Thin and Right-Wing: Your Body as a Political Weapon

Thin is back and she’s thinner than ever. From Skinny Tok and cosmetic weight loss injections to trad wife influencers and far-right femininity, this episode draws on Kate Manne’s book Unshrinking to explore how women are taught to shrink themselves in response to a right-wing political landscape. How do we talk about this trend among celebrities without commenting on individual women’s bodies? What’s the origin story of the BMI? How does misogyny and racism find an ally in fatphobia? TikTok: ⁠⁠lilyo.farrell⁠⁠ Instagram: ⁠⁠lilyo.farrell⁠⁠ Substack: ⁠⁠lilyofarrell⁠⁠ Guests:⁠ Kate Manne Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia Kate's Substack: More to Hate No Worries If Not! is written, hosted and produced by Lily O'Farrell. The script editors were Jackie O'Farrell and Will Hilton, also produced by Will Hilton. Theme music composed by Meg Jenkins. Sources: Children’s Commissioner: Young people with eating disorders in England on the rise (2023) BEAT eating disorders: Statistics for Journalists The Independent: The people most likely to use weight loss jabs, according to new research (2026) Institute for Employment Statements: Weigh more and get paid less: why the obesity wage penalty for women matters (2023) Unshrinking, Kate Manne (2024) BBC News, TikTok blocks searches for extreme thinness 'skinnytok' hashtag (2025) Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism, Sarah Wynn-Williams (2025) What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat, Aubrey Gordon (2020) Fat Is a Feminist Issue, Susie Orbach (1978) Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fatphobia, Sabrina Strings (2019) 100+ women’s rights groups warn against racist weaponisation of VAWG, the End Violence Against Women Coalition (2025) The New York Times: Who Is Liv Schmidt, and Why Was She Barred From TikTok? (2024) Reddit: LivSchmidtsnark The Cut: Inside Influencer Liv Schmidt's Subscriber-Only Group Chat (2025) Evie: Banned For Being Honest? Meet Liv Schmidt, The Girl Who Made Skinny Go Viral (2025) Evie: Ballerina Farm And The New American Dream (2024) KPCW: Ballerina Farm pauses raw milk sales after samples fail health tests (2026) Going Mainstream: How Extremists Are Taking Over Julia Ebner (2023) Pink-Pilled: Women and the Far Right Lois Shearing (2025) Wikipedia: Karen Carpenter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices