Fatness and Fascism
I’m a fat girl. I’ve always been a fat girl. I’ve spent a lot of time, in my 40 years, learning how to accept, value, appreciate, love, and care for myself and my body. These have been hard fought lessons of life, in the face of hate and cruelty at every turn, but lessons that have guided me as I continue to seek out liberation. The very thought of the liberated body makes me stare off into space with a silly grin. Which leads to me often baffled how fatphobia is still such a prevalent and acceptable form of discrimination. In our current climate of Ozempic and medicalized weight loss, weight is often equated with morality - which leaves a lot of people being seen as inferior and leaving us open for criticism and violence.
I’ve noticed, that as conservative values flood our zeitgeist, the idea and aesthetic of ‘thinness’ has also picked up more footing in our every day. The relationship between conservative political periods and emphasis on thinness appears to be part of a broader pattern where beauty standards reflect and reinforce political ideologies. Over the last decade, we saw more liberal and progressive ideologies take up a lot of space in culture. And because of that, the ideas of body - acceptance and deep self-love - were pushed to the forefront, making space for people with larger bodies to exist with less shame and condemnation. Now though, we seem to be regressing back to the days of fatness being shunned and looked at with disgust, as opposed to allowing all of us to exist how we want.
There are a few interconnected factors (that I’ve already started mentioning) that we can point to, to better understand why this happens. This pattern isn't universal (I only really see it in the Western world and I’m thinking specifically of the United States) or inevitable, but it does reflects how beauty standards (body size being top of the list) often serve as tools for social control and political messaging during eras of conservative dominance.
Control and conformity: Conservative movements often emphasize traditional values, social order, and conformity to established norms. This beauty 'vibe shift' is characterized by the resurgence of ultra-thin ideals, conservative aesthetics and regressive socio-political attitudes shaping both bodies and identities. Thinness becomes a visual marker of self-discipline and adherence to conventional standards.
Individual responsibility ideology: Conservatives are more likely to believe that people are responsible for the outcomes they have in life, and that extends to judgments based on appearance. This perspective frames body size as a matter of personal choice and moral character rather than acknowledging systemic factors like genetics, economics, or health conditions. And I want to be specific in saying that body size doesn’t have to have a ‘factor’. Bodies exist, in all the ways because we exist in all the ways.