The trajectory of fat liberation: where did we start? Where are we now?

ABSTRACT

In 1989, slightly more than three decades ago, Laurie Toby Edison opened her darkroom, and our work of creating fine-art photography and accompanying text showcasing the beauty and power of fat women began in earnest. The result of this work was Women En Large: A Book of Nudes, published in 1994. We situate the trajectory of fat liberation between that time and now. Our framework describes how fat activism over the past three decades has opened up expansive possibilities for fat people (primarily but not exclusively fat women) on the margins of society. These new options can include easier paths to find fat community, far better clothes, and certain limited social changes. The medical establishment has so far proved almost completely intractable to change, and social media platforms continue to spotlight conventionally thin – and often impossibly thin – beauty ideals. Because of these two seemingly immovable factors, the expansion of the margins has not successfully affected the central experience of fat oppression. It is somewhat easier, and potentially much less lonely, to be fat in 2021 than it was in 1991, but fat people remain a substantially marginalized and socially excluded group. Fat people with intersectional oppressions (BIPOC, disabled, and many more) continue to experience complex multiple axes of exclusion. We use a mix of academic and personal sources, and the article is illustrated with Laurie Toby Edison’s photographs of fat nudes.

KEYWORDS:

• Fat oppression
• fat positive
• photography
• fat liberation
• fat and social media

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Richard F. Dutcher for his copy-editing, critique, and general support.

All photographs (from Women En Large: Images of Fat Nudes, Familiar Men: A Book of Nudes, and Women of Japan) copyright © Laurie Toby Edison, 1989 – 2004.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Laurie Toby Edison

Laurie Toby Edison: I’m an artist and a visual activist. My work includes my two books, Women En Large: Images of Fat Nudes and Familiar Men: A Book of Nudes, and my Japanese photography suite, Women of Japan. I always work in collaboration with the people and communities that I photograph. My black-and-white images are intimate and vivid fine art portraits. Since these are social justice projects it’s important to me that the work be seen. The pandemic has made me pause, observe and create images of shadows that depend on light and time and sometimes air. For me they capture an essence of this pandemic time. My work has been exhibited on 3 continents and in many cities, including New York, Tokyo, and London.I’m Jewish, I’m queer, and I grew up in another world (the 1950ʹs), with good art and monsters.

Debbie Notkin

Debbie Notkin: I’m the author and editor of the text of Women En Large: Images of Fat Nudes, and the coauthor and co-editor of the text of Familiar Men: A Book of Nudes. I blog with Laurie on a wide variety of body image and sociopolitical topics at www.laurietobyedison.com/body-impolitic-blog. I am also on the Board of Directors of Public Bank East Bay, and is an active member of Strike Debt Bay Area. I was a founding member of science fiction’s James Tiptree Jr. Award (now the Otherwise Award) for works of science fiction and fantasy that explore and expand gender, and was deeply involved for many years with WisCon, the world’s first feminist science fiction convention.