Hi friend,
As Twitter continues to fall apart, where are y'all hanging out these days? It seems like everyone has splintered out to a dozen different platforms.
I'm most active in the Body Liberation Blanket Fort these days, followed by Bluesky, but here's where all you can find me:
This week, we're returning to our series on why fat people are so hated.
Let's look at political power, toxic masculinity and sexism.
Political power. We have a recent example of a fat man as the U.S. President, but right now, a fat woman or fat non-binary or trans person as president seems far out of reach. Eliminating entire categories of people from consideration is a pretty effective way to limit your competition.
Toxic masculinity and sexism. “The concept of toxic masculinity is used in academic and media discussions of masculinity to refer to certain cultural norms that are associated with harm to society and to men themselves.
Traditional stereotypes of men as socially dominant, along with related traits such as misogyny and homophobia, can be considered “toxic” due in part to their promotion of violence, including sexual assault and domestic violence.
The socialization of boys in patriarchal societies often normalizes violence, such as in the saying “boys will be boys” with regard to bullying and aggression.
Toxic masculinity is at the root of fat-hatred dynamics like the phenomenon of men daring each other to seduce a fat woman. (And, conversely, men being too ashamed to admit they’re dating a fat woman.)
Since toxic masculinity teaches men that they’re not “allowed” to be attracted to fat women, this also becomes a component of “fat admiration.”
One reason fat admirers objectify fat women (and leave gross comments like slobber all over our online presences) may be that they feel their attraction is more socially acceptable if it’s overlaid with a toxic-masculinity-approved layer of objectification and boundary-crossing.
