Author discusses the recent lecture by Paul Campos, "Fat and Identity Politics", which was part of CSW's Gender and Body Size series, organized by Faculty Curator Abigail Saguy.

When and how do female-female interactions work to promote boundaries rather than cohesion between women? Because mainstream American society holds strong aesthetic preferences for female thinness, a shared “fear of fatness” might create common ties between women as they recognize shared pressures to conform to a slender ideal. Yet, given the wide range of body sizes and sub-cultures among American women, this same mainstream cultural preference may work to define boundaries between thin and fat women, and between women who ascribe to mainstream (white) beauty culture and those who do not. The current investigation builds upon previous research identifying a social norm for women to engage in “fat talk”, a term which refers to ritualized verbal exchange during which women express body dissatisfaction to each other. Previous work conceptualizes “fat talk” as a normative interaction that reinforces social bonds between women, yet this research has drawn upon interactions occurring in either experimental conditions or amongst primarily white, middle-class women of average weight. To more completely understand the meaning and function of “fat talk”, this investigation draws upon over 200 hours of ethnographic fieldwork and participant observation of “fat talk” in a racially diverse “plus size” women’s clothing store. Results indicate that “fat talk” often reinforces cohesion and shared experiences and understandings among women of similar body types and ethnic/class backgrounds. However, attempts at ritualized “fat talk” between women of different body types or ethnic backgrounds tended to prompt sanctioning and boundary-making behaviors. Results are discussed as they relate to theoretical understandings of inequality between women.

This dissertation examines the relationship between physical appearance and social inequality, exploring how workplace demands for "aesthetic labor" reproduce and legitimize workplace discrimination on the bases of gender, race, class, and body size. The term, aesthetic labor, refers to organizational expectations for workers' attractiveness, style, and interactional mannerisms. These expectations - both formal and informal - influence which people will be hired to do what jobs and how people are expected to look and behave at work, a process that favors workers from more privileged backgrounds. I examine this understudied aspect of labor market inequality in three complementary cases studies, each centering on a different phase of a worker's career: during the job search, at the point of hire, and when establishing job security.

Chapter 1 is a participant observation and interview study of a non-profit organization that provides professional clothing and style advice to disadvantaged women entering the workforce. My analyses focus on service interactions between volunteer personal stylists and job seekers. I found that interactions were structured by organizational understandings of deserving versus undeserving poor, through which clients were reputed to be more or less difficult, and more or less deserving.

Chapter 2 draws on the case of female "fit models," i.e., fashion workers with supposedly "perfect measurements" who try on prototype garments during the clothing production process. Because the work of a fit model only requires perfect bodily measurements (at least in theory), this case provides analytic leverage for unteasing the bodily vs. interactional elements of aesthetic labor. I interviewed fit models and their coworkers, and then compared these accounts with information from 77 job advertisements for fit models. I found that, although a fit model's bodily measurements were necessary at the point of hire, her job security ultimately depended on her ability to interact congenially and professionally with colleagues. This illustrates that even in jobs with seemingly exacting aesthetic standards, having the appropriate interactional dispositions, or habitus, can protect workers when their bodily capital diminishes.

Chapter 3 is an ethnographic examination of service interactions in a women's "plus-size" clothing store. This research draws on the unique experiences of plus-sized women to examine how service interactions are shaped by mainstream beauty standards, body-accepting branding, and customers' diverse feelings about body size. Despite branding that promoted prideful appreciation for "real" bodies, the influence of these body-accepting discourses was constrained by women's internalization of mainstream fat stigma. This resulted in an environment characterized by deep ambivalence toward larger body size, allowing hierarchies between women to be reified rather than dissolved.