Embodied ambivalence in Taiwan: fat women and gender minorities' negotiation and subversion of their hyper(in)visibility.

Based upon Jeannine Gailey's concept of 'hyper(in)visibility' of fat women (2014), this article has two goals: (a) to analyse Taiwanese self-identifying fat women and gender minorities' management and negotiation of their (in)visibility; and (b) to examine the local appropriation of the important in...

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Published in:Journal of Gender Studies Vol. 32; no. 8; pp. 861 - 875
Main Author: Keyser-Verreault, Amélie
Format: Article
Published: Taylor & Francis Ltd Dec2023
Subjects:
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
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      dt: Dec2023
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        10.1080/09589236.2023.2191314
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        atl: Embodied ambivalence in Taiwan: fat women and gender minorities' negotiation and subversion of their hyper(in)visibility.
      aug:
        au: Keyser-Verreault, Amélie
        affil: Simone de Beauvoir Institute, Concordia University, Canada & Global Asia Research Centre, National Taiwan University, Taiwan
      su:
        Taiwan
        Sexual minorities
        Feminism
        Fat acceptance
        Neoliberalism
      sug:
        subj:
          Sexual minorities
          Feminism
          Taiwan
          Fat acceptance
          Neoliberalism
      keyword:
        activism
        Fat
        invisibility
        neoliberalism
        activism
        Fat
        invisibility
        neoliberalism
      ab: Based upon Jeannine Gailey's concept of 'hyper(in)visibility' of fat women (2014), this article has two goals: (a) to analyse Taiwanese self-identifying fat women and gender minorities' management and negotiation of their (in)visibility; and (b) to examine the local appropriation of the important international feminist movement that is fat activism in a non-Euro-American context. Drawing upon in-depth conversations with Taiwanese women, fat activists, and gender minorities who self-identify as fat, the findings reveal that they embody a paradoxical hyper(in)visibility. Given their large body size, fat women and gender minorities are hypervisible and their bodies are dissected publicly and privately, while at the same time their corpulent bodies are marginalized and overlooked. Moreover, since the most important criterion determining whether a Taiwanese woman is considered beautiful is thinness, the beauty cult also means a fat-phobic culture within which participants suffer from a dehumanizing gaze. As a result, some fat women choose to enact docile and cute femininity by embodying the figure of a 'marshmallow girl', while activists subvert gender and body-size norms and fight for fat acceptance and body diversity. Some activists try to reverse and queer the fat-shaming and abject representational codes and embody fat euphoria momentums.
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    language: English
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