Academia is bursting at the seams with self-love, acceptance, and...well, well, it turns out that there is an entire academic discipline known as Fat Studies, home to peer-reviewed think pieces such as Overcoming Fear of Fat, and Queering Fat Embodiments. Yes, this is actually being taught by professors at some of the world s most prestigious institutions, and there s even an annual Fat Studies conference at Massey University where all the brave and beautiful post-graduates can submit their essays and present them in their fun-sized safe space.
00:00:14.000Enter the riveting academic world of Fat Pride.
00:00:21.000Bursting at the seams with self-love, acceptance, and...
00:00:24.000Well, just bursting at the seams, it turns out that there is an entire academic discipline known as Fat Studies, home to peer-reviewed think pieces such as Overcoming Fear of Fat and Queering Fat Embodiments.
00:00:37.000Yes, this is actually being taught by professors at some of the world's most prestigious institutions.
00:00:42.000There's even an annual Fat Studies conference at Massey University, where all the brave and beautiful post-grads can submit their essays and present them in their fun-sized safe space.
00:00:52.000So let's meet a few of my soon-to-be peer-reviewed colleagues.
00:00:55.000Our Fatlicious keynotes, Esther Rothblum and Sonia Renee Taylor,
00:00:59.000have given us amazing talks about fat histories, our fat present,
00:01:20.000Quote, I'm a fat water jugger myself, and every time I go to the swimming pool, I can see what people are thinking about my appearance.
00:01:28.000And fatness is always trying to be contained.
00:01:32.000The world is always trying to contain fatness.
00:01:34.000The world is always trying to wrangle fatness.
00:01:36.000You need to see fat bodies take up space and allow them to move the way fat bodies move.
00:01:42.000And I've called for a new fat ethics, acknowledging the role science has played in the oppression of fat people.
00:01:48.000White men, small white men, who in many ways have been the early scholars in this area.
00:01:55.000Interesting to see small white men studying large women, mostly.
00:02:01.000So what you're looking at on the left hand is Sargi Bartman, also known as the Hot and Hot Venus.
00:02:08.000She was a COSA woman from Africa and sold to circuses.
00:02:16.000And by the time you get to Kim Kardashian in 2014, that is the aesthetic.
00:02:22.000Now, I decided to write and submit my very own fat studies paper for presentation, and with the help of my brilliant researcher, I wrote an entire essay titled, Embracing Fatness as Self-Care in the Era of Trump.
00:02:35.000I then submitted the abstract to the conference, and, uh, oh, did I say that I wrote the essay?
00:02:41.000I meant to say it was submitted by Steve Matheson, a wonderful and totally academically legitimate genderqueer fat pride activist.
00:03:45.000Matheson, there was still a virtual conference.
00:03:48.000And that's great news, because Z's abstract was actually accepted by the chairwoman, Dr. Kat Posse, a self-described fat studies scholar, and just like that, C. Matheson was scheduled to speak alongside these intellectual titans.
00:04:04.000So grab your popcorn, quadruple buttered, and let's start the show.
00:04:22.000I am an activist based out of Austin, Texas, specifically working with the nonbinary and fat community to help increase presence of intersectional and nonbinary people with such events in Austin.
00:04:37.000As a women's march, march for our lives, most recently the global climate strikes.
00:04:43.000My preferred pronouns are she and her and my paper embracing fatness as self-care in the era of Donald Trump.
00:04:54.000Is something I'm thrilled to be presenting and has been accepted here at the New Zealand Fat Studies Conference 2020.
00:05:01.000Because of our current leader's bigotry, fatness, I will argue, acts as a distancing mechanism from the President.
00:05:09.000As well as his supporters producing both physical and ideological space that can insulate the individual from intolerant, bigoted, or violent ideology.
00:05:21.000So first off, I'd like to issue a content warning regarding some fat phobia discussed in this next portion.
00:05:28.000It's widely acknowledged, of course, that the 2016 election of President Donald Trump was evident of America's Some would argue underlying racist, xenophobic, homophobic, and transphobic attitudes.
00:05:42.000I would argue that it was always there, not so underlying.
00:05:45.000It just took 2016 for more people to realize it.
00:05:49.000If we can say that's a silver lining, for lack of a better word at all, Trump's fat phobia has received relatively little attention in comparison.
00:06:00.000Trump regularly engages in attacks on fat bodies, individuals.
00:06:04.000Trump is known to target women with his attacks, referring to women as having faces that are Quote, fat or ugly.
00:06:13.000And Trump's fat phobia even reaches into the United States' international relations.
00:06:18.000In his dealing with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, Trump referred to the leader as, quote, shortened fat.
00:06:27.000Atlantic writer Bess Levin responded to Trump's devaluation of fat bodies, not by calling out President Trump's bigotry, for which no one would have found fault, which is what's very upsetting, but by engaging in further degradation of fatness, noting that President Trump was, quote, definitionally obese and, quote, could share clothes with Jabba the Hutt.
00:06:54.000When it comes to Trump's fatphobia, often the current progressive left, they resort to fighting fire with fire, using fatphobia in their own critiques and rebuttals.
00:07:07.000Biden himself, the current Democratic candidate, recently lashed out at a campaign event, calling an attendee fat and challenging him to an exercise program, most notably push-ups.
00:07:19.000Individuals have noticed an increased need for self-care in the era of Trump.
00:07:24.000And this context necessitates, in my opinion, a reclaiming of fatness in the era of Trump.
00:07:32.000And what follows is an ethnography of my attempts at affirming my...
00:07:39.000of affirming my own body as an act of self-care.
00:07:42.000Many who do so may not even realize it.
00:07:44.000really well here. My own body as an act of self-care, affirming it, I will
00:07:48.000present that as an act of self-care. Many who do so may not even realize it. Take
00:07:54.000this quotation from the New York Times about self-care. Let me read this for a moment.
00:07:59.000Or let's say that your health has dipped.
00:08:03.000In that case, self-care for you might focus on building a workout routine.
00:08:08.000Now here we see the linking of health with working out is clearly an example of anti-fat bias.
00:08:16.000The general discussion of self-care often revolves around the concept of space.
00:08:22.000Individuals express a need for some space.
00:08:27.000Persons are said to be in a good or bad headspace.
00:08:33.000The publication Mashable even recently highlighted the efforts of astronauts to practice self-care in outer space.
00:08:40.000Space is an important element of self-care.
00:08:43.000And one tool for creating both ideological and physical space is fatness.
00:08:48.000When I was younger, on several occasions, I was touched or fondled sexually.
00:08:57.000And on some of these occasions, it was done without my permission.
00:08:59.000So in college and grad school, however, I Gained a significant amount of weight.
00:09:05.000At first, I will say I was driven to shame by my friends and family.
00:09:09.000They would say things like, you need to take better care of yourself.
00:09:13.000And at this point, to be clear, I did not yet identify as fat.
00:09:17.000One day, however, all of that changed.
00:09:20.000I was fueling my vehicle at a nearby gas station, and as I was collecting my receipt, a man reached out and tried to touch me.
00:09:59.000And that was where I began to explore the idea that fatness can be self-care.
00:10:05.000From that point on, I actively chose to identify as fat, and I realized that I realize that once I was already being perceived as fat by others,
00:10:21.000I protected myself from the baser impulses of toxic masculinity and rape culture.
00:10:28.000Fatness, embracing a fat identity, ensuring one is always already perceived to be a fat individual, subject, these actions become performative acts of resistance.
00:10:42.000Especially in this tumultuous time, as deaths from COVID-19 surge over 100,000.
00:10:49.000Of course, my sympathies, I can't even imagine, go out to anyone affected by this pandemic.
00:10:57.000But more than ever, space is critical.
00:11:01.000The importance of space cannot be overstated.
00:11:17.000Recently I was picturing my favorite local grocer, and there I saw a man, of course you've all seen this person, without a mask.
00:11:24.000And even though this man decided not to protect others, or myself, by wearing a mask, he had taken the time to put on his Make America Great Again cap.
00:12:04.000Every scoop of Ben & Jerry's, or whatever your preferred food may be, I would like to see it restructured, and it should be seen as an act of resistance, not only against homophobia, but against fatphobia.
00:12:21.000As the waist size, for example, of my pants increases, in many ways so does my power, and so does yours, and I want you to understand that.
00:12:30.000I want all people to understand that and believe that.
00:12:32.000So I would like to summarize this by saying that personal fatness is a visible statement.
00:13:32.000Thank you again, I am C. Matheson, and I very much appreciate you giving me the time to present this, and look forward to answering your questions!
00:13:44.000Of course, this was all pure lunacy, and I was certain that the jig was up and that it would be curtains for C. Matheson in the world of academia.
00:13:52.000After all, these ideas aren't grounded in any scientific literature, data, or even reality, and it was clearly a goof.
00:14:00.000So imagine my surprise when this absolute joke was not only accepted to a prestigious academic conference, but C. Matheson was met with rave review.
00:14:12.000Dr. Esther Rothblum, PhD, even reached out to C. Matheson after the conference to peer-review a paper on, you guessed it, fat studies.
00:14:22.000Look, Ma, I'm an authoritative source!
00:14:24.000The problem isn't just that lunatic ideas like fat pride are accepted and even peer-reviewed at institutions as cleverly designed ruses to boost scholarly book sales, but the problem of education doesn't exist in a bubble.
00:14:41.000What happens when they grow up and become lawyers, doctors, or God forbid, teachers themselves?
00:14:47.000Today's ivory tower quackery is tomorrow's gospel truth.
00:14:51.000Crazy ideas like gender fluidity, endless pronouns, fat pride, they were all created the same way and became ingrained into our authoritative sources.
00:15:03.000The insanity of higher education has been influencing culture for decades.
00:15:07.000In the late 1980s, you had the birth of queer studies with an academic conference at Yale.
00:15:12.000The conference grew, and by the 1990s, had hundreds attending and presenting.
00:15:17.000Fast forward now, 40 years later, we have prestigious academics preaching about the wonders of gender fluidity and actually identifying as two-spirited.
00:15:28.000It's not just that these ideas are insane.
00:15:32.000It's that they are unfounded, they're unverified, and most of all, untrue, which makes them seriously harmful.
00:15:40.000When doctors are being pressured by academics to praise the beautiful bravery of their 350-pound land whale patients, lives will be lost.
00:15:50.000Life expectancy will be traded to preserve the fragile egos and financial interests of academic elites.