http://www.socialjusticeeducation.org Tools for Building Justice, January, 2003
UNIT on Sizeism
Session outline:
Session # 1. Introduction Beginning with discussion of photos depicting “sizeism,” students go on to review early experiences of negative messages about body size and shape, drawing parallels with male and female socialization. Session closes with strategies for immediate interventions in the photo scenes.
2. The Perfect Body Students design and/or otherwise define the “perfect” body image and consider institutions in which “perfect” bodies are prescribed, applying the concepts of target and nontarget groups, internalized oppression, and acts of alliance to sizeism
3. Our Bodies, Ourselves Students look at experiences of internalized oppression—“when I don’t look right.” Then they conduct a speak-out: what should never be said or done to young people with real—not “perfect”—bodies again. The session closes with student suggestions for changing the school environment to intervene against sizeism.
Unit on Sizeism 1 Session 1 Introduction Aims • To introduce the unit on sizeism • To identify and discuss two situations of sizeism involving youth • To define sizeism • To enhance emotional safety in the group to discuss sizeism
Skills Students will: • Identify target group members in two situations of sizeism affecting youth • Identify personal experiences of receiving negative messages about size • Define sizeism as the mistreatment of or discrimination against someone based upon perceived body size or shape • Modify safety agreements to reflect increased awareness of sizeism • Identify acts of alliance against sizeism
Preparation You will need photographs for discussion; students will need writing materials.
Session Description Beginning with discussion of photos depicting “sizeism,” students go on to review early experiences of negative messages about body size and shape, drawing parallels with male and female socialization. Session closes with strategies for immediate interventions in the photo scenes.
Session Outline 1. To Begin 5 minutes 2. Photographs 15 minutes 3. Size 20 minutes 4. Sizeism 10 minutes 5. Conclusion 5 minutes
Agenda
1. To Begin 5 minutes Open with brief review of agreements. Without further introduction, move to photo discussion.
2. Photographs 15 minutes Distribute the photographs in turn, conducting the following discussion
Incident #34 "Bulimia" (A young woman is throwing up in the girls room sink. Another young woman looks in the mirror, preoccupied with how she looks, paying no attention to her friend.) (Without captions) • Describe any likenesses you can see between the two young women
Unit on Sizeism 2 • Describe any differences you can see between the two young women • What’s happening in this scene?
(With captions) • What’s happening in this scene? • Describe the emotion and body language of each of the young women. • Are they friends? Why or why not? • Describe the scene as if they aren’t friends; then describe the scene as if they are friends. • Why do you think the young woman is throwing up? • Has this happened before? How can you tell? • The title of this photo is bulimia. What is bulimia? (Ans. An eating disorder in which someone episodically “binges” (eats a large amount of food obsessively), later feeling guilty, depressed, and self-condemning. Bulimia is often associated with trying to prevent weight gain, such as by inducing vomiting, using laxatives, dieting, or fasting.) • How might she be feeling about herself? About how she looks? • How might the young woman looking in the mirror be feeling about herself? About how she looks? • What message might she silently be receiving from the other young woman? What message might she silently be giving the other young woman? • How could these young women be allies to each other? By a show of hands, how many of you when you first saw this picture felt like laughing? What are some reasons why young women in a scene like this are sometimes made out to be objects of laughter?
Incident #35: “Shunned” (Three athletic male youth stand in a huddle scornfully regarding a large-bodied male youth who approaches them fearfully.) (Without captions) • What differences can you see among the four men in this photo? • What put-down words are used to describe people with bodies larger than so-called “normal” size? • By a show of hands, how many of you immediately thought of one of those words when you first saw the photo? • What does this tell you about what’s happening in this scene?
(With captions) • What’s happening in this scene? • Describe the emotion and body language of each of the young men • Why are the three young men reacting to the large-bodied young man in this way? • How does the large-bodied young man feel about how the other young men are acting toward him? • Has he been treated this way before? How can you tell? • How might he have learned to deal this treatment in the past? • How could he resist this mistreatment, refusing to put up with it? • How could any of the young men in the scene act as an ally to the large-bodied young man?
Unit on Sizeism 3
Close the discussion by having students point out, referring to both photographs, • What are some differences between the photographs? • How might the differences be connected to gender? • What is common to both photographs?
3. Size 20 minutes a. Writing Have students complete a 5-10 minute confidential writing exercise, discussing an early experience they have had, or witnessed, of someone: • being put down, • called a name, • prescribed medicine or a diet for, or • mistreated in any other ways
about the size or shape of their bodies
Write about what happened, what message was conveyed, how it made them feel about themselves, and how it still might affect them. Advise students that you will not collect the writings, and they will not be expected to report about what they wrote. b. Same-gender dyad Break students into same-gender pairs to take turns talking about how it felt to write what they wrote, without sharing the content. If necessary, create one male and/or one female triad in order to preserve same gender conversations. If someone questions the same-gender arrangement, ask students to give brief reasons for making the dyads same-gender. (Ans: some answers may involve embarrassing experiences especially difficult to share with someone of the opposite gender.) c. Reconvene students to report any feelings they are willing to about how it felt to complete the writing exercise. Acknowledge difficult feelings: these issues touch on the most personal and intimate: our body-images, how we see and feel about ourselves, and how these views and feelings are shaped by others’ perceptions, and sometimes mistreatment, of us.
4. Sizeism 10 minutes Introduce this unit: sizeism, the mistreatment of or discrimination against people based upon their perceived (or self-perceived) body size or shape. One of the particular forms of sizeism is fat oppression, the mistreatment of and discrimination against people designated to have “large” bodies.
Explain that this is the kind of ism, unlike some others, that everyone at one point or another can become a target ofanyone can potentially at some time in their lives be picked out for criticism, shame, embarrassment, ridicule, or even unwanted medical attention based upon body size or shape.
Unit on Sizeism 4 Return to the agreements and have students review them in the light of sizeism. Focus especially on the “no putdowns” agreement: what names are people with “different” body sizes called that come off as putdowns, even if the words seem apparently harmless? (Ans. Fat, obese, skinny, short, anorexic &c.)
Have students recommit to agreements with special attention to showing mutual respect for body size, shape and appearance.
Invite students silently to reconsider their personal writings. Place them back in pairs to take turns completing either or both of the following statements: • One thing I could have used from an ally against sizeism is…… • One way I can be an ally with others against sizeism is…..
Finish the dyad and ask a few students to share their answers in the full group.
5. Conclusion 5 minutes Close by appreciating students for their work
Unit on Sizeism 5 Session 2. The Perfect Body Aims • To examine the stereotype of the “perfect body” • To explore institutional forms of sizeism and their effects on students • To explore internalized oppression among young people related to body size and shape • To identify acts of alliance against sizeism
Skills Students will: • Construct images of the stereotypical “perfect body” and identify public and secret messages of the stereotype • Identify forms of sizeism in five institutions • Identify how students are separated from each other by perceived body shape and size • Identify acts of alliance against sizeism in the scenes depicted in the photos
Preparation You will need photographs from the last session, and art materials, scissors, tape and popular fashion magazines, the kinds found in a “supermarket check-out aisle” (as in the ageism unit) for use in the first exercise.
Session Description Students design and/or otherwise define the “perfect” body image and consider institutions in which “perfect” bodies are prescribed, applying the concepts of target and nontarget groups, internalized oppression, and acts of alliance to sizeism
Session Outline 1. To Begin 5 minutes 2. Supermarket Checkout Aisle 20 minutes 3. Measuring Up 15 minutes 4. Internalized oppression 10 minutes 5. Conclusion 5 minutes
Agenda 1. To Begin Have students reintroduce the subject of this unit and review the agreements as enhanced at the close of the last session.
2. Supermarket Checkout Aisle 20 minutes Distribute art materials and magazines. Assign the students the following tasks: • Find images of the “perfect body” of your gender, based on what the magazines in the “supermarket aisle” prescribe: perfect shape, perfect size, perfect hair, perfect teeth, &c. • Using found images and art materials, construct/design the picture of the “perfect body,” Use images of the “perfect body” you find ready-made in the materials, and/or use images of “imperfect” or more obviously real-life bodies, drawing or writing in your “corrective” comments on how that “imperfect” body part should be made to look to be
Unit on Sizeism 6 “perfect,” e.g. by circling the “imperfect” part of the body and writing in comments about how it “should” look. • When you have finished, turn the paper over and write answers to the following questions on the reverse side: o What has to be done to this bodywhat treatment, conditioning, diet, &c.to turn it into the “perfect body”? What is the public message to us of this picture? o If the person youand the supermarket aisle magazineshave constructed were a real person, a “heart” as described in the “heart exercise,” what might that person want to say about how he/she has been conditioned or shaped? Write the words as a “thought balloon” over the head of the person you have constructed as a secret message to us from the person so pictured.
Circulate among the students while they work, assisting them as needed, especially in constructing the “corrections” of “imperfect,” real-life, bodies or body parts to be “perfect.”
Close the exercise by forming small groups of 4 for students to share the “perfect bodies” with their public and secret messages.
3. Measuring Up 15 minutes Reconvene the class to discuss briefly what they have produced. Ask students to suggest motives for the magazine ads to depict people in this “perfect bodies” way.
Turn students attention to several other institutional systems besides the media: for each of the following, have them call out requirements for “perfect” and “imperfect” bodies:
Fashion/clothing • What is the perfect body? What kinds of things might be done to this body to make it look “perfect”? • What names/putdowns given to bodies that don’t “measure up” to this standard? • How are people who don’t fit this standard prohibited from activities or services or visibility?
Sports • What is the perfect body? What kinds of things might be done to this body to make it look “perfect”? • What names/putdowns given to bodies that don’t “measure up” to this standard? • How are people who don’t fit this standard prohibited from activities or services or visibility?
Military • What is the perfect body? What kinds of things might be done to this body to make it look “perfect”? • What names/putdowns are given to bodies that don’t “measure up” to this standard? • How are people who don’t fit this standard prohibited from activities or services or visibility?
Unit on Sizeism 7
Medical/health/pharmaceutical industry • What is the perfect body? What kinds of things might be done to this body to make it look “perfect”? (Include medical prescriptions and procedures.) • What is the difference, if any, between having a normally healthy body and having a stereotypically “perfect body”? • What names/putdowns are given to bodies that don’t “measure up” to this standard? • What medical diagnoses may be given to bodies that don’t “measure up” to this standard, e.g. being “too large” or “too thin”? • What drugs may be given to bodies that don’t “measure up” to this standard, e.g. being “too large” or “too thin”? • How are people who don’t fit this standard prohibited from activities or services or visibility?
4. Internalized oppression 10 minutes Return to the photos used in the previous session. . Have students point out in each photo: • How is this scene an example of sizeism? • How is the main person who is feeling bad or in distress probably feeling about her/himself? • To what extreme might someone go in an effort to create or maintain a “perfect” body? (Ans: dieting, starving, taking drugs, surgery, untreated illnesses such as anorexia, bulimia) • Why might someone take such personal health risks? • Who the primary “target” person is: who is targeted for sizeism in these scenes? • Who are the “nontargeted” people in this scene, those not targeted for sizeism? • What privileges do the nontargeted people have that the targets do not? • How might the nontargeted people be at risk for being targeted themselves for sizeism by other youth or adults or the institutions we’ve discussed? • How might this affect their actions, or the feelings behind their actions? • Whether you are alike or different in any way from the students targeted in the photos, how could you act as an ally to them against sizeism?
Point out that one photo depicts a young man, the other a young woman. Ask students to make connections between how the main characters might feel about themselves and sex-role stereotypes about the “perfect man” and the “perfect woman”: • How is the main character in each photo feel about her/himself? About how he/she measures up to the stereotypically “perfect” man or woman? • What connections can you make between how they feel about themselves and internalized sexismthe pressure young women and men learn to place on themselves to measure up to sex-role stereotypes?
5. Conclusion 5 minutes Close by appreciating students.
Unit on Sizeism 8 Session 3. Our Bodies, Ourselves Aims • To speak out against sizeism • To explore interventions against sizeism in the current school environment
Skills Students will: • Examine personal experiences of effects of sizeism • Make public statements of resistance to sizeism • Identify specific changes to make in the school environment to interrupt sizeism
Preparation Students will need writing materials.
Session Description Students look at experiences of internalized oppression—“when I don’t look right.” Then they conduct a speak-out: what should never be said or done to young people with real—not “perfect”—bodies again. The session closes with student suggestions for changing the school environment to intervene against sizeism.
Session Outline 1. To Begin 5 minutes 2. Our bodies/ourselves 15 minutes 3. The speak-out 15 minutes 4. One Thing 15 minutes 5. Conclusion 5 minutes
Agenda 1. To Begin 5 minutes Review enhanced agreements, and briefly review the concepts of target/nontarget groups, internalized oppression and alliance related to sizeism.
2. Our bodies/ourselves 15 minutes Conduct a personal writing exercise, specifying that this is also a confidential writing that students will not be expected to turn in. This time students, reviewing the messages posted on the board or in the “perfect body” images on the board are to write about: • a time I felt that I didn’t “look right” according to the above messages: what happened, how I felt, and how it still affect me • one thing I would never like to see, hear or have happen again to me or others my age about our body shapes and sizes • one thing I want to tell the industries/institutions we’ve talked about today
Close the exercise as in the previous session by placing students in same-gender dyads (with a single triad, if necessary, to maintain same-gender groupings) to discuss how it felt to complete the exercise.
Unit on Sizeism 9 Reconvene the class and have students report their ownnot each other’s experience of completing the exercise. Have them focus only on how it felt just to think about these issues, noting what feelings came up, explaining that they will have a chance talk about their answers to the topics themselves in the next part of class.
Take a few moments to explain the phrase “our bodies/ourselves”a slogan from the last 30 years of the women’s movement about reclaiming women’s health and bodies from male “expert”-dominated industries and institutions like the above, which became the title of an important health manual for women. This powerful example of resistance to sexism might also apply to resistance to sizeism: reclaiming our real body-images from the definitions of the perfect body prescribed by the same institutions.
3. The speak-out 15 minutes Conduct a speak-out: circle chairs so that students face each other, and have students volunteer to stand, one at a time, and make one statement responding to either of the last two questions in the writing exercise • one thing I would never like to see, hear or have happen again to me or others my age about our body shapes and sizes • one thing I want to tell the industries/institutions we’ve talked about in the last session
After 5-7 minutes stop the speakout, pause, and then have students volunteer to stand and report back, as accurately as they can, statements that they heard others make.
Close by taking a moment to appreciate students for their work.
4. One Thing 15 minutes Return students to dyads, and have dyads join into 4-member groups. The task of the group is to pick one facet of school life outside of individual student interactions or behavior that they identify that involves discrimination againstor invisibilization ofpeople targeted by sizeism. These might include any of the following: • visual environmentposters on the walls, especially of young people • policies about who is allowed to play sports • presence of addictive or unhealthy foods in vending machines • policies about who is allowed to participate in dance • who is visible in public activities • who gets picked as homecoming king and queen, &c.
If they could make one change in that part of school life, what would that be?
Reconvene groups to report, briefly, the changes they would make.
5. Conclusion 5 minutes Close with an appreciation circle, allowing students to volunteer to appreciate one another or themselves for something that was said or done during this session.
6. Follow up Sessions/Activities
Unit on Sizeism 10 Invite students to write a letter discussing their suggestions for change to submit to the principal, the Student Government, and/or the school newspaper.
Assessment/Evaluation
Unit on Sizeism 11