Unshrinking

Throughout her life, Kate Manne has always aspired to be smaller. She can recall her exact weight during significant life events: her wedding, her first day as a professor, and the birth of her daughter. Her experiences with bullying and body shaming have led her down the path of extreme dieting. Despite her role as a feminist philosopher, she found it difficult to escape the societal pressures that drive many to disregard their natural hunger. Kate Manne intertwines personal anecdotes with sharp analysis to highlight the current relevance of fatphobia. She argues that while biases have declined in various areas, discrimination based on body size remains persistent. By exploring anti-fatness, she sheds light on the harmful stereotypes regarding a person's beauty, resilience, and intelligence, as well as how these biases intersect with other oppressive systems. Fatphobia contributes to wage discrepancies, neglect in medical care, and insufficient educational opportunities—it acts as a constraint on our freedom and potential, making it a critical issue for social justice.In her compelling appeal for change, Manne introduces the concept of ‘body reflexivity,’ urging for a groundbreaking shift in how we view the purpose of our bodies: solely for our sake. The solution to combating fatphobia isn't merely to foster self-love but to dismantle the societal structures that limit us. It's imperative to reconstruct the world to be inclusive of individuals of all sizes.