Fat

Last night I was watching a Morse episode I'd never seen before (didn't finish--neighbour had a cat emergency and I ended up chasing her moggie all the way to the lake--luckily caught him before he got to the boats, that would've been fun) and there was a fat female character, about whom another character says something like "well who believes anything a fat woman says" and I wondered is that true, are fat women especially seen as dumber or more untrustworthy than even fat men? Why would that be?

I can think of fat men, real or fictional, who are nevertheless seen as authorities, intellectuals, smart and powerful etc.--Churchill, Orson Welles, Nero Wolfe...OK, not a zillion, off the top of my head... but I can't think of any comparable fat women.

I know, double standards etc. but why fat especially?

Is being fat seen as not conforming and/or perhaps refusing to conform to "beauty" standards and therefore to programmed gender roles etc.?

i think it's more simple (and insidious). i think assumptions are made that go something like:

fat ----> lazy -----> stupid -----> untrustworthy

>2 overlycriticalelisa:

But that could target fat men just as well. And yet they don't seem to be regarded with the same contempt as fat women.

oh, well that's just because men aren't regarded with the same contempt as women. and women are supposed to be thin and pretty and there for the consumption of men. it's the old dichotomy: be used by men or be ostracized if men don't want to use you.

i think i'm feeling particularly cynical right now.

Perception of fat men tends to also frequently skew in the direction of the Santa Clause type - jolly and earnest, maybe not the brightest but trustworthy and probably generous.

I pretty much agree with Elisa here, both 2 & 4. Men simply aren't held to the same standards. Women are held to the standards society says we "must" be, pretty, thin, caked in makeup, shaved, wearing this season's clothes etc etc. Men...can do whatever the hell they want and no one gives a damn, it simply doesn't matter.

When women leave the house, they are "on display," in public for others--mostly men but other women too--to look at. That's why women are often told to smile, why they are expected to wear makeup and impractical clothing. An overweight woman is an insult and an affront--she is not looking her most attractive! I think the fat acceptance movement is really about pushing back against this idea that it is a woman's duty to look good for others. If you read the comments on any article about weight, you will see extreme backlash out of proportion to the topic. The comments will be patronizing, overly concerned about health, etc, but the subtext is that women don't have the right to be fat because then their value as something to look at is diminished. It comes back to the idea that women don't own their bodies but it is public property.

>7 sturlington: Yes, this. I think there is also a sense of outrage that someone would "choose" to not be as physically desirable as she could be. Men don't face this to the same extent, as they are measured more in their wealth and power than in their sexual desirability. It's all part of the continuum that begins with the "you'd be so pretty if you just smiled."

>7 sturlington: An overweight woman is an insult and an affront--she is not looking her most attractive!

So, so true. And doubly pernicious because "attractive" has been defined by men in such a way that a woman is less and less free. She must go hungry to keep herself thin enough, wear things that display her accessibility, not her agency. Bury her own vitality under ornaments and make up and an expensive regime of skin care all designed to achieve some non-existent ideal of beauty that she will never reach, and will always be faulted for missing.

Whereas the things that would allow a woman to be most free and self-determined, like self-confidence, being comfortable in her own body and skin, accepting and loving the body type she is born with and grows into...all these things seem to intimidate men, mostly I think because they do not depend on men's judgement and input. The beauty industry is founded on the idea that women need men to tell them they are beautiful. It's horribly toxic to a woman's sense of self, this relentless demand to accept what others define as good-looking.

As far as men being fat, the big difference I see is that weight does not impede their access to, or their wielding of, power. Churchill's weight is simply not important. But this is not true of women, because in a patriarchal society every woman is judged first on her sexual desirability, and only secondly (often a far, far second) on her personhood.

As far as men being fat, the big difference I see is that weight does not impede their access to, or their wielding of, power. Churchill's weight is simply not important.

Yes, this... and other points above... hmmm...

All a woman has is her looks, and those actually too "belong" to men, are "owed" to men.

Always on parade, always on the market, being assessed...

I came up with one example of fat women who can be fat but respected--the black "Earth mother" types. Queen Latifah. Right? It's not quite the same...

>1 LolaWalser: to whose list one could add Herman Kahn, Hercule Poirot, William Taft, and of course the Buddha. There's Shakespeare's caution about Cassius, too.

In European culture, this is a nineteenth century thing isn't it – this emergent preference for slender women? I'm thinking of Breugel, Reubens and Reynolds, (or the Venus of Willendorf, for that matter) beforehand.

Something to do with romanticizing death and the tubercular look? About being leisured and so not becoming zaftig?