1) According to the author, how did body positivity’s meaning and message change after it became a part of mainstream culture? What did it originally mean for its creators and the plus-size community?
2) How does the portrayal of women in ‘Shallow Hal’ exemplify misogyny? What does it say about how cis-het men view women?
3) The author discusses how the marketing of ‘Drop Dead Diva’, the Lifetime network, and other products created for women denotes the disdain our culture has for women. Have you noticed the media’s misogyny and bias against women? Looking back, do you remember consuming media that was unfavorable towards women or a woman?
4) In the essay ‘Online Dating’, the author touches on misogynoir, which is the hatred of and prejudice against Black women, as coined by Moya Bailey. What are examples of misogynoir Mekdela mentions in the essay? What are examples throughout the book? What instances of misogynoir have you witnessed or experienced in your life?
5) Mekdela refers to colorism in the essay titled, “The Mindy Project.” How is colorism directly related to white supremacy and anti-Blackness? How are white supremacy and anti-Blackness directly related to each other? How do they function within communities of color?
6) What are Roxane Gay’s critiques of commercialized body positivity in the essay ‘Hunger’? How do these criticisms compare to Mekdela’s critique of mainstream body positivity?
7) How do racism, ableism, capitalism, and white supremacist beauty standards impact the U.S. medical industry and the delivery of healthcare services? How do they impact other U.S. institutions?
8) How do classism and racism skew the way non-Southerners view people in the South and red states as a whole? How are those views fueled by the media?
9) What are the ways in which misogyny manifests within immigrant communities in “Third Culture People in Film”? How did the main characters of these films overcome misogyny within their own communities and in the dominant culture?
10) In ‘Muriel’s Wedding,’ what was Muriel’s main motivation for getting married? How does this motivation symbolize the cultural significance of weddings and marriage overall? How did Muriel’s genuine friendship with Rhonda and their platonic love provide a contrast to this?
11) What is the relationship between colonialism, capitalism, white supremacy, and fatphobia? How would dismantling colonialism, capitalism, and white supremacy also dismantle fatphobia?