A declaration I've been hearing a lot lately is "Fat is a feminist issue."* I've been thinking about it. And I don't feel comfortable with it.
To look at fatness through a feminist lens yields powerful revelations. It would be a crying shame not to do that -- not to have that be one way we look at fatness. But fat politics is not a subset of feminist politics, and fat oppression is not a subset of sexism.
I mean, it is. But it is also many other things. Fatphobia is an oppression in its own right, just like racism and sexism and homophobia and transphobia. I believe that there are bountiful riches to be found in studying how various oppressions intersect and influence each other. But I don't want fatpol, just because it's perceived as such a small movement, to locate a place underneath the umbrella of feminism. Or under any umbrella. Not unless all the other isms are under there too and each ism also has its own umbrella, underneath which are the oppressions that are not that umbrella.
Does that make sense? Each oppression has its own particular workings. Intersectional studies are wildly helpful, but there must not be ranking. Calling fat a feminist issue (without saying anything else) is a ranking.
So, sure, "fat is a feminist issue" -- as long as, too, feminism is a fat issue, sexism is a fat issue. As long as race is a class issue and class is a race issue. So nothing is subsumed. So they are each their own, and also each equally "of" the others. That could be interesting.
This reminds me of a earlier part of my life when I heard a lot of people saying that gender oppression of boys was a homophobia issue. Yes, of course, one reason people oppressively force boys into boy roles is the fear that they'll otherwise be queer; but that's not the only thing going on. Gender oppression of boys also occurs for its own sake: boys are forced into boy roles because we care that boys take boy roles. We fear they'll be queer, but we also fear that they won't be boys.
Insectionality is good and great and exciting. But one oppression getting labeled as solely part of another is neither truthful nor useful.
*I mean the expression, not any of the books by that title, which I partially read in college but don't remember nearly well enough to have any opinion on.
To look at fatness through a feminist lens yields powerful revelations. It would be a crying shame not to do that -- not to have that be one way we look at fatness. But fat politics is not a subset of feminist politics, and fat oppression is not a subset of sexism.
I mean, it is. But it is also many other things. Fatphobia is an oppression in its own right, just like racism and sexism and homophobia and transphobia. I believe that there are bountiful riches to be found in studying how various oppressions intersect and influence each other. But I don't want fatpol, just because it's perceived as such a small movement, to locate a place underneath the umbrella of feminism. Or under any umbrella. Not unless all the other isms are under there too and each ism also has its own umbrella, underneath which are the oppressions that are not that umbrella.
Does that make sense? Each oppression has its own particular workings. Intersectional studies are wildly helpful, but there must not be ranking. Calling fat a feminist issue (without saying anything else) is a ranking.
So, sure, "fat is a feminist issue" -- as long as, too, feminism is a fat issue, sexism is a fat issue. As long as race is a class issue and class is a race issue. So nothing is subsumed. So they are each their own, and also each equally "of" the others. That could be interesting.
This reminds me of a earlier part of my life when I heard a lot of people saying that gender oppression of boys was a homophobia issue. Yes, of course, one reason people oppressively force boys into boy roles is the fear that they'll otherwise be queer; but that's not the only thing going on. Gender oppression of boys also occurs for its own sake: boys are forced into boy roles because we care that boys take boy roles. We fear they'll be queer, but we also fear that they won't be boys.
Insectionality is good and great and exciting. But one oppression getting labeled as solely part of another is neither truthful nor useful.
*I mean the expression, not any of the books by that title, which I partially read in college but don't remember nearly well enough to have any opinion on.
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