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Pulling The Thread with Elise Loehnen

Where Does Fatphobia Come From? (Kate Manne)

Pulling The Thread with Elise Loehnen

Elise Loehnen

Society & Culture, Religion & Spirituality, Self-improvement, Education

4.8900 Ratings

🗓️ 25 January 2024

⏱️ 60 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

“I think there's a lot of assumptions in play here that a good body is a thin one, a thin body is achievable, a thin body is achievable for everyone, and that you will be fully in control of your health and your mortality if you're thin, which is also just of course a myth. There are plenty of fat, healthy, happy people, and there are plenty of sadly unhealthy, thin people who should not be regarded as any more or less worthy than a fat person who suffers from a similar health condition. These people should be receiving, in most cases, just the same treatment. And yet, for the fat person who suffers from the same health condition, the prescription is weight loss, whereas for the thin person, they're given often closer to adequate medical care.” So says, moral philosopher and Cornell professor Kate Manne, one of those brilliant and insightful observers of culture working today. She’s the author of two incredible books about misogyny—Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women and Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny—and has coined mainstream terms like “himpathy,” her word for the way we afford our sympathy to the male aggressor rather than the female victim. The example she uses is the trial of Brock Turner, the Stanford swimmer who sexually assaulted Chanel Miller, and the way the judge and the media seemed more concerned about Turner’s sullied future than Miller’s experience and recovery. Her newest book is just as essential: It’s called Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia and it explores Manne’s own experience of being a fat woman in our unabiding culture. If you read the Gluttony chapter of On Our Best Behavior, some of the material she explores will be familiar—but in Kate Manne style, she drives it all the way home. I love this conversation, which we’ll turn to now. MORE FROM KATE MANNE: Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny Follow Kate Manne on Twitter Kate Website Kate’s Newsletter To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hi, it's Elise Luna and host of Pulling the Thread. I'm thrilled to welcome today's guest, one of the most brilliant thinkers alive today, moral philosopher and professor Kate Mann, author of Downgirl, entitled, and The Just Released Unshrinking.

0:16.3

Hi, friends, throughout this holiday season, you will find me right here per normal. We will keep publishing

0:23.0

new episodes every week and a few solos thrown in as well. So when you just need to escape

0:30.3

from the business of the holiday shuffle or take a break from mom or dad or who knows who,

0:35.8

we'll be here as we always are.

0:48.5

Hi, it's Elise Lunan host of pulling the thread.

0:52.0

On this show, we pull apart the web in which we all live to understand who we are

0:56.8

and why we're here. Pulling the thread is about big questions, why we do what we do, how we can

1:02.9

understand our own experiences within a larger spiritual and historical context, the ways in which we

1:08.5

might begin to understand ourselves and each other better, and what's

1:11.9

required to heal ourselves in our world. I'll be joined in conversation by luminaries and wise elders,

1:18.5

those who have laid tracks in their work and lives to help us bring meaning and understanding

1:22.6

to a world that often feels chaotic and overwhelming. My hope is that these conversations spark moments of resonance

1:29.4

and plant tiny seeds of awareness

1:31.5

so that we might all collectively learn and grow.

1:36.3

I think there's a lot of assumptions in play here

1:41.2

that a good body is a thin one, a thin body is achievable, a thin body is achievable

1:47.0

for everyone, and that you will be fully in control of your health and your mortality if you're thin,

1:55.0

which is also just, of course, a myth. There are plenty of fat, healthy, happy people,

2:00.0

and there are plenty of

2:01.0

sadly unhealthy, thin people who should not be regarded as any more or less worthy than a fat person

2:11.0

who suffers from a similar health condition. These people should be receiving in most cases just the same treatment, and yet for the fat person

...

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