Fat and Proud talks about the everyday hassles that fat people encounter. It identifies red herrings
about fat people and health and invites readers to challenge the medicalisation of fatness by considering a social model, based on the Social Model of disability. The book explores fat people's agency through fat activism, which it outlines and locates in historical-cultural terms, and endorses the shift towards civil rights.
Read an extract.
How I came to write it
The book is based on the research I did for my Master's degree, which I did at the University of East London in the early 1990s. At that time I was also trying - and failing - to get a group for fat women going. I knew that I wanted to write about and explore fat activism in more depth. The Women's Press were looking for an author for a book on fat politics, so I submitted a proposal and they commissioned me.
Strengths
It remains rare for a book about fat, even work that is critical of obesity discourse, to be written by a fat person and be based on the accounts of other fat people. Fat and Proud draws on early fat feminism and offers powerful criticisms of Fat Is A Feminist Issue, first marketed as a weight loss book. My work offers useful insights on the relationship of fat and disability, and unpacks belief statements about fat being accetable in other cultures, or in the past. It also highlights activism and agency, and does not represent fat people as helpless or abject. Published in 1998, Fat and Proud could be seen as one of the founding texts in Fat Studies, it draws upon wider rights discourse and offers compelling grassroots accounts of living fat.
Reception
Fat and Proud got a lot of press via the AP and enjoyed coverage in the broadsheets and the tabloids. It was a cover story for The Big Issue and I was invited onto Woman's Hour. There was a long discussion piece on it in the Modern Review. It got placed on university reading lists and, over a decade later, I continue to get fan mail, student's questions and press enquiries about it. Sometimes I get a letter like this:
Hi Charlotte, I am so excited to meet you finally. Your book is my bible. I am basing a lot of my work for my PhD dissertation in Women's Studies on it and the theories of Pretty Porky and Pissed Off are deeply deeply indebted to you. You are a hero and role model to me. Sincerely, Allyson Mitchell
The Women's Press
The Women's Press removed words and passages from the book that they disagreed with politically. These included the concept 'queer,' including instances where I described myself as queer; references to FaT GiRL zine; references to trans people; criticisms of radical lesbian feminism; and a quote from one of the interviewees who said that some fat women are responsible for their own oppression.
Journalists
I am interested in talking to journalists who are producing sensitive work that is critical of dominant obesity discourse. I am especially interested in working with grassroots and alternative media. Editorial control and payment are a bonus.
Get in touch if you are interested in booking me for a presentation or a workshop.
Fat and Proud: the Politics of Size
Published by: The Women's Press (1998)
ISBN: 0 7043 4473 4