#fat politics
Monica & Me: Fat Girls Of The ’90′s
I always liked Monica Lewinsky.
Back in 1998, I was 20 years old, just a few years younger than she was at the time. Superficially, I looked a little like her — the plus-sized body (though she was probably smaller than me), the round face, the modified “Friends” haircut. People literally would yell out “Hey, Monica!” to me on my way to class at NYU. She lived just a few blocks away from my dorm…
“It is not just in the arena of negotiations over immigration that we can find eugenics operating– we need to remember that none of the current research in genetics, pharmacology, aging, wellness, even agriculture is “simply scientific,” and that all of these fields of research may simply be camouflaging their eugenic roots. […] It is this diversity and interdisciplinarity that Turda and others note, again and again, about eugenics all over the world– it is at once social and medical and legal and political, literary and visual, strident and gentle. Eugenics could leverage and utilize nearly every avenue of persuasion. Thus, eugenics also gathered all sorts of actors and spokespeople from every station of life.”— Jay Timothy Dolmage, Disabled Upon Arrival: Eugenics, Immigration, and the Construction of Race and Disability
Fun and relevant reminder that the guy who invented the BMI (founded upon fatphobia, racism, antisemitism, and ableism) directly influenced the foundation of phrenology and eugenics as sciences*. We’ve never stopped practicing them, and we’ve never dealt with the underlying causes.
*it’s right there on his fucking wikipedia page, like it’s something to be proud of. Look up Adolphe Quetelet
Hello babes. Up front I want to give y’all a bit of a content warning. I’ll be ruminating on exercise, fatphobia, weightloss and eating disorders. Please care for yourselves and if these are not your jams, please take care. That said, I’m not going to be graphic about things but there’s gonna be some stuff.
First I want to preface this by saying a couple of things. I do not believe with any bit…
