The Oppression of Fat People in America

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The Oppression of Fat People in America

Many people see fat activists as a bunch of whiners who can’t keep their hand out of the cookie jar." — Kimberly, fat activist

Being fat is one of the most stigmatizing attributes in America. One cannot live through a single day without encountering numerous forms of fat prejudice in magazines, on television, in the streets, and even in homes. Erving Goffman’s Stigma delineates three types of stigma: abominations of the body, blemishes of individual character, and tribal stigma of race, nation and religion (4). According to Goffman’s definition, being fat is an abomination of the body. Being fat is a highly visible stigma, unlike the stigma of being queer which does not have an outward appearance. According to research in Women’s Conflicts About Eating and Sexuality, "Fat oppression, the fear and hatred of fat people, remains one of the few ‘acceptable’ prejudices still held by otherwise progressive persons" (Meadow 132). In fact, people are obsessed with noticing fat, not getting fat, and pointing out to people that they are fat without hesitation. Unlike other stigmas, fat people are blamed for their condition. Society believes that if fat people really wanted to they could just lose weight and be permanently thin. Fat is not the problem, rather fat oppression endorsed and reinforced by society is the problem.

I’ve made a conscious choice to use the word fat in this paper; I’ve already used the word ‘fat’ ten times in the first paragraph. The word ‘fat’ and fat itself have negative connotations in our culture, the reasons for which I will explore in my paper, as well as the way people are instituting positive ideological changes about fat. I use to have a hard time using ‘fat’ t...

... middle of paper ...

...way Books, 1999.

Meadow, Rosalyn M., and Lillie Weiss. Women’s Conflicts About Eating and Sexuality:

The Relationship Between Food and Sex. New York: Harrington Park Press, 1992.

Muñoz, José Esteban. Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics.

Minneapolis: U of Minnesota, 1999.

"NAAFA Online." National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance. Online. Internet. 2 Dec.

2000. Available: http://www.naafa.org

Orbach, Susie. Fat is a Feminist Issue…the Anti-Diet Guide to Permanent Weight Loss.

New York: Paddington Press, 1978.

Solovay, Sondra. Tipping the Scales of Justice: Fighting Weight Based Discrimination.

New York: Prometheus Books, 2000.

Wann, Marilyn. Fat!So?. Berkeley: Ten Speed Press, 1998.

Works Consulted

Nadius, Beverly. One Size Does Not Fit All. Littleton, CO: Aigis Publications, 1993.

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