The Hyper(in)visible Fat Woman

Weight and Gender Discourse in Contemporary Society

J. Gailey

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781137407177
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

In The Hyper(in)visible Fat Woman Gailey investigates the interface between fat women's perceptions of their bodies and of the social expectations and judgments placed on them. The book explores the phenomenon of 'hyper(in)visibility', the seemingly paradoxical social position of being paid exceptional attention while simultaneously being erased.

Chapter 1

Hyper(in)visibility and the Paradox of Fat

Jennifer1 is a 34-year-old woman from the upper Midwest in the United States. She is 5'2" and wears a size 22. She is unsure of her exact weight but guesses that she is around 230 pounds. Jennifer is considered “obese” by medical standards and has been so for most of her life. She was “average” size until she was eight years old but began gaining weight shortly thereafter. Her mother would often question how much she ate and began to restrict her food intake. Jennifer explained that she and her siblings would eat as much junk food as they could when their parents were away for the evening. She stated that this was probably a precursor to overeating, which she tends to do when she restricts her food intake or is upset or stressed. Recently she decided that she had to eat more healthfully and she eliminated processed foods and soda but reported that she always keeps sweets around because she is less likely to overindulge if they are available. She no longer diets because restriction, at least in her case, leads to overeating or bingeing.

Jennifer feels pretty good about herself on most days. She eats “intuitively” and stays active. She walks two miles each way to work every day, sometimes in freezing temperatures. She is in a positive, loving relationship, is highly educated and employed, and has an overall positive outlook on life. Jennifer is a successful, thirtysomething woman who, by most standards, is healthy. She does not have high cholesterol, diabetes, or high blood pressure. In many respects, Jennifer is the antithesis of what we think of when we think about an “obese” woman in contemporary society. Her story, it turns out, is not that unique.

Many of the women who are featured in this book have stopped dieting. They take care of their bodies and in myriad ways defy the stereotypes that many hold about “fat”2 women. Some are reportedly not healthy (which may or may not be attributed to their weight); some are extraordinarily disappointed in their appearance; a number have had weight-loss surgery such as lap band or gastric bypass; and a few lead troubled lives for various reasons, not merely including the difficulties associated with being an “obese” woman in a fatphobic society. These women come from a range of backgrounds and places. Some have PhDs or law degrees. Others dropped out of high school. Some are from affluent backgrounds. Others are or were at one point impoverished.

But the one thing they all have in common is the stigma of being labeled “obese.” In fact, most would be considered “super obese” or “obese class III” by medical standards, although they sometimes refer to themselves as “supersized” (see Appendix for more on the participants and methodology).

The heightened attention directed toward obesity by the media, politicians, the medical establishment, and the general public highlights the fact that the body, especially the fat body, is a site of significant social contest (cf. Pitts 2003). Fat is often discussed in hyperbolic terms of “fighting fat,” “battling fat,” or the “catastrophic effects of fat.” One does not have to look very far to find what seems to be an endless stream of news articles, blogs, and opinion editorials about the “obesity epidemic” and the alleged threat it poses to our nation in terms of national security and health. For example, my online search of “news” and “fighting fat” returned 36,000 hits, “battling fat” yielded fewer at 5,700, and “catastrophic effects of fat” under “news” revealed 1,620 articles (November 28, 2012).

Social control over bodies is nothing new, especially women’s bodies. In the nineteenth century, women wore corsets because those with small waists were granted higher social status and seen as more fertile, beautiful, and embodying true womanhood. Corsets frequently caused mobility and dressing problems, as well as broken ribs, punctured lungs, reproductive problems, and sometimes death. Today the most coveted womanly form is thin and toned, and similar to having a small waist, thinness confers social status and privilege. Many women go to extreme lengths to achieve this “ideal form,” and sometimes the results are just as harmful as corseting.

The concern in the United States over the obesity epidemic has become one of the most popular social problems among politicians, the medical establishment, media outlets, and academics over the last decade. However, little research has been conducted from the perspective of fat persons in North America. The media and medical establishment argue that the attention serves as education about the dangers of fat and as motivation for weight loss, whereas Fat Studies scholars argue it leads to marginalization. Some research has indicated that size discrimination leads to a deterioration in health (Amy et al. 2006), lower academic achievement (Crosnoe 2007), lower wages (Averett and Korenman 1996), inadequate treatment by health-care professionals (Rothblum et al. 1990; Teachman and Brownell 2001; Young and Powell 1985), and an increase in disordered eating (Darby et al. 2009, 2007). Popular anecdotes for obesity prevention or reduction emphasize eating fewer calories and increasing activity. Yet there is evidence to indicate that this oversimplifies a rather complicated process that involves numerous social factors and biological differences (Ernsberger 2009).

Before I move on, I want to note why I am using the word fat and why I place quotes around the words “obesity,” “overweight,” and “obesity epidemic.” I use the word fat not in a pejorative sense but as an adjective like those involved in field of Fat Studies (sometimes also known as Critical Weight Studies) and in the spirit of size acceptance. Fat Studies scholars argue that obesity is a highly contentious word that denotes a medical condition and problematizes human diversity. In these circles, fat is the preferred adjective because it does not denote a medical condition or suggest that there is an ideal weight, such as overweight. As Marilyn Wann (2009, xiii) states, “Medicalization of weight fuels anti-fat prejudice and discrimination in all areas of society.” The supposition is that fat is not only an individual choice but also an irresponsible choice that must be cured to protect society.

In addition, calling obesity an epidemic has serious ramifications, as Samantha Murray (2008) points out in her book The Fat Female Body. If a community is dealing with an epidemic, it is expected and understood that members of that community will do everything in their power to prevent the spread of the disease. It becomes a public duty, as well as a personal responsibility. However, “obesity” is not a communicable disease. In Killer Fat (2012), Natalie Boero explains that the term epidemic is increasingly used for diseases and other social phenomena that are not contagious and sometimes not even diseases. Boero argues that “obesity”—like the “teen pregnancy epidemic” or the “school violence epidemic”—is a “postmodern epidemic” because the term no longer implies a communicable disease. A postmodern epidemic is a human experience that is defined and treated as a medical condition but that is not inherently a medical condition (Boero 2012, 4).

I also use large, plus size, and person of size interchangeably with fat because not everyone I talked with was comfortable with the word fat. Many of the women referred to themselves as fat, even if they were not involved in size acceptance, but some of the women did not like the word fat and did not refer to themselves as fat, so when I refer to those specific women, I try to respect their choice in language.

In this book, I seek to answer the following questions: How do women of size negotiate a cultural landscape that is increasingly antifat? What impact does the “war on obesity” have on the way fat women are positioned in society? What are women’s perspectives about their size, health, and body image? And how does that impact their sexuality and identity?

I begin with my motivation for beginning this project. In 2004, I read an article by Sarah Fenske in the Cleveland Scene magazine, “Big Game Hunters. Men Who Chase Chubbies for Sport and Pleasure: They Call It Hogging.” The article focused on several men who used, and sometimes abused, large women for their own sexual gratification and as a form of entertainment. I was horrified at the way the men discussed the women as less than human—it was extreme objectification. Their actions were deplorable. I had never heard of hogging, but interestingly many of my male friends had.

A colleague and I designed a study to better understand the social forces that lead some men to act in such a way. We conducted 13 interviews with undergraduate, heterosexual men, because Fenske indicated that we should target that population. We found that 11 of the 13 knew about the practice and identified it by name, without us using the term hogging, and knew people who did it. In addition, all 13 thought it was funny (I discuss these findings in further detail in Chapter 5). Subsequent to sharing our findings (see Gailey and Prohaska 2006; Prohaska and Gailey 2010), we were frequently asked what the women say about it. This struck me as a good question, but we had not interviewed women, nor were we sure how to go about recruiting women for such a study.

Several years later, I discovered the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA) through the work of Debra Gimlin (2002). Gimlin interviewed women involved in NAAFA about how they manage the stigma of fat. Relationships and meeting men was part of the conversation, although not the emphasis of her study. Many of the women were reportedly leery of the men they met at NAAFA functions because many of the men were fat admirers (Goode and Preissler 1984) or fat fetishists. A “fat admirer” is a man who prefers large women, although many are in the closet because of the stigma associated with fat.

Following this discovery, I read as much as I could about NAAFA and the size acceptance movement in general. In phase one of the present study, I recruited interviewees through the numerous size acceptance listservs, blogs, and social networking groups. For phase two, I expanded my recruiting efforts to include women not involved in size acceptance or who were likely unaware of the movement by posting invitations on my personal Facebook page and asking friends to share it, contacting bariatric surgery groups, and posting on numerous Yahoo! groups that were formed around “obesity” and weight loss. The total sample consisted of 74 women of size. The in-depth interviews were loosely structured and focused on the women’s dieting and weight-loss histories, sexual and relationship histories, health, and identity politics (see Appendix for a detailed discussion of my methodology).

I should also mention that I am not a woman of size. I am petite and by most people’s standards I would be considered thin or “average size” (5'2" and 115 pounds). I have never been fat or even “overweight,” but like most people my weight has fluctuated somewhat over the years. Even though I have never been medically considered “overweight” or “obese,” I have had other women call me fat in an attempt to hurt my feelings. But I cannot and do not deny the privilege I have experienced as a result of being “average sized,” and I have never been discriminated against for my body size.

However, I have personally struggled with accepting my body, despite having never been “overweight.” I went through puberty before most of my peers and have been roughly the same size since seventh grade. Physically developing so quickly made me extremely self-conscious, and I always felt larger than I actually am. I have engaged in numerous diets, including severely restricting my caloric intake and overexercising. I still exercise, but I no longer diet or exercise to burn off what I ate. In fact, discovering the size acceptance movement has helped me feel better about my body and become even more critical of media images of women and the messages propagated about dieting, weight loss, and the harms of fat.

I argue that this book is an important contribution because people of size have been the subject of a tremendous amount of critical attention in the media, medical profession, and by politicians, due to the alleged harms of “obesity” and the “obesity epidemic.” Women tend to be disproportionately impacted by the “war on obesity” partly because women are expected to be beautiful, and fat is typically not considered beautiful. This book is centered on 74 fat women’s experiences, respectfully bringing their voices to the forefront as they straddle a seemingly paradoxical social position that I term hyper(in)visibility.

The Paradox of Fat and the Spectrum of Visibility

In Missing Bodies: The Politics of Visibility, Casper and Moore (2009) use a comparative method to examine the politics surrounding bodily exposure and erasure. They argue that the dimensions of visibility depend on which category the body fits into. For example, when contrasting “innocent” and “heroic” bodies, Casper and Moore (2009, 181) equate the former as having limited exposure and the latter as experiencing surplus exposure.

Casper and Moore (2009, 15) propose a multidimensional method for analyzing missing bodies that they call the ocular ethic. The ocular ethic involves focusing, which is a close inspection of marginalized bodies with the tools of magnification, such as ethnography, to increase the attention on bodies that have been concealed. Bodies move in and out of visible and invisible spheres of perception, to such an extent that “the ocular ethic represents the responsibility that comes with seeing or perceiving bodies and identifying and recovering those bodies that are unseen or less exposed to the public eye” (Casper and Moore 2009, 186, emphasis in original). Their thesis not only remains provocative but also serves as a practical guide for me to navigate the spectrum of visibility, especially regarding fat bodies.

We learn in early childhood to observe others’ bodies for social clues about their position in the social hierarchy (Casper and Moore 2009). Butler (1990) asserts that the materialization of bodies is essential to the creation of social and political life. Discourses and practices rely on the actions, interactions, and positioning of bodies. Some bodies are highly public, visually inspected, and made into a spectacle, while others are subject to discrimination or erasure because of societal stratification along the lines of class, race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, age, ability, and so on (Casper and Moore 2009, 9). Fat presents an apparent paradox because it is visible and dissected publicly; in this respect, it is hypervisible. Fat is also marginalized and erased; in this respect, it is hyperinvisible.

Contemporary Western societies relegate fat women to a hyper(in)visible space, a phenomenon that occurs explicitly within institutions (e.g., hidden from view in corporate endeavors that show off thin women) and implicitly in our interpersonal and imagined worlds (through shunning or typecasting particular body types in everyday life and media). Moreover, the spectrum (see Figure 1.1) from hypervisible to hyperinvisible remains robust, intense, and deeply ingrained in our ceremonial social life. To be hyper(in)visible means that a person is sometimes paid exceptional attention and is sometimes exceptionally overlooked, and it can happen simultaneously. Fat women are hyperinvisible in that their needs, desires, and lives are grossly overlooked, yet at the same time they are hypervisible because their bodies literally take up more physical space than other bodies and they are the target of a disproportionate amount of critical judgment.

Figure 1.1 Spectrum of visibility

In what follows, I discuss the spectrum of visibility and how others have conceptualized (in)visibility. I then turn to an explanation of the phenomenon of hyper(in)visibility. I argue that the prefix hyper is necessary to achieve the focus—the ocular ethic—needed to analyze marginalized bodies, groups, or ways of life. We are all visible and invisible at times (as I demonstrate in the following section), but one’s situation becomes “hyper” when (in)visibility becomes socially oppressive.

The Spectrum of Visibility

Through appearance alone, embodied actors communicate our situated identities, including our present, past, and future existence as social beings that occupy various social places. Body size is similar to other nondiscursive appearances (race or ethnicity, sex, and gender) in that it is noticeable prior to any word utterances. Moreover, based on how these non-discursive social markers intersect, assumptions are made about that person.

For instance, a woman shopping at a moderately priced retail clothing store attracts immediate attention and evaluation within that context as merely embodied, independent of content and substance of speech. However, a thin white woman will likely be offered assistance more quickly than a thin Latina woman. This discrepancy in attention involves stereotypes associated with race and ethnicity. Sales clerks may incorrectly assume that the white woman can afford to purchase more than the Latina woman. But both of these women are appropriately gender identified—meaning their sex and gender identity correspond—and they are both thin (both privileged statuses). What would happen if one of the women were fat? Jennings (2010) asked a similar question. Using participant observation, she examined the treatment of fat customers and clothing option availability for plus-size women in various types of popular women’s clothing stores. Jennings, a self-described fat white woman, details how sales clerks ignored her with systematic regularity. In contrast, sales clerks greeted, helped, and catered to “appropriately embodied” (thinner) customers. Jennings’s fat body marked her as “out of place” in these retail stores. This singular experience of (in)visibility indicates the tremendous impact the size of our body has on the way we are treated in society and the privileges we are granted.

Visibility is intimately related to acknowledgment or recognition (Brighenti 2007). To be seen by a significant other means that we exist; in Mead’s ([1934] 1967) terms, the significant other “tests” and “testifies” our existence by looking at us. Visibility has to do with subjectification and objectification—with the ontoepistemological (being and knowing) structure of objects and subjects (Brighenti 2007). In essence, one of the ways we come to know who we are occurs as we examine and acknowledge how others see us through the societally constructed prism that identifies the “normal.” We in turn come to know ourselves as both a subject (idiosyncratic awareness of self) and an object (awareness of self from another’s perspective). We know ...