Fat Pedagogy Gone Wild! Tackling Sexism, Speciesism, and Sizeism in Environmental, Interspecies, and Social Justice Education

• In Event: 72.034 - Feminist Approaches to Animal-Focused Education: Illuminating the Intersections and Following New Tracks in Environmental Education

Abstract

Animal referents used to stigmatize fat people, particularly women, are commonplace as many fat studies scholars note (e.g., Hardy, 2014; Farrell, 2011; LeBesco, 2004; Russell & Semenko, 2016). As LeBesco (2004) observes, “It takes little imagination to conjure up ‘pig’ or ‘cow’ as a popular term of insult for fat people” (p. 86). Farrell (2011), in her history of fat stigma in American culture, illustrates how fatness became a sign “of inferior, primitive bodies, a sure indicator of one’s low position on the evolutionary scale” (p. 83) with the result that “fat people are often treated as not quite human” (p. 6). What very few fat studies scholars do, however, is tackle the anthropocentrism that serves to make such associations so powerful. There is much to unpack in an insult such as “fat cow” given its roots in fat hatred, sexism, and speciesism, and doing so can open up many theoretical and pedagogical possibilities (Russell & Semenko, 2016). Given we are marinated in a culture rife with anthropocentrism (Fawcett, 2013), it should come as no surprise that fat studies struggles with anthropocentrism. Perhaps less predictable to some is that environmental and humane education struggle with sexism and fatphobia (Gough, forthcoming; Russell, Cameron, Socha, & McNinch, 2014; Russell & Fawcett, 2013). In this presentation, I will begin by demonstrating the ways in which the animalization of fat women has had profound material impacts, including targeting us for rape through the practices of “harpooning” and “hogging” (Jones & Hughes-Decatur, 2012; Prohaska & Gailey, 2010). I will then share examples of fatphobia in the environmental and humane movements, including research literature that blames fat people for climate change (Russell et al, 2013), vegan advocacy that reproduces obesity discourse (Gaard, 2013), and campaigns that make use of fatphobia, sexism, and speciesism like the infamous PETA ad that features an image of a fat woman in a bikini on a beach with the tagline: “Save the whales, lose the blubber, go vegetarian” (Hardy, 2014; Russell & Semenko, 2016). Drawing on insights from ecofeminism, critical animal studies, fat studies and the nascent field of fat pedagogy, I will bring these strands together to discuss the complex ways in which sexism, speciesism, and fatphobia intersect, honing in on the implications for environmental and interspecies education theory, research, and pedagogy.

Author

• Constance L. Russell, Lakehead University