Associate Professor Kate Manne and Dr. Cat Bohannon Discuss Female Body Image and Evolution

Just in time for International Women’s Day, Prof. Kate Manne, author of “Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia,” and Cat Bohannon, New York Times bestselling author of “Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution,” will lead a discussion about female and fat evolution, addressing topics such as fatphobia, misogyny and morality. 

In their discussion of fat and the female human body, Manne will address moralism, Ozempic, and diet culture, while Bohannon will focus on human evolution and what happens when scientific research doesn't center men and male bodies. 

In “Eve,” Bohannon details the evolution of modern-day human understanding of the female body. “We have to put the female body in the picture,” she writes. “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.”

“Unshrinking” was a finalist for the National Book Award and was listed as a 2024 must-read book by numerous publications, including NPR, The New Yorker and Forbes. The book delves into Manne’s personal experiences and research on size discrimination. As Manne explains it, 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.”

Manne, associate professor of philosophy in the College of Arts and Sciences, focuses on moral, feminist and social philosophy in her research. Her first book, “Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny,” defines misogyny as the hostility women and girls face which serves to enforce gendered norms, even in supposedly post-patriarchal societies. She continues to explore misogyny’s norms and expectations in her second book, “Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women.”

Manne and Bohannan will discuss themes related to this event in a virtual conversation that will be livestreamed on March 6 from 10:00 to 11:00 a.m. The event is free and open to the public and will be hosted by eCornell. 

Link to eCornell Event: https://ecornell.cornell.edu/keynotes/overview/K030625/

“Is Fat Female” is co-sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences and the Departments of Philosophy, Literatures in English, Romance Studies, and Anthropology.