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All articles that appear here have been submitted and reprinted with the permission of the authors. Copyrights are retained by the original authors and you must contact them for permission to reprint. If you have something you'd like to submit yourself please send it to [email protected]
Feminist Perspectives on Eating Disorders
by: Melanie
"When you have no sense of physical integrity -- a sense that your own health
is important, that your body, regardless of shape, is something that
requires care and feeding and a basic respect for the biological organism
that it is -- a very simple, all-too-common, truly frightening thing happens:
You cross over from a vague wish to be thinner into a no-holds-barred attack
on your flesh. You stop seeing your body as your own, as something
valuable... " (Hornbacher, 108)
There is no way of truly knowing how many women are engaged in a war
against themselves. Studies indicate that anywhere between 1 and 25 percent
of all women exhibit some disordered eating behaviors. Even very
conservative studies estimate that 90% of eating disordered persons are
women. What do these demographics indicate? Are women inherently neurotic,
vain, or shallow? Are they naturally consumed by concerns over their
appearance? As a woman struggling to overcome bulimarexia I have faced
these stereotypes. I have turned them on myself at times, when I relapsed
in therapy or was prescribed a new medication. This project, which evolved
into a survey of feminist literature on the causes of eating problems, has
helped to liberate me from that thought-trap. Yes, women with eating
disorders are obsessed with weight, scales, and mirrors. But the oppressive
treatment of women over the course of history has undeniably contributed to
the modern fad of self-destructive dieting. It is predominantly a woman�s
problem -- statistics dictate as much. Meanwhile, inasmuch as society has
created the problem, society bears the responsibility for eradicating it.
Otherwise it risks losing some of its best and brightest young women to a
tenacious, maddening, and often fatal disease.
The old adage holds true...
Popular Victorian thinking held that women were "slaves of their bodily
appetites", an attitude long asserted by the Church. Moreover, food and sex
were inextricably linked in the feminine psyche: "appetite was regarded as a
barometer of sexuality" (Brumberg 175). Aesthetes like Saint Catherine
modeled the stringent standards held for women in the 19th century, when the
ideal was "a physique that symbolized rejection of all carnal appetites"
(Brumberg 182). The same is true today -- people, especially women, are
judged based on their appearance, and obesity is equated with a lack of
self-control. So today and yesterday it has been "incumbent upon women to
control their appetite in order to encode their body with the correct social
messages" (Brumberg 186). And what is that message? "Women are expected to
be the custodians and embodiments of virtue" (Fallon 11). Appetite, be it
hunger or lust, is socially unacceptable in a woman -- "their body as
repository of appetite fills them with shame" (Chernin 115). Girth is an
undeniable testament that one�s appetite, for food at least, has been
gratified.
Causing my brother to stumble...
If the female body causes men to sin, then it must be modified
accordingly. Many eating disordered women exhibit extremely ambivalent
feelings toward sexuality, which could easily be a result of the blame for
sexual lasciviousness assigned them. Hornbacher supports this, writing that
the seeming prudishness of anorectics is "less related to [their] own fear
of sex -- I personally was not afraid of sex, merely ashamed that it so
fascinated me -- than to a fear that other people will see them, and judge
them, as sexual" (40). Again, women are given clear messages from girlhood
that their sexual appetites should be a source of shame. Denial of one�s
secondary sexual traits translates to a denial of one�s sexual nature.
Whose body is it, anyway?
This sense of objectification goes beyond what women see and informs their
very realities. Inundated with pornographic images, women are aware of "an
audience whose members believe it is their birthright to look at women�s
bodies" (Fallon 40). It is clearly no coincidence that between one- and
two-thirds of all women with eating disorders have been sexually abused
(Thompson 47). Both of these conditions relate to an inability to see one�s
body as one�s own -- sexual abuse as cause, eating disorder effect.
Furthermore, the androgynization of one�s body via extreme restrictive
dieting may be a method of warding off more unwanted sexual attention.
That androgyny has become the ideal presents an unavoidable challenge to
women in this culture, where feminine beauty remains a form of currency.
Esther Rothblum notes, "fatness in women is associated with downward social
mobility." Meanwhile, she writes that marriage is still a viable way for
women to achieve upward mobility, and the more beautiful a woman is (by
society�s standards), the more likely it is that she will marry well (Fallon
56). Marriage remains so valuable to women economically because "men earn
more than women in nearly every job." Appropriately, the exceptions to this
rule are the professions in which women�s bodies are most literally
currency: modeling and prostitution (Fallon 62). Physical beauty affects a
woman�s potential for success in all venues: "women�s self-image, their
social and economic success, and even their survival can still be determined
largely by their beauty and by the men it allows them to attract" (Fallon
9). By so limiting a woman�s potential for financial independence, society
makes it very clear that beauty equals success. And thinness equals beauty.
And androgyny equals thinness.
That eating disorders are a "rich, white, heterosexual disease" is a myth
(online source 1). Both Kim Chernin and Becky Thompson worked with women
who did not fit the stereotype, including women of color, immigrants, and
lesbians. They emphasize the interplay of thinness with a sense of
assimilation and belonging for minority women. According to a homosexual
woman, "being successful heterosexually depended upon being thin" (Thompson
39). One immigrant from Panama recalls, "she [my mother] was preparing me
to become American... that meant slender. And that meant diet" (Chernin 6).
Their separate experiences and reactions support the "thinness as currency"
theory.
But what about the Women�s Movement?
Studies show a marked correlation between eating disorders and confusion
over sex roles. Lewis and Johnson (1985) found that "eating disordered
women lack a solid sense of sex role orientation, and this role ambiguity
leads to lowered self esteem" (Jones 110). Rost et al (1982) noted a
significant discrepancy between their "liberated" attitudes and their
"rigid" behaviors (Jones 111). Difficulty in identifying oneself within
stereotypical gender roles may contribute to the fact that a
disproportionately high number of eating disordered men are gay (Siever
252).
Kim Chernin, focusing on women, defines eating disorders as the answer to
"silent questions about the legitimacy of female development" (32). She
points out the dichotomous nature of this answer as "tailoring ourselves to
the specifications of this world we are so eager to enter" and "stripping
ourselves of everything we have traditionally been as women" (33). Finally
she writes, "Women today, because they cannot bring their natural body into
culture without shame and apology, are driven to attack and destroy that
body...there are no indications that the female body has been invited to
enter culture" (186). Basically, she speaks to the tug-of-war that has
defined the feminine experience since the Women�s Movement. While women
have been asked to join the world of work (if somewhat reluctantly), they
are still expected to fulfill their traditional role as objects. They are
told that they must adhere to beauty standards in order to be successful,
which cheapens any strides toward that success. Meanwhile, that modern
standard of beauty is the androgynous form, an affirmation of male
superiority.
Is it mere coincidence that androgyny has come into vogue at a time when
women are making great strides toward asserting their intrinsic worth?
Writer Naomi Wolf thinks not: "redefining a woman�s womanly shape as by
definition "too fat"... countered the historical groundswell of female success
with a mass conviction of female failure, a failure defined as implicit in
womanhood itself" (Fallon 97). In other words, as women have become
increasingly visible in our culture, their natural bodies have come to be
seen as an insult to cultural sensibilities. Notably, the modern ideal
female form is significantly smaller than is natural. Dieting is, after
all, a way to shrink. As Rothblum points out, "Physical characteristics of
dominance include increased size and use of space, yet women are expected to
reduce weight and take up less space" (Fallon 71). Thompson writes,
"discrimination against fat women reflects a society hostile to women who
take up space and refuse to put boundaries around their hunger" (15).
Society deems it prudent to deny women every appetite: for food, for
success, for power, for a voice... The cult of thinness is a stern rebuke to a
woman�s request for affirmation, reflecting "an obsession with female
obedience" (Fallon 97). Men, who control the standards of beauty, have
probably idealized thinness for women as a reaction to feminine assertion.
After all, the ideal feminine form is pre-pubescent and child-like, and
"there is something less disturbing about the vulnerability and helplessness
of a child, and something truly disturbing about the body and mind of a
mature woman" (Thompson 5). A mature woman has the strength to fight for
her rights, whereas a child may comply willingly with authority. Eating
disorders, so detrimental to one�s physical well being, do in fact render
most patients absolutely helpless.
Individual timing...
The desire for control that helps define eating disorders is accompanied by
seemingly contradictory dynamics. For one thing, many eating disordered
persons claim that they do not deserve to eat. History teaches that women
"should suffer to attain an ideal, whether it be gender-specific beauty or
the more general ideals of salvation, subjectivity, or autonomy" (Fallon
42). The self-sacrificing woman remains an idol; consider the Catholic
pre-occupation with Mary and with female aesthetes. This is reflected in
the portions of food that women feel comfortable eating, which "testify to
and reinforce their sense of social inferiority" (Fallon 98). According to
Wolf, women "do not feel entitled to enough food because [they] have been
taught to go with less than [they] need since birth" (Fallon 99). This
lesson easily translates to a low sense of self-worth. The physiological
experience of an eating disorder is similar to that of starving, but the
starvation is self-imposed. Is it a great leap, then, to view an eating
disorder as a slow suicide? As one patient eloquently states, "Eating
disorders are the most socially acceptable way to self-destruct" (Thompson
102).
Conflict without, conflict within. As a result, women with eating
disorders often "feel confused and don�t know what to do with their lives.
They have little sense of who they are or what they believe" (Chernin 20).
Again, an eating disorder becomes an identity, complete with society�s stamp
of approval.
Unfortunately, popular understanding often focuses on the individual
experience of an eating disorder without taking into account the cultural
context that helps spawn the illness. Chernin recalls the portrayal of
eating disorders in the media during the 1980�s, its emphasis on the
"bizarre symptomatology" and its failure to recognize that "the women
involved in this behavior often abandon their careers and their
studies... return home, become extremely dependent on their parents", that
"their growth and development as human beings virtually comes to an end"
(13). Eating disorders prevent one from growing up and entering the world
as an independent being. The focus on an eating disorder�s "bizarre"
symptoms keeps it at the level of individual pathology. Thompson equates
this dynamic to "historical amnesia", in which an official version of
history, informed by the interests of those in power, is substituted for
what actually happens. She writes, "historical amnesia tells us that each
injustice is an isolated incident rather than a part of a larger historical
framework" (101). When the media portrays eating disorders as mental
illness, entirely individual and without cultural referents, it gives us all
permission to be apathetic. We can ignore the plight of women in society,
ignore the fact that the psyche of an eating disordered woman is an
embodiment of society�s ambivalence toward women: their human potential as
well as their physical form.
And finally, my experience...
Most of the women with whom I am acquainted count calories and fat grams,
talk about their bodies with loathing, stare into mirrors with horror,
exercise with the express purpose of losing weight, binge and fast, and
exhibit other behaviors that may belie an eating disorder. We all
understand that "issues of appearance are essentially currency for women�s
access to power in this country, and thinness is a critical component"
(Thompson 10). We want simultaneously to appear strong and non-threatening,
attractive and self-sufficient, smart and sexy. Thinness seems to embody
all this and more. Somehow, women have never received "the message that
their bodies are valuable simply because they are in them" (Fallon 104).
My therapist will tell you that I have made especial progress lately. I
wrote the people I met in New York about my disorder, hoping to eradicate
some stereotypes and raise awareness. The responses have been largely
positive. I also found a support chatroom online at
www.something-fishy.org. Naturally this attracts mostly women, and we have
chatted about many subjects I touched on in this paper. Many have talked
about their self-hatred, their lack of identity, their confused
relationships with the other sex. Peppered throughout our chats are
affirmations and questions like "what do you like about yourself?" and "what
are you good at, apart from your disorder?". Meanwhile, many of the women
come in cherishing their disorder -- they know they have achieved the ideal,
they know they have found an image that conveys all that they want to be.
Eating disordered becomes firmly entrenched -- most of us will struggle with
our illnesses for the rest of our lives. They are so comfortable, so safe,
so rewarding in our everyday interactions with society. Abra Fortune
Chernik once said "Gaining weight and pulling my head out of the toilet was
the most political ac I ever committed" (Hornbacher 5). For a woman,
gaining weight -- embracing one�s natural feminine form, daring to take up
space -- is an act of civil disobedience. I am rallying the strength to take
that stand, but again, we cannot focus on the recovery of individuals.
Women need to oppose the system that still oppresses us, the industry that
still objectifies us. Or else we will continue to lose our sisters and
ourselves to eating disordered behaviors. These behaviors are an acquiesce
to an order to self-destruct.
"I stared at myself in the mirror for a long time. I suddenly felt a split
in my brain: I didn�t recognize her. I divided into two: the self in my
head and the girl in the mirror. It was a strange, not unpleasant feeling
of disorientation, dissociation... I would eventually have that feeling all the
time. Ego and image. Body and brain." (Hornbacher 6)
"Tuck those ribbons under your helmet be a good soldier first my left foot
then my right behind the other... and when I dance for him somebody leave the
light on just in case I like the dancing I can remember where I come from I
walked into your dream and now I�ve forgotten how to dream my own dream... "
(Tori Amos, "Mother" from the album Little Earthquakes, 1991 Atlantic)
Works Cited..
Chernin, Kim. The Hungry Self: Women, Eating, and Identity. New York:
Harper Perennial, 1994.
Fallon, Patricia, et al. (ed.) Feminist Perspectives on Eating Disorders.
New York: The Guilford Press, 1994.
Hornbacher, Marya. Wasted: a Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia. New York:
HarperCollins Publishers, 1998.
Thompson, Becky W. A Hunger So Deep and So Wide: American Women Speak Out
on Eating Problems. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994.
(Articles)
Siever, Michael D. "Sexual Orientation and Gender as Factors in
Socioculturally Acquired Vulnerability to Body Dissatisfaction and Eating
Disorders." Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, vol. 62. Pages
252-260.
(Online resources)
©2000 Melanie.
Reprinted with Permission.
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