Breaking the Intersecting Barriers of Body Size, Race and Sex

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/09/howard-stern-gabourey-sid_n_492102.html

A couple of weeks ago in one of my history classes I read a book called “Ar’n’t I a Woman?” by author Deborah Gray White. The book details the experiences of slave women and compares the differences experienced by slave women to those of slave men. One of the author’s main ideas is that women experienced slavery more difficultly than men because the women were bound by two identities: they were black and they were women. In escaping one subordinated identity, they were faced by yet another, never having the option to raise themselves above some form of disenfranchisement.

In reading Amy Farrell’s “Fat Shame” it is safe to say that women of all races, but especially those of color, can add yet another subordinated identity to the list: fat. Farrell’s book unabashedly points out that the stigma surrounding fat mostly has to do with the idea of “primitive” bodies, which in the 19^th century translated into “black and immigrant” bodies. Beginning in the mid to late 1800s, the idea of a woman being fat started to take on the meaning of being part of a lower class. To a white, “civilized” woman (as well as white men of the upper class) of the time, there could be nothing worse. To be fat, in this era, meant that a woman was out of control, that she was unable to manage her urges, and that, essentially, she would never amount to anything so her standing as a partial citizen, not a real citizen, was justified.

While we like to tell ourselves that today, shortly into the 21^st century, we have progressed beyond these ridiculous prejudices, it is obvious that the same stigma of fat that existed in the 19^th century still plagues our society today. A fat woman is just as ridiculed and excluded from the normal rights of American citizens as they were a hundred and fifty years ago. A white woman today is just as degraded today because of the stereotype that she has no self control, and that she has not mastered her urges, and so therefore, she is considered to be part of an inferior group of human beings, just like in the 19^th century. For a woman of color, the situation is even worse. Whereas a white woman is presumed to be able to exit her lower citizenship by becoming thin, a fat woman of color will always have more of a barrier to have to break through. Here, again, White’s and Farrell’s arguments connect: a fat woman of color will always be, in some way, subordinated by the stigmas of her identities: even if a fat woman of color loses weight, she will still be a black woman. And she will never be able to, or allowed to, (as assumed by people who still actually believe these insane ideas) be able to make anything of herself because she is not a full citizen.

A prime example of this is exhibited by the ranting of Howard Stern over Gabourey Sidibe in 2010. The link above shows an article describing Howard Stern’s disbelief and perhaps even rage, that fat black actress Gabourey Sidibe believed she would ever star in a movie after “Precious.” He even at one point lashes out as Oprah, calling her a “filthy liar” for encouraging Sidibe’s career. Stern’s prejudice and hatred against fat is obvious, but what most likely fuels that anger even more, is that Sidibe is not just fat. Instead, his anger seems to lie within the possibility of Sidibe stepping outside of the world she is believed by society to belong: she is a fat black woman who is making a name for herself and proving that being a fat black woman does not mean that she is any lesser of a person, or that she is more unable to work. She is, essentially, shattering the social class scale: she is putting herself on the same level as a non-fat white man.

What this article helps prove to me is that as a society, we are no more progressed in thinking about fat (especially when it comes to fat women of color) than we were in the times described in Farrell’s book. We still believe, as Farrell puts it, that “fat [is] not white.” (60) As depressing as this seems, I do believe that we can end these outrageous ides of “civilized” and “primitive” bodies and move beyond the stigma of fat. It’ll take a lot more women like Gabourey Sidibe, women who are willing to bring their bodies forward and break the barriers of body size, race and sex to get us to a point when fat bodies of all difference races and sexes are accepted as full citizens, with the full rights and respect that citizens deserve. Yet someday, hopefully in my lifetime, we will finally be able to move past these prejudices and leave the fat stigma where it came from: the 19^th century!