At times, activists walk a fine line between championing feminism and #bodypositivity as a Social Justice™ two-fer.
Other times, the distinction between the two causes is utterly blurred, as in the case of self-proclaimed “award-winning fat activist and professional feminist killjoy” Virgie Tovar, recently hired as San Francisco’s weight equity czar. Observe her now-viral tirade about being fat-shamed as a woman who loves cake perhaps more than life itself.
Related: Why Not Declare Obesity a 'Public Health Emergency'?
If you have spent any time in this information space, you likely have seen the “intersectionality” of fat activism and feminism beaten to death in progressive media. But in case you haven’t, here’s a primer from the cancerous Social Justice™ rag that is HuffPost.
Via HuffPost (emphasis added):
What I want to explore: how my identity as a woman informs my identity as a person of size. Because they do not exist in separate microcosms; they very much interact and inform one another.
If you've never taken a feminist theory course or have no idea who bell hooks is, you might not know anything about intersectionality. But it's very important that you know what the concept is before I get deeper into these identity politics. Intersectionality is the study of intersections between forms or systems of oppression, domination, or discrimination. It examines how different marginalized identities interact and connect to each other.
Since I'm both a person of size and a woman, it means that I occupy two oppressed identities simultaneously.
This is intersectionality.
Being a fat woman, I am subject to the most body policing, shaming, and discrimination out of all of the body sizes women have. Yes, women are body policed and shamed as a whole, because of sexism. Many women who occupy all different sizes have been told the skirt they're wearing is too short or that they're asking for it because the chose to wear a crop top or a tight dress. Sexism plays an important role here, because women's bodies are treated as public property by society. They're marginalized and controlled.
But, fat people also experience this; our bodies are treated as if they're public property as well. Fat people also face shaming and discrimination because of their bodies…
Since fat women are marginalized by both their womanhood and there [sic] fatness, they're experiences of these forms of oppression differ from those who are thin women or fat men.
The question, however, that I have never personally explored in any column is exactly why #bodypositivity has been married to feminism perhaps to a greater extent than any other two allegedly oppressed identity classes.
Related: ‘Body Positivity’ Activist Claims ‘Obesity’ Is a Fatphobic Slur
I’ve thought about it, and there appear to be multiple factors at play driving this unholy matrimony. Here, I’d like to propose a non-exhaustive list.
First, women are evolutionarily more predisposed to feelings of shame and other negative emotions regarding social faux pas. My best guess, which I would assume is backed up by research, is that women are more dependent on social groups for support and survival, and are therefore more apt to follow established social norms and feel negative emotions when they run afoul of them.
Second, society (including all societies throughout history) places a higher premium on female physical attractiveness than male physical attractiveness. This is one of the claims that feminism is correct about, although its universality across time and space would suggest it is natural and not an artificial cultural invention of the Patriarchy™ to oppress women or whatever. Therefore, when women don’t meet those beauty standards, they feel the weight more heavily than men do and look for relief in the form of social activism to try to change or eliminate those standards instead of doing the hard work to conform to them by losing weight.
Third, fat activists understand intuitively that people are unlikely to be as sympathetic towards identities that are largely within the individual’s control, like their body fat percentage, rather than immutable characteristics. So they have to try to shoehorn their oppression into the wider Social Justice™ fold to legitimize the cause. In addition to hitching their wagon to feminism, this is the same reason fat activists claim that “fatphobia” is the legacy of White Supremacy™.
