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Women En Large
These extraordinary photographs of powerful and beautiful fat women will change your image of beauty forever. The pictures and text combine to send the strongest possible message: We will no longer let society define beauty!
- GenresPhotographyArtNonfiction
116 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1994
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 4, 2008
Women En Large is not simply an excellent book--it is a healing book. The wholeness and serenity of the nude, fat women who confront the reader silently offer their self-acceptance to the person holding the book. Here is an antidote to the poison of body-hatred, a counterbalance to the toxic sea of unreal body images that flood over us in waves from almost every media outlet. These beautiful images of real, unashamed fat women are so powerful, and the testimony of the women in the book is so forthright that Women En Large may frighten some, and anger others or make them uncomfortable. Yet the book stands, as the women it portrays stand, as the embodiment of embracing your body exactly as it is. The book is a kind of medicine and every woman who is unsure of how to accept her own body can use it and partake of its courage.
September 22, 2012
Beyond excellent photo essay of women who are large. This well done book displays women of size as beautiful subjects who are no different from anyone else. The author even appears in 7 photos herself. The pictures are from a slide show the author and many of the models have done on feminism and being fat. I hope that they are still doing those lectures and that a new book comes from them soon.
November 7, 2007
Important book. Dismantles common myths about weight and is a truly beautiful book.
November 24, 2023
Necessary and still ahead of its time in 2023, let alone its original 1990s publication.
Pull quotes/notes
"Ninety-five percent of all diets fail within five years, and each one that fails increases the strain on your system and the health risks related to yo-yo dieting. A health professional in the San Francisco Bay Area puts it his way: 'If you had a disease that was not fatal in the near term but was statistically likely to shorten your life by a few years, and we had a "cure" that worked in only five percent of the cases, while in the other ninety-five percent it was likely to shorten your life even more, would you take it? Would we be ethical in encouraging you to take it?' (Hyman, Sempos, Saltsman & Glinsman,
'Evidence for Success of Caloric Restriction in Weight Loss and Control,' Annals of Internal Medicine, September 1993.)" (95)
"Cynthia McQuillin: I've spent my entire life looking into mirors and not seeing what's there. I felt just as huge at 150 pounds as I have at 350 because I'd been taught to trust my reflection in someone else's eyes more than what my mirror told me." (97)
"Bernadette Bosky: The myths about fat and sexuality may be among the most widespread lies about us, and the most damaging. ... Given the right frame of mind and the right partner, it is amazing how little effect size and weight can have.
Often fat people are thought to be asexual, not only undesirable, but beyond any desire themselves. What we are instead, I think, is shy and full of shame.
I personally was told that fat would affect not my own passion, but my attractiveness in the eyes of others. This, I have found, is both true and false. In my experience, being fat does decrease the number of potential partners, especially when one is young. In high school and college, I didn't know where or how to look for boyfriends, and I'd been subtly told that I shouldn't even bother until I was thin.
What I didn't realize then was that while my potential lovers may have been fewer, they were out there--and would be as wonderful as could be hoped for, once I found them. I think that over the years, I did three major things right: refuse to settle for partners who made me feel bad about myself; seek out men who like my body but want a relationship based on many other kinds of attraction as well; and join a special-interest community which is just a little bit less crazed about fat than most of our culture.
My partners appreciate me, not because I'm fat, but not despite the fact, either." (98)
"Nothing could strike closer to the core of the agony of being fat. It's all your fault, and is alvass all your fault. Even if everything else in your life goes perfectly (work that you love, ideal relationships, terrific children, and the most beautiful garden in town), you still always know you're a failure because you can't control your body, can't keep the discipline, can't fit the standard. So what if it's impossible? It's still your fault that you can't do it." (100)
"...your ongoing reasons to despise yourself are written on your "pretty face" and measured in the size clothes you buy off the rack. If you have to shop at a 'fat store' because other stores don't sell clothes you can wear, hating yourself is easier still." (100)
"A woman talking about how her high blood pressure 'vanished' when she went to a doctor who used an oversize cuff big enough to truly encircle her arm." (109)
Pull quotes/notes
"Ninety-five percent of all diets fail within five years, and each one that fails increases the strain on your system and the health risks related to yo-yo dieting. A health professional in the San Francisco Bay Area puts it his way: 'If you had a disease that was not fatal in the near term but was statistically likely to shorten your life by a few years, and we had a "cure" that worked in only five percent of the cases, while in the other ninety-five percent it was likely to shorten your life even more, would you take it? Would we be ethical in encouraging you to take it?' (Hyman, Sempos, Saltsman & Glinsman,
'Evidence for Success of Caloric Restriction in Weight Loss and Control,' Annals of Internal Medicine, September 1993.)" (95)
"Cynthia McQuillin: I've spent my entire life looking into mirors and not seeing what's there. I felt just as huge at 150 pounds as I have at 350 because I'd been taught to trust my reflection in someone else's eyes more than what my mirror told me." (97)
"Bernadette Bosky: The myths about fat and sexuality may be among the most widespread lies about us, and the most damaging. ... Given the right frame of mind and the right partner, it is amazing how little effect size and weight can have.
Often fat people are thought to be asexual, not only undesirable, but beyond any desire themselves. What we are instead, I think, is shy and full of shame.
I personally was told that fat would affect not my own passion, but my attractiveness in the eyes of others. This, I have found, is both true and false. In my experience, being fat does decrease the number of potential partners, especially when one is young. In high school and college, I didn't know where or how to look for boyfriends, and I'd been subtly told that I shouldn't even bother until I was thin.
What I didn't realize then was that while my potential lovers may have been fewer, they were out there--and would be as wonderful as could be hoped for, once I found them. I think that over the years, I did three major things right: refuse to settle for partners who made me feel bad about myself; seek out men who like my body but want a relationship based on many other kinds of attraction as well; and join a special-interest community which is just a little bit less crazed about fat than most of our culture.
My partners appreciate me, not because I'm fat, but not despite the fact, either." (98)
"Nothing could strike closer to the core of the agony of being fat. It's all your fault, and is alvass all your fault. Even if everything else in your life goes perfectly (work that you love, ideal relationships, terrific children, and the most beautiful garden in town), you still always know you're a failure because you can't control your body, can't keep the discipline, can't fit the standard. So what if it's impossible? It's still your fault that you can't do it." (100)
"...your ongoing reasons to despise yourself are written on your "pretty face" and measured in the size clothes you buy off the rack. If you have to shop at a 'fat store' because other stores don't sell clothes you can wear, hating yourself is easier still." (100)
"A woman talking about how her high blood pressure 'vanished' when she went to a doctor who used an oversize cuff big enough to truly encircle her arm." (109)
September 13, 2025
Gorgeous photos and a lovely exploration of women's bodies.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews