices. However, use of manipulated images and avatars rather than less heavily modified human faces for interaction can also serve to increase the real-world invisibility of many disenfranchised individuals and decrease awareness of their life circumstances in ways that ultimately are more escapist and confining than life enhancing.
Keywords: Diversity, Online Education, Photography, Self-identity, Avatars
This article addresses the possibilities and pitfalls for fat activist engagement in academic institutions through the framework of the ‘fat person.’ Drawing from Emily Henderson’s (2019) ‘gender person’ in academia framework, we connect our own experiences as fat studies scholars, teachers, and activists with the experiences of other scholars in our field to construct a framework of understanding the role of the fat studies expert, or the ‘fat person,’ in the academy. The raw material for this article was written over the course of two extended online chat sessions between the authors, which took place during the summer of 2020. Our conversations were seeded by our prior histories as fat people and fat academics, and by our pre-existing collaborations: as supervisor and graduate student, co-researchers, and through teaching together in a fat studies course. Throughout this article we draw on scholars in our field who have explored their experiences as fat academics, fat researchers, fat students, and fat teachers. We argue that this framework is a useful step in furthering understanding of what it means to be positioned as the ‘fat person’ within an academic institution. We are embedded in the strength of our communal and embodied experiences, and at the same time, we are also aware of the potential ethical challenges of working from a place that is firmly grounded in community knowledge. Our hope is that other scholars, particularly fat studies scholars, will build from the framework we are suggesting here to further understandings of how the ‘fat person’ is constructed—and resisted—within the academy
From Kimberlé Crenshaw’s theoretical use to Flavia Dzodan’s more recent declaration—the issue of intersectionality is acknowledged within feminist circles as an important tenant of scholarship, pedagogy, and activism. In this introduction to a special issue of Fat Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Body Weight and Society, I explore intersectionality within the field of fat studies, as well as the themes addressed by the issue contributors. Consideration is given to how reflective intersections strengthen fat studies scholarship, and the conceptual and methodological challenges that intersectionality poses to researchers. I conclude by reflecting on ways in which fat studies scholars may move forward in embracing intersections and promoting social justice.
Framings of “obesity” have been associated with more stigmatization of fat people when weight is presented as the result of individual behavior. No research to date has examined how the effects of “obesity” framing interact with demographic characteristics of the fat person being evaluated. In this study, 198 adult men and women read information about “obesity” presented in one of three frames: a standard individual responsibility frame, a frame emphasizing the role of “obesogenic” environments such as industrial food production and urban design, and a frame claiming that the harms of “obesity” have been overstated, before reading a brief description of an fat target person that varied on socioeconomic status (SES) and gender. Participants in the overstated framing condition rated the fat target as more competent and more moral compared to those in the individual responsibility condition, although this effect was restricted to high-SES targets. These findings are discussed in terms of the ideological functions of weight stigma.
In this interview-based study, we investigated the common social experiences and minority stressors related to being transgender. It is one of two articles that resulted from a grounded theory analysis of interviews with 17 participants who claimed a variety of transgender identities (e.g., cross-dresser, transman, transwoman, butch lesbian) and were from different regions in the United States. The interview was centered on how participants' identities influenced their lives across different interpersonal contexts. Participants described developing a more complex understanding of gender because of the effect of their transgender status on others and the need to modify their gender presentation at times to secure their safety. In the workplace, their gender could overshadow their competence and, in the age of social media, was always at risk of becoming public. Seeking social support could be dangerous, and the process of transitioning was found to make safe spaces especially elusive. Also, open communication about sex and gender was found to be particularly important within successful intimate relationships. Our findings emphasized the tensions between a need to be respected and valued for oneself and one's abilities with a need to mitigate the very real dangers of being visible or out as transgender in different contexts. Our research can be used to enhance health professionals' understandings of transgender people's life experiences, to identify salient minority stressors for further research exploration, and to advance advocacy.
Top executives hold positions that convey power, prestige, and competence as predicted by status characteristics theory. Nevertheless, the impressions generated through this status characteristic may be vulnerable when executives also possess characteristics that reflect a devalued social identity, such as obesity. Data from health examinations and multisource evaluation surveys of 757 CEOs, vice presidents, and upper managers suggest that the observable cue of umbilical waist circumference is negatively associated with evaluations of leaders across hierarchical levels, even after controlling for Body Mass Index, physical activity, personality, and demographic characteristics. Thus, hierarchically based status characteristics are insufficient in overcoming the stigma of obesity: even CEOs are subject to the pernicious effects of obesity stigma. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Over the last fifteen years, a growing body of literature has found that dominant obesity discourse has led to significant increases in weight bias within social institutions, such as universities. Some critical fat scholars have articulated the need for more research on effective pedagogical strategies to address weight-based oppression in the post-secondary classroom. Interviews with twenty-six academics who challenge “obesity” discourse in university classrooms, identify four main themes, namely: framing, layering, connecting, and teaching. Building on insights from critical and feminist pedagogy, this paper offers insights into an emerging fat pedagogy.
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USING AN ETHICAL LENS, THIS REVIEW EVALUATES TWO METHODS OF WORKING WITHIN PATIENT CARE AND PUBLIC HEALTH: the weight-normative approach (emphasis on weight and weight loss when defining health and well-being) and the weight-inclusive approach (emphasis on viewing health and well-being as multifaceted while directing efforts toward improving health access and reducing weight stigma). Data reveal that the weight-normative approach is not effective for most people because of high rates of weight regain and cycling from weight loss interventions, which are linked to adverse health and well-being. Its predominant focus on weight may also foster stigma in health care and society, and data show that weight stigma is also linked to adverse health and well-being. In contrast, data support a weight-inclusive approach, which is included in models such as Health at Every Size for improving physical (e.g., blood pressure), behavioral (e.g., binge eating), and psychological (e.g., depression) indices, as well as acceptability of public health messages. Therefore, the weight-inclusive approach upholds nonmaleficience and beneficience, whereas the weight-normative approach does not. We offer a theoretical framework that organizes the research included in this review and discuss how it can guide research efforts and help health professionals intervene with their patients and community.
This study provides a meta-analytic review of correlational research examining the relationship between job incumbent/applicant weight and work-related outcomes. Given the differences between correlational and experimental research, our findings show an understandably weaker relationship between weight and work-related outcomes than has been found in past meta-analyses of the experimental research. However, our findings do support the directionality of (a) the overall effect of weight on work-related outcomes, and (b) the moderating role of job incumbent/applicant sex and the type of work-related outcome found in past meta-analyses of experimental research. In addition, this review provides initial meta-analytic evidence for the roles of race, the sex–race interaction, and age as moderators of the relationship between weight and work-related outcomes.
Obese adults face pervasive and repeated weight-based stigma. Few researchers have explored how obese individuals proactively respond to stigma outside of a dominant weight-loss framework. Using a grounded theory approach, we explored the experiences of 44 bloggers within the Fatosphere—an online fat-acceptance community. We investigated participants’ pathways into the Fatosphere, how they responded to and interacted with stigma, and how they described the impact of fat acceptance on their health and well-being. The concepts and support associated with the fat-acceptance movement helped participants shift from reactive strategies in responding to stigma (conforming to dominant discourses through weight loss) to proactive responses to resist stigma (reframing “fat” and self-acceptance). Participants perceived that blogging within the Fatosphere led them to feel more empowered. Participants also described the benefits of belonging to a supportive community, and improvements in their health and well-being. The Fatosphere provides an alternative pathway for obese individuals to counter and cope with weight-based stigma.
Racial microaggressions are brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults toward people of color. Perpetrators of microaggressions are often unaware that they engage in such communications when they interact with racial/ethnic minorities. A taxonomy of racial microaggressions in everyday life was created through a review of the social psychological literature on aversive racism, from formulations regarding the manifestation and impact of everyday racism, and from reading numerous personal narratives of counselors (both White and those of color) on their racial/cultural awakening. Microaggressions seem to appear in three forms: microassault, microinsult, and microinvalidation. Almost all interracial encounters are prone to microaggressions; this article uses the White counselor--client of color counseling dyad to illustrate how they impair the development of a therapeutic alliance. Suggestions regarding education and training and research in the helping professions are discussed.
Given that postsecondary institutions are increasingly seen as sites to promote health, critical scholars are calling attention to how the contemporary Western weight-centred health paradigm reinforces a “size matters” message that is fueling harmful attitudes towards and judgments of bodies. As such, research that highlights strategies to promote safe teaching and learning environments for students and faculty, regardless of body shape and size, is of utmost importance. Through 26 participant interviews, this study examines the experiences of critical obesity scholars who teach courses that engage critical approaches to obesity, fatness, and body size. The findings of this study shed light on the developing field of critical obesity scholarship, the types of challenges faced by critical obesity scholars in higher education, and how these scholars are building community as a way of coping with challenges facing the emerging field.
This study examined the relevance of disgust to evaluations of an obese target person, and the connection between disgust and prejudice toward that person. Participants (n=598) viewed an image of an obese or non-obese woman, and then evaluated that woman on a number of dimensions (emotions, attitudes, stereotypes, desire for social distance). Compared with the non-obese target, the obese target elicited more disgust, more negative attitudes and stereotypes, and a greater desire for social distance. Furthermore, disgust mediated the effect of the target's body size on all of the outcome variables (attitudes, stereotypes, social distance). Disgust plays an important role in prejudice and discrimination toward individuals with obesity, and might in part explain the pervasiveness of weight bias.
Contemporary Western societies are obsessed with the "obesity epidemic," dieting, and fitness. Fat people violate the Western conscience by violating a thinness norm. In virtue of violating the thinness norm, fat people suffer many varied consequences. Is their suffering morally permissible, or even obligatory? In this paper, I argue that the answer is no. I examine contemporary philosophical accounts of oppression and draw largely on the work of Sally Haslanger to generate a set of conditions sufficient for some phenomena to count as oppression, and I illustrate the account's value using the example of gender oppression. I then apply the account to fat people, examine empirical evidence, and argue that the suffering of fat people counts as oppression (and therefore, generally, discriminating against fat people in virtue of their being fat is morally wrong).
Both fat people and disabled people share common barriers to full societal participation and acceptance. While there has been a substantial amount of literature relating to these two groups as separate entities, there is a lack of contemporary research that investigates the relationship between fat and disability identity formation. The purpose of this qualitative study was to engage in a dialogue with fat individuals and explore the construction of their identities - whether or not they identified with having a disability and, if so, whether or not they viewed their fatness as a disability. Interviews with a sample size of seven participants who self-identified as 'fat' revealed an unwillingness to adopt a disability identity based on their fatness.
Over the last two decades, women have organized against the almost routine violence that shapes their lives. Drawing from the strength of shared experience, women have recognized that the political demands of millions speak more powerfully than the pleas of a few isolated voices. This politicization in turn has transformed the way we understand violence against women. For example, battering and rape, once seen as private (family matters) and aberrational (errant sexual aggression), are now largely recognized as part of a broad-scale system of domination that affects women as a class. This process of recognizing as social and systemic what was formerly perceived as isolated and individual has also characterized the identity politics of people of color and gays and lesbians, among others. For all these groups, identity-based politics has been a source of strength, community, and intellectual development. The embrace of identity politics, however, has been in tension with dominant conceptions of social justice. Race, gender, and other identity categories are most often treated in mainstream liberal discourse as vestiges of bias or domination-that is, as intrinsically negative frameworks in which social power works to exclude or marginalize those who are different. According to this understanding, our liberatory objective should be to empty such categories of any social significance. Yet implicit in certain strands of feminist and racial liberation movements, for example, is the view that the social power in delineating difference need not be the power of domination; it can instead be the source of political empowerment and social reconstruction. The problem with identity politics is not that it fails to transcend difference, as some critics charge, but rather the opposite- that it frequently conflates or ignores intra group differences. In the context of violence against women, this elision of difference is problematic, fundamentally because the violence that many women experience is often shaped by other dimensions of their identities, such as race and class. Moreover, ignoring differences within groups frequently contributes to tension among groups, another problem of identity politics that frustrates efforts to politicize violence against women. Feminist efforts to politicize experiences of women and antiracist efforts to politicize experiences of people of color' have frequently proceeded as though the issues and experiences they each detail occur on mutually exclusive terrains. Al-though racism and sexism readily intersect in the lives of real people, they seldom do in feminist and antiracist practices. And so, when the practices expound identity as "woman" or "person of color" as an either/or proposition, they relegate the identity of women of color to a location that resists telling. My objective here is to advance the telling of that location by exploring the race and gender dimensions of violence against women of color. Contemporary feminist and antiracist discourses have failed to consider the intersections of racism and patriarchy. Focusing on two dimensions of male violence against women-battering and rape-I consider how the experiences of women of color are frequently the product of intersecting patterns of racism and sexism, and how these experiences tend not to be represented within the discourse of either feminism or antiracism... Language: en
As the war against obesity intensifies in the United States, obesity is frequently portrayed as a problem of class, race, and nationality that has serious economic costs for a nation whose healthcare resources are already limited. The competition for resources has caused not only an economic panic but also a moral panic about who deserves available resources, and obesity has become a flashpoint for discussing concerns about the fiscal and physical health of the United States. This paper examines how the war against obesity (and especially the rhetoric employed) negatively affect a growing number of people by projecting national angst about race, class, and economics onto individual lives.
Studies have repeatedly demonstrated the influence of physical appearance on behavior and treatment of individuals in work settings. A high proportion of obese individuals in the USA have reported perceived discrimination in the work place due to their body weight. The present review examines the specific kind, context and extent of a weight bias in work settings.
We performed a literature search in the scientific databases PubMed and PsychINFO to identify studies which have investigated aspects of a potential weight bias in the occupational context.
There is evidence from self-report data, surveys, and laboratory research for a weight bias in five aspects of work life. Evidence shows that obesity is a general barrier to employment, certain professions and professional success. Obese individuals are at higher risk of encountering stereotypes concerning their work-related qualities and for general unequal treatment in the work place.
Current evidence reveals a weight bias in several areas in the work place. The ecological validity of results is limited due to the predominant reliance on laboratory studies with student samples. Field studies are needed to examine weight-based discrimination in actual work environments as well as to uncover underlying mechanisms.
In the context of the contemporary rhetoric of the "obesity epidemic", the fat body is easily labelled as lazy, self-indulgent and lacking in discipline. Those who become fat often find themselves needing to account for their size in order to refute the suggestion of moral failure that attaches itself easily to the fat body. Drawing on a series of interviews with 35 weight loss surgery patients in England and Scotland, this paper explores the discursive resources and strategies available to those who are, or who have been, very overweight in accounting for their size. The paper argues that the participants drew on three core discourses in order to resist the construction of their fatness as an individual moral failure: (1) the fat-prone body; (2) childhood weight gain; and (3) life events disrupting weight management efforts.
Weight-Based Microaggressions Experienced by Obese Women in Psychotherapy.” Doctoral diss
- Kerri J Schafer
The Fat Pedagogy Reader: Challenging Weight-Based Oppressions through Critical Education
- Erin Cameron
- Constance Russell
“Introduction.” In The Fat Studies Reader
- Sondra Solovay
- Esther Rothblum
‘They are Weighted with Authority’: Fat Female Professors in Academic and Popular Cultures
- Christina Fisanick
Offensive Mechanisms
- Chester Pierce
Qualitative Methods in Social Research
- Kristin G Esterberg
Microaggressions in Everyday Life: Race, Gender, and Sexual Orientation
- Derald W Sue