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「做」女人的難關:胖女性逛街購衣經驗中的肥胖污名與自我認同初探 / Fat Women’s clothes shopping experiences: Fat Stigma, Self-identity and Doing Gender

我將逛街購衣經驗視為日常生活「做(doing)」性別的關鍵過程,並探討胖女性在其中如何與肥胖污名對話。本文「胖女性」的定義為:曾有身體大小超過多數衣物消費場所中的衣物尺寸,且在逛街購衣經驗中感知到肥胖污名,而有相關負面感受如挫折不安感的女性認同者。通過收集網路言論、訪談14位胖女性後,研究結果如下:

尚未進入購衣活動前,胖女性已在商圈環境中感受到胖身體的低階級;進入購衣活動後,「體型」則成為支配胖女性活動空間與社交角色的關鍵因素。逛街購衣過程中,胖女性應對肥胖污名所採取的戰術大致可分為融入、旁觀、衝撞三種類型。胖女性反思逛街購衣經驗時,會通過將自己的身體正常化,以及從主體位置出發和時尚論述對話等方式來開展能動性、接納自己的身體。

逛街購衣情境交織胖女性在不同時空情境扮演的女性角色(如做為女職員、女兒、女友),可看出胖女性和瘦(正常)女性「做」女人的歷程具有相當大的差異──胖女性「做」女人的緊張挫折感幾乎全面滲透在日常生活各領域中。但任何一個情境中的環節鬆動,就可能給胖女性反思、行動的空間。胖身體能正當化自己的資源太過稀少,購衣管道、購衣空間、衣物選擇的多元化;大眾媒體時尚論述中女性多元典範的建立,是此情境中提供賦能的重要條件。

若要反轉肥胖污名,建議日後研究必須小心回到主體所在情境定義「胖」,不要直覺地沿用BMI等主流論述,才可覺察「胖」的多元意義;胖女性購衣經驗中「做」性別的過程,顯現出「體型」已成為個體性別建制過程的重要支配因素。本文以某些女性的經驗為例,但這種狀況發生在各種性別認同者身上,「體型」急需被建制為台灣性別運動的重要主題。 / I view clothes shopping experiences as key processes of “doing gender” in everyday life, in which fat women often struggle with fat stigmas. The main issues to be discussed in this article are thus the following: 1) How do fat women cope with fat stigmas during these processes? 2) What are the connections between fat women’s self-identities, gender-doing and their clothes shopping experiences? In this context, a "fat woman" is defined as: A woman (who identifies herself as a woman) always gets negative feelings through clothes shopping experiences due to her outsized body size(s).

Research data are collected from forum discussions and 14 interviewees. The results are as follows: Before encountering clothes shopping situations, fat women are already devaluating their fat bodies in shopping space, e.g. on streets. Once fat women enter clothes shopping processes, their "body sizes" become the key factor that limits fat women’s activity within certain places and the social roles they play. There are three types of coping tactics: integrating, onlooking and resisting. Fat women show their reflexivity on clothes shopping experiences through normalizing their bodies, negotiating with fashion discourses from the position of subjects, and accepting their bodies in the way they are.

Clothes shopping experiences interweave different daily encounters in fat women’s everyday life, in which they play various kinds of “gendered roles” such as female employee, daughter or girlfriend. Summing from the above, I notices that the different gender doing experiences between “thin (normal) women” and “fat women” usually make the latter more frustrated in most daily encounters. In clothes shopping context, resources for justifying fat bodies are needed. As to the empowerment of fat women, diversity of shopping channels, places and clothes are as important as establishing different fashion discourses, e.g. fat female fashion icons.

To reverse fat stigmas, I suggest that we avoid defining “fat” intuitively by medical discourses (e.g. BMI) but by situating fat bodies as subjects, thus we will not be subject to dominated fat discourses and thereby limit the rich meanings of fat bodies. Fat women’s clothes shopping experiences show that “ body sizes” is a key factor affecting individuals in doing one’s gender. In Taiwan, there is still room for us to raise the awareness of “body size issue” and further address it as a gender issue.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:CHENGCHI/G0098451001
Creators郝天行, Hao, Tien Hsing
Publisher國立政治大學
Source SetsNational Chengchi University Libraries
Language中文
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
RightsCopyright © nccu library on behalf of the copyright holders

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