The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. (non-admin closure) HurricaneFan25 00:03, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Fat feminism (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

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This aticle has been in an unsourced state, containing original research for years. The subject is not to be found in any search of scholarly material.
Most of the sources listed within the article are synthesized and the 2 that purported to be about the topic directly are nolonger available[1][2].
Page should be deleted as original research by synthesis, and becuase the topic itself seems to fail the basic requirements of both WP:GNG (from the point of view of not having significant coverage directly about it) and WP:NRVE--Cailil ^talk 00:18, 30 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• comment—could you be more specific about what you think is original research in there? i don't see anything that rings an OR bell with me. in fact, it looks to me like the books in the bibliography would just about cover everything in the article, although i haven't had time to check yet. my initial instinct is that this article needs nothing more than an inline template and some more work than just checking websites to see that the topic is fundamentally notable.— alf.laylah.wa.laylah (talk) 01:38, 30 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  First of all the majority of the page, which contends that there is a branch of feminism that "promote[s] acceptance for women of all sizes and oppose[s] any form of size discrimination [and that] has not met mainstream acceptance" is unsourced. Secondly the cited portions of text, that are being used to advance this idea within the article, are in fact not about a fat-postive feminist movement but rather, about body image and weight issues. Some of these sources might be useful in the Fat acceptance movement or Body image articles, but they do not demonstarte, define, mention, or explain any fat feminist movement. Using these to do so is a novel interpretation, and using them to advance the points made in the unsourced text is pure OR.
  The significant books, most of which are reliable sources, that are listed (but not cited) in the bibliography/further reading section are in the main actually about eating disorders (Bordo, Orbach, Malson, Fallon, Hirschmann, Manton, MacSween and Braziel's books all deal with feminist appraoches to anorexia and what they argue are the socially constructed aspects of gender identity and stereotypes that relate to it - none of them outline a fat feminism; Parker's book is about representations of "Fat Ladies" in literature; so that leaves the edited collections Fat: A Fate Worse Than Death? & Fat Oppression and Psychotherapy - neither of which I've read but on a google books search the former doesn't contain the phrase 'fat feminism' at all[3]).
  And again the only material that purported to be directly about the subject is now unavailable--Cailil ^talk 02:21, 30 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

thanks for your detailed response; very helpful.— alf.laylah.wa.laylah (talk) 03:05, 30 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Sexuality and gender-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:12, 30 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep Susan Orbach didn't call her book, Thin is a feminist issue. There is certainly a feminist perspective to fat acceptance and you can read about it in Women and Obesity, for example. Whatever needs doing here shouldn't require deletion as this would be contrary to our editing policy. Warden (talk) 07:48, 30 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  I think you're missing my point Colonel Warden. Yes multiple feminists have dealt with issues around anorexia and obesity (nobody is denying this). However this article argues that there is a movement/ideology called fat-positive feminism. (Which BTW is neither defined nor described in either Orbach's book or the one you link to).
  These sources would be okay for an article about feminism and anorexia or feminism and obesity but that is not what this one is about. There is a huge gulf between recording that feminists say "X" about obesity and/or eating disorders (which is verifiable), and then using that 'x statement' to argue that there is a feminist movement/ideology about weight issues (which is unverified).
  However, I'd be happy to change my mind *if* sources on this movement, as a movement/ideology, could be found--Cailil ^talk 14:37, 30 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• But you're not going look yourself, right?

1. Julie Willett (2010), The American Beauty Industry Encyclopedia, p. 114, Another growing field of feminism in the 21st century is fat-positive feminism.
2. Leslie Heywood (2006), The women's movement today: an encyclopedia of third-wave feminism, vol. 1, A New Fat-Positive Feminism
3. Sander L. Gilman (2008), Diets and dieting: a cultural encyclopedia, p. 97, There is an ever-growing movement variously referred to as "size acceptance," "fat acceptance," "fat positive," ... While both women and men are involved, many organizations have a decidedly feminist take ...
4. George Haggerty, Bonnie Zimmerman (2000), Encyclopedia of lesbian and gay histories and cultures, vol. 1, p. 291, NAAFA has had a feminist caucus since 1983; a lesbian group, since 1990. Fat-positive sexuality has always been part of fat lesbians' agenda.

Notice how all these works describe themselves as encyclopedias. There's plenty more works of a more general sort. Q.E.D. Warden (talk) 15:09, 30 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Hold on a second Colonel warden there is no need for ad hominem remarks ("But you're not going look yourself, right?"), contrary to your accusation I went through the whole bibliography listed on the page to check for an actual definition of the topic.
  If you can source this and write it appropriately please by all means go ahead. But I'm araid mentions of a movement (that may already be covered by the article Fat acceptance movement) don't convince me that this topic meets WP:NRVE and GNG (ie significant coverage) but then that's my 2c, and if this AFD results in a keep and those who have access to the books are spurred on to rewrite the current page into a proper article then that's great--Cailil ^talk 16:34, 30 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• keep—in addition to Warden's sources, i find this on jstor
  • Josée Johnston; Judith Taylor (Summer 2008). "Feminist Consumerism and Fat Activists: A Comparative Study of Grassroots Activism and the Dove Real Beauty Campaign". Signs. 33 (4): 941–966. JSTOR 10.1086/528849.

which tells us, among other things, of a group called "Pretty, Porky, and Pissed Off," which tells us, after a long list of actions taken by the group, that "Thus, PPPO brought a complex feminist analysis into a queer arts space in which neither hegemonic beauty standards nor corporate capitalism were previously much critiqued." also, this article tells us that "PPPO employed what it conceived of as a third-wave feminist approach to fat activism and community building that explicitly recognized multiple axes of inequality." In regard to the statement mentioned by Cailil about putative fat feminism not having "met mainstream acceptance" these authors state "Feminist counterhegemonic activism is marginalized on multiple fronts: as the media hails the death of feminism, scholarly investigations of social movements omit multiple and varied feminist actions on the basis that only actions targeting the state count as contentious" and then go on to use PPPO as an example of a feminist group marginalized in exactly this way due to their focus on body image rather than political rights. finally, i would like to suggest a move, should the article survive the afd, to "Fat Positive Feminism," since that seems a more likely search term.— alf.laylah.wa.laylah (talk) 16:02, 30 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Just by means of clarification - the quotation about not being mainstream is not my statement it's a quote from the article.--Cailil ^talk 16:34, 30 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  yeah, i saw that; i meant that as a suggestion that this bit from the source could conceivably be used as a source for that statement from the article, because i think that you're absolutely right that that statement from the article sounds synthy. i should have made it more clear.— alf.laylah.wa.laylah (talk) 16:40, 30 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  No prob;em ALWL - it seems to me if this page is kept at least we've generated a critical mass for people to rebuild & rewrite the article--Cailil ^talk 17:16, 30 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep, appears to be adequate coverage in WP:RS secondary sources. — Cirt (talk) 04:55, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.