Studien undersöker vilken representation av kvinnokroppar som står utanför den rådande smala kroppsnormen som presenteras i magasinet Amelia. Studien tar även upp hur synen på kvinnlighet och kroppar formas i media samt hur livsstilsmagasin är uppbyggda utifrån ett teoretiskt perspektiv. I studien användes semiotisk bildanalys av uppslag från tidningen Amelia, tillsammans med teorier om texthierarki och representation. Studien fann att Amelia, genom sitt val av bruk av visuell retorik, till större delen återskapade en traditionell representation av kvinnlighet och syn på tjocka kroppar. Att praktisera en kvinnlighet med fokus på utseende och relationer uppmuntrades av tidningen. I uppslagen blev de tjockare kvinnokroppar dels framhävda som avhumaniserade bärare av en idé och som kroppar som hade målet att bli smal kropp. I ett uppslag fick en tjock kropp agera utanför sin stereotypa bild, genom att träna och vara aktiv, och i ett uppslag var den tjocka kroppen neutralt representerad då ämnet i uppslaget ej berörde kroppar var uppslagets fokus.

In recent years, there have been many debates about fat female bodies in the media. Fat women are often associated with moral failure, laziness and stupidity. Women’s fat bodies are loaded with negative meanings because of dominant negative attitudes. These attitudes tells fat women that they need to change their bodies, in order to fit in a society where beauty standards are characterized with certain ideals around skinnyness. In this study, i will show how fat female bodies are being discussed on Flashback forum. I’m using a gender and intersectionalitative perspective. Anti-feminists uses Flashback forum to express sexist, homophobic and racist comments about different authors of feminist and body-positive blogs. These feminist bloggers are questioning the oppression that fat women faces in their everyday lives, and they wan’t to make all bodies visable by countering prejudice about fat female bodies. When does Flashback take threats against female feminist bloggers seriously?

Current medical discourse and endless media debates on obesity and health have rendered the fat body highly visible. However, the lived experiences of fat have to a large extent remained absent in these discourses. This thesis, therefore, expands and reconceptualizes notions of fatness and fat embodiments. Using semi-structured, in-depth interviewing with individuals of marginalized genders living in Sweden who identify as being fat, the thesis explores (1) the individuals’ perception of fat; how it is seen, felt, and known, (2) how their fat, gendered embodiments shape their identity and their ”being-in-the-world”, and (3) the coping strategies and/or opportunities for resistance available to deal with and/or challenge negative and stigmatizing experiences. Merging phenomenology, affect theory, and temporality theories, findings suggest that fat individuals experience struggles and hatred while navigating a thin world that excludes their fat flesh, resulting in feelings of hyperawareness, shame, and being out of place. Through everyday experiences in this intersubjective world, they are also constructed as being out of time, affecting their access to the present. Navigating conflicting demands of visibility/invisibility, embodying the innocent/guilty fatty, and embracing the body/disembodying from it, the author reflects on the implication of these findings for understandings of fat embodiments as multiple, ambiguous, shifting, and at times contradictory. The thesis offers thickened understandings of the significance of fat embodiments for challenging the ways in which power operates on bodies, for (re)conceptualizing normative notions of fatness, and for fat people themselves.