Cornell University speaker event to focus on misogynistic 'fat evolution' and 'fatphobia'

Cornell University hosted a lecture event focused on “fatphobia” for International Women’s Day. 

The event, titled: “Is Fat Female? Evolution, Feminism, and Getting the Story Right,” states on a university webpage advertising the event that the discussion will be about “female and fat evolution, addressing topics such as fatphobia, misogyny and morality.”

A webpage for the event states that topics discussed will include “moralism, Ozempic, and diet culture,” and “human evolution and what happens when scientific research doesn’t center men and male bodies.”

Professor and author Kate Manne, and New York Times bestselling author of the book “Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia,” Cat Bohannon are leading the event.

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Professor Kate Manne has also wrote a book, titled: “Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia.” Cornell’s website states that the book focuses on Manne’s “personal experiences and research on size discrimination,” with Manne focusing on how “fatphobia is a social system that unfairly ranks bodies according to thinness, ‘in terms of not only our health but also our moral, sexual and intellectual status.’”

In a previous book that Manne had wrote, Cornell’s site states that she provided a description of misogyny, saying that it is “hostility women and girls face which serves to enforce gendered norms, even in supposedly post-patriarchal societies.” Manne was wrote two books on “misogyny’s norms,” with the second being named: “Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women.” 

Bohannon’s book also discusses similar ideas in her own book, including how “We have to put the female body in the picture” and “If we don’t, it’s not just feminism that’s compromised. Modern medicine, neurobiology, paleoanthropology, even evolutionary biology all take a hit when we ignore the fact that half of us have breasts.”

[RELATED: Santa Monica College to host event discussing ‘roots of anti-fatness’ and ‘how diet culture is intertwined with systemic oppression’]

The event is sponsored by Cornell University’s College of Arts and Sciences, and by four other departments at the university: Literatures in English, Romance Studies, Anthropology, and Philosophy.

In a seperate website from Cornell that describes the event, the University provided a list of concepts that attendees will take away from the discussion, including: “What the liver and fat have to do with each other,” “Which came first: breasts or butts (and how are they surprisingly linked),” “How science — and more — suffers when we center the male body,” and “How fatphobia and misogyny are linked.”

Campus Reform has contacted the University of Michigan for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.