“Why Can’t You Control Yourself?” Fat Should Be a Feminist Issue

This article is a comment on Fikkan and Rothblum’s (2011) article “Is Fat a Feminist Issue? Exploring the Gendered Nature of Weight Bias.” They argued that fat women in North America
experience significantly more prejudice and discrimination than fat men do, marshaled evidence to support their argument in
several domains (e.g., employment, education, romantic relationships, health care, the media), and wondered why feminist scholars
have not paid much attention to the oppression of fat women. Here I suggest several reasons why fat women experience more
prejudice and discrimination than fat men do: the objectification of women, gender-related aspects of health behavior and
knowledge about health and illness, and the importance of self-control to the performance of femininity. I also suggest that
there is some overlap in negative stereotypes of both feminists and fat women, which might lead to a desire to distance oneself
from both. However, feminists should recognize the intersectionality of fat oppression and the way it colludes with the sexualization
and objectification of women in popular culture. Thus, fat should be a feminist issue.