A poignant and ruthlessly honest journey through cultural expectations of size, race, and gender—and toward a brighter future—from National Book Award nominee Evette Dionne
My body has not betrayed me; it has continued rebounding against all odds. It is a body that others map their expectations on, but it has never let me down.
In this insightful, funny, and whip-smart book, acclaimed writer Evette Dionne explores the minefields fat Black women are forced to navigate in the course of everyday life. From her early experiences of harassment to adolescent self-discovery in internet chatrooms to a diagnosis of heart failure at age twenty-nine, Dionne tracks her relationships with friendship, sex, motherhood, agoraphobia, health, pop culture, and self-image.
Along the way, she lifts back the curtain to reveal the subtle, insidious forms of surveillance and control levied at fat women: At the doctor’s office, where any health ailment is treated with a directive to lose weight. On dating sites, where larger bodies are rejected or fetishized. On TV, where fat characters are asexual comedic relief. But Dionne’s unflinching account of our deeply held prejudices is matched by her fierce belief in the power of self-love.
An unmissable portrait of a woman on a journey toward understanding our society and herself, Weightless holds up a mirror to the world we live in and asks us to imagine the future we deserve.
What does it cost fat Black women to exist in a world that wants them to disappear?
- Fatphobia in Medicine: An unflinching look at a system where a diagnosis of heart failure at twenty-nine is overlooked, and every ailment is treated with the same directive: lose weight.
- A Memoir of Chronic Illness: Dionne’s honest account of navigating heart failure and pulmonary hypertension offers a powerful perspective on how fat bodies are dismissed and misinterpreted by the systems meant to provide care.
- Pop Culture Criticism: From the rise of online chatrooms to the trope of the asexual, comedic-relief fat character on TV, Dionne dissects how media shapes our perception of fatness, desire, and worth.
- Fat Acceptance and Self-Love: Beyond the prejudice, this is a fiercely argued case for fat liberation and a testament to the resilient power of choosing to love yourself in a world that says you shouldn’t.