Fat feminism

[3] A significant portion of body positivity in the third-wave focused on embracing and reclaiming femininity, such as wearing makeup and high heels, even though the second-wave fought against these things.

Some feminists, such as Gloria Steinem and Jane Fonda, believed that removing traits of "femaleness", such as feminine curves, was necessary for admittance to a male-dominated society.

[16][23] In 1996, a Toronto-based activist and performance art troupe Pretty Porky and Pissed Off (PPPO) was founded by Allyson Mitchell, Ruby Rowan, and Mariko Tamaki.

Nomy Lamm was named by Ms. Magazine as a "Woman of the Year" in 1997, "For inspiring a new generation of feminists to fight back against fat oppression.

In 2005, former Fat Girl collective members Max Airborne and Cherry Midnight published Size Queen: for Queen-Sized Queers and our Loyal Subjects.

[26] Among some of these were Lisa Tealer and Dana Schuster's 1997 Women of Substance Health Spa in California and Pat Lyons' Great Shape fitness classes at Kaiser Permanente.

It was created to help "people develop balanced, joyful self-care and a relationships with their bodies that is guided by love, forgiveness, and humor.

[7] For instance, in 2013, 22 waitresses at the Borgata Hotel Casino & and Spa in Atlantic City took their case to court because their employer had been making the women take laxatives.

In 2015, retail company Lane Bryant launched the #ImNoAngel campaign in direct response to Victoria's Secret's preference for mainstream beauty standards.

[34] The campaign began with a diverse array of plus-size models sharing the fact that they feel sexy in Cacique, Lane Bryant's underwear line.

[35] In conjunction with the campaign, LB also started the #ImNoAngel Challenge which paired with I Am B.E.A.U.T.I.F.U.L.™, a nonprofit dedicated to building self-esteem and leadership skills in young girls and women.

Additionally, their ads have been critiqued as non-inclusive, because internalization of a thin-ideal may result in advertisers using average-sized, able-bodies in place of a slim body as a way to falsely promote acceptance.

For instance, in February 2018, Crabbe and others walked across Oxford Street in undergarments whilst holding signs calling for more fat representation in fashion.

[44] Jameela Jamil, the founder of iWeigh, fought Instagram to change their policies on diet culture in advertisements and regular posts.

As of September 2019, if a picture shows a weight-loss product or cosmetic procedure that cost money, viewers below the age of 18 will not be able to see the post.

[45] The intersection of race, gender, and bodily discrimination mean large women of color may experience bias differently than their white female counterparts.

[50] Fat women of color work to resist fetishization by the male gaze or those giving unwanted health advice, while also creating positive and accepting spaces for themselves.

Rossi finds that this is often a result of anti-fat prejudice in anti-obesity sentiments which specifically targets queer and fat folk of color.

[6] Similarly, those who are differently abled and/or experience chronic illness are not often represented in media, meaning activist projects such as Brown's hashtag creates space for more people to find positive relationships with themselves and their bodies.

For instance, some have analyzed the role of the body in fashion advertisements, illustrating that those who are represented as ideal through clothes are thin, hegemonically valued women.

[18] Considering the influential power of the media, fat-positive representation may start to bring change in cultural values of thinness, however are not yet present enough to make this shift.

[58] The inclusion of physical education and activity is the first theme that McNinch noticed in her research, and many students claimed they tried to lose weight to fit in more.

[58] A theory presented by Michel Foucault in his book The Perverse Implantation suggests that society plants ideas inside the minds of individuals which creates industries and in turn controls the people and their belief system.

[59] This is much like the dieting industry, built to help people overweight become "normal" which in Western society, the goal is to be thin or curvy, not fat.

[18] According to Sandra Lee Bartsky, because fashion operates on a thin ideal, the media becomes an outlet through which gender performance is strictly limited and may influence who is allowed to take up space and how much.

[citation needed] However, "obese" is a term coined by the medical community, which often seeks to develop new products and procedures to fix an epidemic they caused.

The stigma attached to fat women is connected to the feminist movement because feminism, at its core, works to attain equality between the sexes in all aspects of life.

[66] The intersections of being large and being a woman is at the heart of fat feminism because discrimination and prejudice often occur as a result of gender and body type.

The points above that connect fatness to feminism revolve around the varying experiences that body type can produce when combined with socioeconomic status, race, gender, sexual orientation, and other identities.

[57] Exclusion based upon gender has also been expressed, as critics state that the movements overlook how masculinity is tied to body size and men are infrequently represented.