No Space For Women: On becoming a fat feminist femme in a fat-hating, heteronormative society

Abstract

This thesis focuses on the lived experiences of fat feminist femmes in a fat-hating heteronormative society. It does so by exploring the connotations fatness carries in Western society, and the way anti-fatness is substantiated through arguments about health, morality, and aesthetics. An exploration of feminist interventions into fat discourse shows the way feminist theory can be employed to create non-normative knowledge on fatness and its relation to normative femininity. This then leads to the last chapter, in which a closer look is taken at the liminal experience of being a fat feminist, on the boundary between a fat-hating society and a body positive practice of feminist theory.