An Uncomfortable Fit: Fatness, Femininity and the University

Authors

  • Amy Gullage Amy Gullage is a PhD student in Curriculum, Teaching and Learning and the Graduate Collaborative Women and Gender Studies Program at OISE/UT. Her work examines fatness in relation to whiteness, gender and claims to citizenship within the Canadian context, particularly how these notions get taken up within schooling practices and curriculum.

Abstract

Drawing on interviews conducted with self-identified fat women undergraduates, this paper examines how universities construct and reproduce dominant understandings of fatness. Specifically, three inter-related discursive practices are discussed: manoeuvring physical space on campus, constructing subversive subject-positions and confronting the silence and denial of fatness. Résumé En basant sur des entrevues avec des étudiantes au niveau du baccalauréat qui s'identifient comme ayant de l'embonpoint, cet article étudie comment les universitaires construisent et reproduisent une vision commune sur ce qu'est faire de l'embonpoint. En particulier, trois pratiques discursives interdépendantes sont discutées: l'espace physique de manoeuvre sur campus, la construction de sujets-positions subversifs, et la confrontation du silence et la dénégation de l'embonpoint.

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"Marg the Younger," Portrait of Margaret Conrad; Susanne MacKay, 1996, www.mackay-art.com. Photo by Mike Meade.

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Published

2010-01-01

Issue

Vol. 34 No. 2 (2010): Across the Generations in Women's Studies

Section

Original Research

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