In Fearing the Black Body, Sabrina Strings argues that the origins of present day fat phobia stem from moral and scientific shifts of the Enlightenment period. Affected by a history of racial slavery in America and other parts of the world, the religious, medical, philosophical, and aesthetic opinions of elite white men shaped how the white woman’s body became representative of nationhood through its ascriptions as morally right in its svelte figure. The black woman’s body, ostensibly the complete opposite (i.e., obese and worthy of denigration), consequently became the basis for the favored white woman’s essentialized attributes.
Articles by Meshell Sturgis
Meshell Sturgis is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Communication at the University of Washington, where she critically studies representations of difference in visual culture and alternative media. She has a B.A. in English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a M.A. in Cultural Studies from The University of Washington - Bothell. She is currently a Research Assistant for the Center for Communication, Difference, and Equity and a resident of the Black Embodiment Studio.