gender, disability, and fatness

What effect does fatness and gender have?

Being fat has more negative effects on women than men because our culture expects a higher degree of conformity when it comes to physical appearance of women. Most of studies only focus on Binary genders so I will be using only "men" and "women". Fat feminine people are discriminated based on weight and body size in many different areas of life including employment, education, and relationships. Researchers have found that fat women are less likely to be hired for jobs or accepted into colleges because of their weight. Fat women are also shown to earn 19,000 dollars less than average weighted people. Additionally, it is documented that young women who are heavier report fewer opportunities to date and rejection based on their size. We can see the thin body ideal presented on social media, ad campaigns, and tv. When fat women are represented in movies their fatness defines them and they are usually the funny ones instead of the romantic interest. There is very little fat representation in these areas which leads to people thinking that being thin is the norm and feeling pressured to conform to these body ideals.  Fat women are also more likely to be harassed and bullied than thin women and men no matter their body size. 

Fatness, gender, and race

There is lots of evidence on differences of how people experience and think about fatness based on race. The first thing to point out is that women, specifically black women, are more likely to be obese than men. Although black women are more likely to be obese there is more acceptance around heavier and larger bodies in the black community.  This may be one of the reasons that black women report less distress than white women around their weight. It is also reported that black women and black men are less likely to judge fat women negatively. An interesting statistic related to these intersections is, "Women (10.3%) were twice as likely as men (4.9%) to report weight-based discrimination, and weight discrimination was reported more frequently by Black women (23.9%) and Black men (12.7%), who also weighed more." (Fikkan, & Rothblum, 2012). Summarizing from another part of Fikkan and Rothblum's article, when it comes to how black women are perceived a study conducted on white college students found that heavier black women were rated more positively than thin black women on things such as "friendliness, trustworthiness, and parenting skills". There was no difference between the two groups when it came to "attractiveness, enthusiasm, or occupational success".  Through evidence presented in the sources used to write this website, It is clear that black people do not discriminate as harshly against fat women. Additionally, Black women face discrimination based on both race and body size which puts them at a disadvantage more than other groups. 

Bringing in disability- The case of Eric Garner

The intersection of fatness and disability puts black people at a greater risk for police violence. Eric Garner, for example, was killed by police officers after being put in a chokehold and even though garner told the officer he couldn’t breathe the officer refused to release him leading to his death.  His death was blamed on the case that he was fat, had asthma, and had a heart condition rather than on the officer that choked him. People defended the officer by claiming that Garners "Diet killed him". This is a case where systematic racism and antiblack violence is clearly being covered up by ablism and fatphobia.