The patriarchy strikes again! Washington State University has canceled its Fat Studies class. Fat activists are furious. The moment they finish their second plate of refried tofu, they’re going to waddle out into the street and scream at the sky.
Throughout the country, campus feminists are quivering, terrified that fat-shaming will only get worse. Let’s talk about the fact that a Fat Studies class exists to begin with.
First, take a guess which program the class is under? If you said, “Women’s Studies,” you win a Diet Coke and a cheeseburger. The course is an “examination of weight-based oppression as a social justice issue with other systems of oppression based on gender, race, class, age, sexual orientation, and ability.” ANTIFA mask and DRUMPF t-shirt not included.
Our country is in the throes of an obesity epidemic and academics are concerned about fat-inclusive bikinis and anti-male gaze --- yes, that’s right, the fat-studies folks have flipped the feminist concept of “the male gaze,” which claims that the patriarchy is triggered by white, cisgender men, whose oppressive gaze vilifies women and worsens misogyny.
In a gasping contradiction and inadvertent counterexample to the original theory, fat-studies feminists claim that anytime white, cis-gender men don’t find overweight women attractive, it’s because they are misogynistic. Which one is it? Don’t wait for the campus feminists to answer that. They’re too busy fighting for the rights of oppressed communities, often without invitation.
Tuition at Washington State runs about $5,000 per class, by the way.
The course is run by Dr. Deborah Christel, who has applied her Ph.D. in Sports Psychology, Women's Studies and Apparel Design to help students understand "fat stigma, weight bias, and thin privilege" and "weight-based oppression."
Her writings have been featured in the (peer-reviewed?) journal Fat Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Body Weight and Society. She uses “critical feminist theory and narrative pedagogies” to fight “fat stigma by promoting activism to erode the thin-centric orientation' among students.”
The word 'critical' is academic lingo for neo-Marxist.
The word “critical” is academic lingo for neo-Marxist, by the way. Any time you hear a professor or an academic rattle on about “critical theory,” they’re basing what they say on the principles of the Frankfurt School, also known as neo-Marxism.
And “narrative pedagogy” is academic code for a form of teaching based on relativism, in which students and teachers use their subjective experiences to learn, because any idea can be interpreted in an infinite number of ways. So there cannot be an objective truth. Post-Modernism. Meaning, the fat-studies movement --- like much of campus anti-logic, modern feminism, and social justice leftism --- is based on the objective statement that there are no objective statements.
And --- since feelings are facts --- concepts like “fatphobia,” “microaggression” and “cis-gender white privilege” are all considered not just legitimate, but indisputably true. So, it’s the food’s fault. No, actually, it’s the patriarchy’s fault. The patriarchy forced them to eat that second tub of cinnamon-laced cupcake batter.