Shaping the online fat acceptance movement: talking about body image and beauty standards

Abstract

Over the past decade, in Canada and the United States, blogs have become a popular and important space for fat women and their allies to create and further develop discursive strategies to contest the gendered anti-fat discourses perpetuated by the media, governments and the field of medicine and institutions of public health (e.g., Elliot, C. (2007). Journal of Canadian Studies, 41, 134–149. Gimlin, D. (2002). Body work: Beauty and self-image in American culture. Berkeley: University of California Press; Herdon, A. M. (2006). Social Semiotics, 15, 127–141. Rice, C. (2007). Women's Studies International Forum, 30, 158–174. Currently, popular discourses pertaining to fat people, particularly women, tend to range from larger bodies implicating a ‘moral deficit’ to a ‘risky behaviour’ to ‘political discrimination’ where elements from each discourse shape how fat women's bodies are read within the broader culture (Fikkan, J. L., & Rothblum, E. D. (2011). Sex Roles, 66, 575–592. Kwan, S. (2009). Sociological Inquiry, 79, 25–50. These messages in positioning the thin body as the ideal body are embedded in neoliberal discourses around citizenship that, in emphasizing personal responsibility, encourage (sometimes) punishing regimens of strict diets and exercise, and perpetuate an image of responsible citizenship as an extension of modern interpretations (Herdon, 2006). Using content and thematic analysis, we systematically analyze how four female self-identified fat acceptance (FA) bloggers discuss beauty standards and body image as a means to challenge these discourses. Findings suggest bloggers import elements from LBGTQ movements to extend dominant discursive strategies, model alternative forms of fat embodiment, and address the economic marginalization of fat women in industry. Moreover, through discussions on beauty and body image, bloggers use online spaces to contest anti-fat discourses and to develop discursive strategies that move beyond the binary of fat as a lifestyle choice, and body size as biologically or genetically determined that dominate the fat acceptance movement.

Keywords::

• fat acceptance
• citizenship
• body image
• blogging
• online activism
• beauty

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

^1. Neoliberalism, as theorized by Brown (2005), presents political and economic practices that promote the idea that human wellbeing is best advanced ‘by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong private property rights’ and free trade (p. 2).

^2. At the inception of this study, only blogger Tasha Fierce self-identified as queer but since Marianne Kirby (17 August 2012) and Jennifer Rowe also publically self-identified as queer and bisexual, respectively; a revelation the authors in re-examining her posts are confident does not feel alters the data of analyses and we have paid considerable attention in the literature review and in the discussion going over the possible intersections between FA and queer activism/politics.

^3. They argue a directed approach can help determine coding categories prior to analyses, the initial coding schemes and the relationships between codes once the coding is underway.

^4. In coding under this assumption, our analysis is not circumscribed by any one particular theorist, such as a Foucault or Bakhtin, as would have been the case with a traditional discourse analytic approach (Cheek, 2004; Fairclough, 1992; Hook, 2001).

^5. A term coined by Mulvey (1975) to describe the objectifying and heterosexual perspective assumed in film.

^6. In 2011 Kirby and Kinzel were hired to write for xojane, which according to Say Media (the internet publishing company that hosts xojane) the site is visited by 2 million readers monthly.

^7. Fierce's work was featured on Bitch Media; a non-profit feminist media organization visited by 12,000 unique visitors a day (Bitch Media, 2013).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Adwoa A. Afful

Rosemary Ricciardelli is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology, at Memorial University of Newfoundland. She earned her PhD in Sociology at McMaster University. She has published in a range of academic journals including: Sex Roles, Criminal Justice Review, Canadian Journal of Sociology, Journal of Crime and Justice, Journal of Gender Studies, The Prison Journal, and the Journal of Criminal Justice Education. Her first scholarly monograph will be released in the spring of 2014 which investigates lived experiences in prison. She is involved in a social enterprise project that supports desistance from crime by offering hands on employment experience to offenders released on parole as they roast Klink Coffee. Her primary research interests include evolving conceptualizations of masculinity, and experiences and issues within different facets of the criminal justice system. Her current research looks at prisoner culture, desistance, their coping strategies and risk perception as well as those of corrections officers. She also continues to investigate wrongful convictions and the perceptions of individuals who have had such experiences.

Rose Ricciardelli

Adowa Afful, a graduate from McGill university, is a Candidate for her Master of Arts Degree in Humanities at York University in Toronto. She is an active blogger. Her current research interests include, critical fat theory, citizenship, feminist social movements, race, gender and online social networks.