Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 October 2020
This chapter explores offensive language related to physical appearance and physical difference. We discuss perceptions of ugliness and beauty, and offensive language with regard to height, weight, clothes, hair color, and other physical features. We tackle stereotypes and derogatory language against redheaded people, bias against baldness and grey hair, fat shaming, thin shaming, and the claim that abusing overweight people is the “last acceptable bigotry.” The discussion includes historical cases of prejudice against appearance (e.g., the Elephant Man, ugly laws, freak shows, and human zoos) and more contemporary cases.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.