Fat People of Color: Creating Counter-Narratives Online

• In Event: 564 - Regular Session. Sociology of the Body. Meaning Making and the Social Body

Abstract

Abstract: Though more people have become aware of thin privilege, the fat activist movement has been slow in gaining momentum. This is due, in part, to the symbolic annihilation of “fat” people in the media. Within the fat activist framework, women of color are often further excluded from the overarching dialogue and white privilege is sometimes unacknowledged. This paper examines two online spaces, This is Thin Privilege and Fat People of Color, to gain a better understanding of the experiences of “fat” women of color. Findings reveal that Fat People of Color uses an intersectional, communal approach to posit counter-narratives against normative fat activist rhetoric and ideas about thinness in mainstream media. This research contributes to an understudied area of sociological inquiry by presenting an analysis of the experience of “fat” women of color within a feminist framework. Ignoring the variation of these experiences strengthens the types of privileges that fat activism and feminism hope to dismantle.

Author

• Apryl Alexis Williams, Texas A&M University