Gendered Fat Bodies as Neoliberal Bodies

Abstract

Neoliberal thought has influenced gendered body norms, specifically the relationships among gender, fatness, and fat bodies. This chapter proposes that neoliberal rationale has come to underlie our understanding of body norms and how we treat the fat body, particularly the bodies of fat women. It further investigates some of the ways in which “neoliberal bodies” are constructed, both discursively and in practice, asking what kinds of gendered bodies are preferred or dismissed in a neoliberally attuned culture. What is the ideal neoliberal body like, or rather, how are ideal neoliberal gendered bodies and subjects constructed? More specifically, how does neoliberal thought motivate the normalization of certain body practices and encourage the exclusion of those bodies that do not fit in? The fat gendered body is the case in point here. Drawing examples from the so-called obesity epidemic discourse as well as the present-day discourse on gendered body norms, the chapter briefly discusses the relationship between contemporary feminism and neoliberalism regarding fatness and body norms. It concludes by focusing on so-called post-feminism, a mode of feminism that has been noted to draw from neoliberal thought.