You Have the Right to Remain Fat

“My life wouldn’t be easier if I were thin. My life would be easier if this culture wasn’t obsessed with oppressing me because I’m fat. The solution to a problem like bigotry is not to do everything in our power to accommodate the bigotry. It is to get rid of the bigotry" (103).

You Have the Right to Remain Fat by Virgie Tovar

This brief, impactful volume combines vignettes of Tovar’s personal experiences, critical (re)analysis of some of the media and perspectives which contribute to the fatmisia/fatphobia of our culture, and empowering, shouldn’t-be-necessary assertions of all people’s inherent worth. The book is accessibly written, effectively employing short, clear sentences, vivid first-person language, and humor to woo audiences resistant to its messages, without eliding the presence of queerness or academic scholarship in Tovar’s life. Importantly not a book blithely espousing a generalized, polite “body positivity,” Tovar discusses the power of fat activism, the problematics of white feminism, and, essentially, the right we all have to enjoy and fully experience our bodies free from hatred and judgment from ourselves, others, and our culture. The sections analyzing the politics of the body positivity versus fat activism spaces were an especially interesting bonus to me, a really useful and incisive analysis that I hadn’t necessarily been coming to this book for, but which I was excited to find. Subjects this book includes that some readers may be sensitive to (but which others may be thrilled to find sensitively discussed in their literature): fatmisia, bullying, eating disorders.