Humans 101
What You Call Internalized Fatphobia Might Be Internalized Dominance
What many thin people refer to as ‘internalized fatphobia’ is a different side of the same coin
I know that you have learned to hate your body.
I know the messages, the images, the comments, both cruel and well-intended. I know the sinking feeling of seeing your changing body in the mirror, the sharp pain as your clothes dig into newly soft flesh.
I know it hurts, and the pain can sometimes feel immeasurable. I know it is tempting to validate that pain by asserting that you are the intended target of an oppressive system. I also know that, if you have never been a fat person, the name for that pain is not “internalized fatphobia.”
Internalized oppression is a longstanding concept in social sciences and social justice work: one that has been discussed for decades and one that transcends movements. Internalized oppression and its twin concept, internalized subordination, refer to the ways in which a group targeted by oppression begins to internalize the messages of their oppressors and begins to do the work of oppression for them.
Internalized oppression isn’t a simple matter of low self-esteem or lacking confidence. It’s a…
