Anna Kirkland is speaking at the Gender and Politics colloquium series on Ideologies of the Fat Rights Movement. The talk is called Think of the Hippopotamus: Fat Women and the Law of the Land. Here’s the paper, and here’s the abstract:
This study of fat acceptance group members asks how stigmatized people who are excluded from legal protections muster descriptions of themselves as deserving coverage in antidiscrimination laws. Analysis of in-depth interviews with fat acceptance advocates from around the United States reveals elaborate and non-legal daily coping strategies that co-exist with much more narrowly framed arguments for rights. The kinds of reasons that count in establishing that a fat person should not be discriminated against augment the ideology of functional individualism, an account of personhood with reach far beyond this context. This way of reasoning about what persons deserve frames and pre-determines what is possible to say in defense of fat people, in many ways even for fat advocates themselves.
I like this sort of qualitative study. It should be interesting (even if no graphs). From page 27:
Echoing the “like race” strategy for adding new groups to antidiscrimination laws (Skrentny 2002), many interviewees talked about how fatness was or was not like being black or being gay. (“Black” and “gay” were invoked most commonly by far; other identity traits received almost no mention.) Acceptance group members grappled through analogies with what most understood to be the foundational justice question: are people fat by choice? Is it more like being black or more like smoking?
It’s interesting to think of these sorts of categorization, also interesting that it seems more OK to discriminate if it’s a chosen behavior. I’ve sometimes thought that many drivers treat bicyclists like gay people, in that the drivers appear to feel threatened by this alternative lifestyle. It’s also been much discussed how people in the majority group often seem to feel the need to hassle people of minority religious groups (with a notable example in the U.S. being Mormons) or miniority tastes (e.g., vegetarians). Religion is an example because it’s sort of a choice and sort of already determined.
The talk will be Thurs 5 Apr at 4:10pm in the Playroom.
What about the omnipresent IQ discrimination? It's not a choice!
Anonymous,
That's an interesting point. Certainly we try to do some IQ discrimination in our admissions and hiring here! I should look at Kirkland's paper more carefully, but my impression is that it's mostly not about discrimination in hiring, but rather issues like health care, where qualifications aren't an issue.
As to Mormons, acceptance was very recent in the USA, I believe. It might be really since the post-Vietnam era (as Mormons came into the GOP coalition with right-wing Evangelicals).
Barry,
When Paul Laxalt scolded Mario Cuomo at the Republican Convention–that's when I knew that Catholics were fully accepted in U.S. politics.