Un-dainty fat Jewish daughter: Jewish mothers’ racialized disgust, and embodied recognition across racial difference

Abstract

ABSTRACT This analytical and exo-autoethnography begins with a depiction of how my Jewish family wished to control my fat body to fit into whiteness. I close with a narrative about an interracial and transnational relationship in which I experienced embodied recognition across racial difference. The purpose is to illustrate the broader intersections between Jewish women’s fatness, associations with blackness, internalized antisemitism, assimilation into whiteness, and the links between the African and Jewish diasporas. Jewish mothers frequently critique their daughters’ bodies to try to assimilate into white femininity. Internalized gendered antisemitism creates disgust for one’s own body that is passed down to daughters. My mom wanted me to have a private pride in being Jewish that she could not access because of her gender, but did not want my Jewishness to physically mark me. Historically Jewish women have been associated with fatness, blackness, vulgarity, and lack of femininity. Collective recognition and acceptance of fat bodies across racial difference is possible through the connections between the Jewish and African diasporas and the challenge to white-centric beauty norms within Black communities.