Do you ever wonder how we went from voluptuous women being portrayed as the standard of beauty on paintings and sculptures, to the current obsession with diets and discrimination of fat bodies? Let me save you the time: no, it was never health concerns. 🙅🏻♀️
Sociologist Sabrina Strings, by reverse genealogy, found out that fat-phobia is rooted in racism.
Her research showed that in the 18th century, Europeans were looking for “scientific” reasons to justify slavery. Race Scientists had to prove that Africans were inferior to Europeans and their “proof” were, amongst others, that Europeans are moderate and rationals whereas Africans couldn’t control their instincts (hunger, sex drive, etc.).
These were some of the first links between blackness and fatness, that, once spread to the masses, lead to racism-linked fat-phobia and the very beginning of diet culture.
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normale by Chiara
All of the blogs you can find on this website are by Chiara, the queer, disabled, transfeminist artisan behind normale.
Thank you for taking some time to read my pieces 💖
