The Invisible Woman: Confronting Weight Prejudice in America
Goodman, who recalls a grim childhood of being teased and "condemned" as "the fat kid," brings a fierceness to her arguments about how women (in particular) are devalued for not being thin. Among her (valid) complaints are that heavy women are rarely seen in ads, movies or other media as happy, fulfilled, sexual individuals; that they are portrayed as dirty, lazy, unattractive and "lacking in self-regard"; and that women are "not popularly admired for their physical appetites, only their denial of them." However, the author's good intentions are weakened by her many dated media citations-some of the magazines and diet books she cites and quotes from are a decade or even 20 years out of date. More troubling is Goodman's attempt to link the dynamics of "weight bigotry" and "anti-Semitism," in particular, the anti-Semitism of the Nazi era. Claims the author, "The fat woman, like the Jew, is conscripted by society to carry its collective burdens of self-hate and fear." Since neither Goodman nor the pundits she criticizes supply a real definition of "too fat" (an ounce over the recent Harvard height/weight charts; medically obese; or just the size of the "average" American woman, who wears size 14 and up?), many of her provocative points lose, ahem, their weight. Goodman's attempt to deal with perceptions of fat, thin and bias in a serious manner is bold but ultimately not as convincing as it could have been.Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.