Progressivism rewards progress, we suppose, so it’s only natural that the same academics who gave us critical gender theory, critical race theory, and white privilege would eventually come up with the next entry into the Oppression Olympics. Apparently running out of inherent characteristics to use for the endlessly-evolving discipline of identity politics, two professors at the University of Wisconsin are now working to make “obese people” the newest victims of society. And if recent history is any judge of the future, we have no doubt that they’ll be extremely successful in doing so.
From The College Fix:
Two professors at a midwestern university are working to develop and legitimize the field of “fat studies,” a discipline that examines the cultural and sociological phenomenon of overweight and obese human beings.
Laurie Cooper Stoll, a professor of sociology, and Darci Thoune, an associate professor of English, are both leading scholarly research in this field from the University of Wisconsin – La Crosse. Their website, “Two Fat Professors,” declares that the academics are “fighting fatphobia with education, community-building and a lot of sass.”
[…]
Broadly speaking, the two scholars are working off a thesis that postulates the voices of obese individuals are absent or sidelined in contemporary research on obesity and health. To remedy this, the professors have argued for the incorporation of “standpoint theory” into fat studies. “Standpoint theory,” according to the two, stresses “the importance of situated-knowledge and the epistemic advantage of marginalized groups.”
Another term for this word-jumble is “the importance of lived experience,” which is already a hugely-popular meme among social justice warriors. Primarily because studies, science, and statistics fail to line up with the claims of SJWs, they have begun to prioritize anecdotal evidence over…well, actual evidence. Therefore, if every study in the world concludes that police don’t kill black suspects at any greater rate than any other race, these dishonest actors can simply say, “Well, that’s the way it is in MY experience,” and everyone else has to shut up.
Here, these two professors want to push back on every single available scientific study that has been done on obesity, all of which have proven that being fat is extremely unhealthy. But because they can’t do that with actual science, they’ll do so by simply asking a few fat people: Hey, how do you feel? And if the answer is, um, not that good, actually, they’ll just chalk it up to systemic oppression, skinny privilege, and everything else other than personal responsibility.
Like we said, we’re sure this effort will be wildly successful. It seems that there is no shortage of people searching for a way to claim legitimate victimhood status. Anyone willing to give it to them can count on making a fortune.
