Liberating Fat Bodies

Social Media Censorship and Body Size Activism

Wesley R. Bishop, Bessie N. Rigakos

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN: 9783031638893
• eBook ISBN: 9783031638909
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Gender Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Using a multidisciplinary and intersectional approach, this book explores the social factors that influence the ways in which societal norms police fat bodies. Chapters examine the racist and colonial constructions of Western beauty norms as well as the evolution of anti-fat bias and fat liberation, before delving into the relationship between social media and body size activism, with a particular emphasis on social media companies censoring fat people. The authors draw on first-person narratives of artists, activists, and fat social media users to unpack how, these mostly women, have used their bodies to transform the negative social perceptions of fat people.

This book will be of interest to scholars and students in Sociology, Gender Studies, History, and Media Studies who research body size activism and beauty norms.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction: Liberating Fat Bodies and Online Censorship
• 2. Working While Fat in the Age of the Internet
• 3. Media and the Ideal Body
• 4. Fatness and the Need for a Public
• 5. Social Media as Tool and Hindrance
• 6. The 26 Words That Created the Internet and the Future of Online Art and Activism
• Back Matter