2min chapter

Philosopher's Zone cover image

Fighting fatphobia with Kate Manne

Philosopher's Zone

CHAPTER

Intro

Dr. Kate Mann shares her personal struggles with dieting and body image, delving into the effects of fatphobia on vulnerable bodies and the importance of challenging societal norms around fatness for liberation.

00:00
Speaker 2
ABC Listen, podcasts, radio, news, music and more. Hi, this is The Philosopher's Zone. I'm Sarah Malick and I'll be in the chair while David Rutledge is on leave. Today we're talking about fat phobia with Dr. Kate Mann. She that anti -fatness is a system of oppression, afflicting vulnerable bodies in intersectional ways. The Melbourne -born feminist is an associate professor of philosophy at Cornell University. Her latest book, Unshrinking, How to Fight Fatphobia, explores the virtues associated with dieting and deprivation and the moral judgments often cast on fat bodies. Welcome, Kate. Thanks
Speaker 1
so much for having me.
Speaker 2
Now, Kate, you begin the book with this admission. I can tell you what I weighed on any significant occasion from 16 onward. On my wedding day, the day I defended my PhD, the day I became a professor, and the day I gave birth to my daughter. You might expect that as a lifelong feminist, not to mention the author of two books on misogyny, I would be one of the last people to be suckered into policing my own body, and trying to force it into a size and shape more acceptable to the patriarchy. I have been on every fad diet, I have tried every weight loss pill, and I have to be candid, I have starved myself even not so long ago. How did it feel to interrogate and disclose these experiences which I think would be relatable to so many women? It felt very confronting on the one hand because
Speaker 1
I had really been hiding from my own body for a lifetime. But on the other hand, when you have a lot of internalized shame and specifically internalized phobia, there's something incredibly liberating about raising your head out of shame. This was something I had shied away from talking about, even though it had really preoccupied me for nearly years. My own body, my own fatness, and the ways that we might think in more liberating ways about the fat body had long fascinated me.

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