Exploring and Documenting the Stories and Experiences of Plus-Size Cisgender Women in Karachi

Abstract

The research documents and explores the living stories and experiences of five cisgender plus-size women from Karachi, Pakistan, from the ages of 25-30 years, through an intersectional lens and feminist approach, to understand their relationship with their bodies since childhood to their daily experiences in society that includes their mobility in public and private spaces. Each participant also discusses the representation of plus-size bodies within Karachi society to provide representation in the academia and validate their stories. Plus-size women have complicated relationships with their bodies due to society’s prejudice against big bodies, which is projected in the form of body shaming, policing, and hypersexualization. As a result, this induces body image issues impacting their mobility in public and private spaces. The lack of representation across different mediums such as mass media, social media, literature, and fashion industry plays a huge role in cementing the prejudices embedded in Pakistani society against plus-size women. In conclusion, regardless of all the aforementioned discrimination, disparity, invisibility, and lack of representation, the interviewed women have been resilient, and this thesis is an attempt to reclaim the narratives of plus-size cisgender women in Karachi; provide visibility; validate their stories by making space for them in academia to support future community engaged scholarship; and, native community engagement workers to create strength-based resources.