Teaching Fat Feminisms and Body Positivity: Intersectionality as Activist Embodied Pedagogy
A critique of the body positivity movement is that it is dominated by white, middle-class, small-fat, cisgender women. While not the same as “fat activism,” this speaker advocates for “body positivity” as a way for students to enter fat feminisms. This speaker discusses their experiences creating an upper-level women’s studies course titled “Fat Feminisms: A History of the Body Positivity Movement” at a women’s college with a diverse student population. Through a series of vignettes, they theorize and activate intersectional embodiment by focusing on moments where their own identities (fat, queer, white, cisgender, middle class) had to be acknowledged.
A critique of the body positivity movement is that it is dominated by white, middle-class, small-fat, cisgender women. While not the same as “fat activism,” this speaker advocates for “body positivity” as a way for students to enter fat feminisms. This speaker discusses their experiences creating an upper-level women’s studies course titled “Fat Feminisms: A History of the Body Positivity Movement” at a women’s college with a diverse student population. Through a series of vignettes, they theorize and activate intersectional embodiment by focusing on moments where their own identities (fat, queer, white, cisgender, middle class) had to be acknowledged.
| manthey_nwsa_talk.pdf |