Mocking an academic because of their gender or race is unthinkable these days, but do the same protections against discrimination apply to academics who are overweight?
According to Cornell University philosopher Kate Manne, “intellectual bias against fat people” is “rampant” in academia, and “fatphobia” is so endemic that many academics have the audacity to belittle, berate, and harass their colleagues. They claim that there are many. Considered obese.
in Unshrink: How to Combat LipophobiaIn , an Australian academic talks about her own struggles with being “very fat” at the academy, but also tells the grim stories of friends and colleagues who were targeted because of their body size.
Manne was repeatedly told by one friend in graduate school that she would be unemployed because of her body type because “only thin women look smart,” and by another friend who was repeatedly told she “should lose weight and look smarter.”
One professor was publicly ridiculed by students, who left derogatory notes on her desk about her body type. However, one of them later apologized after finding out she was pregnant.
“sorry. “We all thought you were made that way.” “What if I had done that,” she recalled.
Another friend majoring in philosophy overheard a colleague say, “If you can’t control what you eat, how can you control what you think?”
Manne draws attention to a controversial tweet by American psychologist Geoffrey Miller that begins: “Dear obese PhD candidates: If you don't have the will to stop eating carbohydrates, you won't have the will to write your thesis.”
Such brazen, discriminatory attitudes are so deeply ingrained in academia, especially philosophy, that some of the field's most famous teaching practices rely on blatantly fat-phobic tropes, Manne said. Times Higher Education.
“We unconsciously use the figure of the fat man in the trolley problem.” she said, referring to the conundrum of whether it is ethically sound to push a large man to death if it prevents the trolley from obliterating five small people. She said: “Pushing this person in front of the trolley seems appropriate, okay, and even fun.”
Manne pointed out that other analogies about choice, such as whether someone chooses a piece of fruit or a piece of cake, assume that the will of overweight people is mockingly weak.
“I cannot say that fatphobia is the last acceptable prejudice in academia. “But there is a special self-satisfaction that allows people to belittle others in this way,” she added.
Manne received harsh criticism online and from critics for daring to draw attention to anti-fatness and calling for “remaking the world to accommodate people of all sizes.”
“I knew it was going to be a divisive book,” she recalled. “People really hate fat people, so being compassionate with them and advocating for their right to appropriate health care will always be seen as radical.”