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College

College of Arts and Sciences

Major

Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Public Affairs

Faculty Mentor

Natalie Cisneros

Faculty Editor

Nova Robinson

Student Editor

Samantha Taylor

Abstract

Drawing on Judith Butler’s framework of compulsory heterosexuality, as well as Robert McRuer’s use of this framework in his own theory of compulsory able-bodiedness, this paper critiques the notion that thinness is merely a beauty standard. Rather, this paper argues that thinness is a marker of superiority that requires the subordination of fat individuals and is upheld by the historically informed, albeit fabricated, narrative that being thin is right. This paper asserts that thinness is compulsory—required from all bodies that are held to an unattainable standard of perfect thinness. Further, this paper examines the role that media play in the perpetuation of thin-centered narratives, and how tools like fat suits are used to keep fat people out of these narratives and the depictions of their own lives. Finally, this paper concludes by discussing our personal responsibility to relinquish our own narratives that require thinness from our bodies and those around us so we are able to begin to reject the dominant narrative that declares certain bodies as right and others as wrong.

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