ALL PHOTOS BY MICHAEL POLEY/POLEY CREATIVE FOR ALLGO
Author, Celeste Hamilton Dennis' article, please click here.
The co-working office Rebecca Alexander has chosen for her latest collection has all the hallmarks of good stock photography—minimalist space, clean lines, lack of bold colors. On this Saturday, she is walking around with a detailed list of shots of plus-size folks in a work environment, confident in her directives to the photographer. She knows what she wants.
Alexander is on a mission to diversify media. As the Portland-based founder of AllGo, an app for the plus community to rate the comfort and accessibility of public spaces, she is keenly aware of the lack of positive visibility for bigger bodies. Her project, the first free, exclusively plus-size stock photo library, is a small start in confronting America’s pervasive fat bias.
A recent Harvard study shows that although rates of bias against sexual orientation and race have gone down over the past decade, they’ve gone up for weight. We see this play out in medical spaces, where doctors routinely blame weight for all health issues, in workplaces where plus-size employees are less likely to be promoted, and in mainstream media, where thin bodies are the norm.
“Stock photos are not going to solve these deep-rooted problems,” Alexander says. “But they will inspire people to do better.”
“Everywhere you look, there are these stories that are so incredibly limiting. They’re focused on the ‘human experience,’ which is overwhelmingly White, almost exclusively able-bodied, and always thin,” she says. “Thin people can speak to the human experience. Fat people can only speak to the tragedy of being fat. There is a level of normalcy and routine that is implicitly denied for us.”
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