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In The Hyper(in)visible Fat Woman Gailey investigates the interface between fat women's perceptions of their bodies and of the social expectations and judgments placed on them. The book explores the phenomenon of 'hyper(in)visibility', the seemingly paradoxical social position of being paid exceptional attention while simultaneously being erased

The concern globally over the "obesity epidemic" has become one of the most widely discussed social problems over the last twenty or so years. There is an intense focus from the media, popular culture, government agencies, and medical community about the harms of "obesity," which includes strategies for eradicating the "obesity epidemic." Public discussions of "excess weight" typically imply that fat persons are responsible for their body size, and public health policy recommendations follow from that assumption. Through the voices of 74 women of size, I demonstrate the ways in which the "obesity epidemic" discourse is a form of symbolic violence. Interviewees discussed countless acts of public humiliation, blocked opportunities, and fears about attending appointments with health care practitioners because of the stigma, discrimination, and mistreatment they receive. Moreover, the anti-fat rhetoric made interviewees feel responsible for the oppression. The violence manifested through the "obesity epidemic" rhetoric creates and perpetuates the phenomenon of hyper(in)visibilty, a phenomenon where marginalized bodies are simultaneously paid tremendous attention and dismissed. I conclude by urging sociologists to include body size in their intersectional research, teaching, and activism.

The present study is an exploratory examination of the influence of social and organizational features on respondents' attributions of responsibility for wrongdoing within an organization. Respondents read a vignette of organizational wrongdoing that included the manipulation of social features, such as whether the organizational actor was following orders or acting on his volition (social role) and if the actor tried to cover up his actions or not (deed), and organizational features, such as standard operating procedures (SOP) and institutionalized mental schemas. Following the vignette, respondents made attributional judgments to both the individual actor and organization based on a multidimensional measure of responsibility. Results indicated that the actor's role within the organization, his actions or deeds, and organizational SOP significantly impacted how respondents attributed responsibility (on multiple dimensions) to either the individual or organization. Moreover, results indicated that women and men tended to attribute responsibility differently. Recommendations are made to improve future tests of the integrated model.

In this manuscript, the voices of women of size in North America and Finland indicate that there is a shared experience of being fat. Based on cross-cultural analysis of our respective empirical findings, we argue that there is a shared Western fat lived experience that perpetuates a stigmatized gendered landscape of living with a fat body. The emergent themes tended to revolve around two similar contradictions—the phenomenon of hyper(in)visibility and a belief their fatness is a temporary or liminal state—both of which lead to an internalization of fat hatred. We argue that these findings stem from the tremendous stigma and mistreatment that both samples of women face in their daily lives. The present study contributes to the literature by addressing two research lacunas: 1) the lack of cross-cultural research in fat studies; and 2) the limited mainstream feminist research from the perspective of fat women.

The topic of female researchers interviewing male subjects has received previous attention, but few scholarly works focus specifically on sensitive topics such as sexual behaviors. The discrepancy suggests that even though women researchers interview men about sensitive issues, sexuality still seems out of bounds. Based on our research, we found it intellectually and emotionally challenging to interview men about sexually degrading behaviors. In the present article, we focus on the gender performances by both the interviewees and interviewers, including how the structure of the interview affects gendered interactions in interviews and the vulnerability we experienced as a result. We conclude by suggesting a few strategies that future women researchers can employ when conducting cross-gender, in-depth interviews with men about sex. We also raise questions for feminist researchers about how best to handle sexist, racist, and derogatory remarks made by interviewees.

AbstractThis paper explores two of the most important challenges facing contemporary scholars who seek to assign blame for deviance in organizational contexts. The first concerns the selection of an appropriate level of analysis. The second focuses on the social meaning of intent, or willfulness, also called mens rea in criminal trials. We suggest that scholarly worldviews play a central role in determining how these issues are discussed in the literature, thereby impacting the assignment of blame. Throughout, we use the case of the Tuskegee syphilis study to illustrate key issues.