Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body (43 page)

1. See Morgan,
   Sisterhood Is Powerful,
   pp. 52123, for this document.
   

2. Amy Collins, "Abreast of the Bra,"
   Lear's
   4, no. 4 (June 1991): 80.
   

3. Kathy Davis, "Remaking the SheDevil: A Critical Look at Feminist Approaches to Beauty," in
   Hypatia
   6, no. 2 (Summer 1991): 23 (emphasis mine).
   

4. Andrea Dworkin,
   WomanHating
   (New York: Dutton, 1974), pp. 11314 (emphasis in original).
   

5. Among the "classics": Susan Brownmiller,
   Against Our Will
   (New York: Bantam, 1975); Mary Daly,
   GynEcology
   (Boston: Beacon, 1978); Davis,
   Women, Race, and Class;
   Dworkin,
   WomanHating;
   Germaine Greer,
   The Female Eunuch
   (New York: McGrawHill, 1970); Susan Griffin,
   Rape: The Power of Consciousness
   (New York: Harper and Row, 1979), and
   Woman and Nature
   (New York: Harper and Row, 1978); Adrienne Rich, "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence,"
   Signs 5,
   no. 4 (1980): 63160. Also see the anthologies collected by Morgan,
   Sisterhood Is Powerful,
   and Vivian Gornick and Barbara Moran,
   Woman in Sexist Society
   (New York: Mentor, 1971).
   

6. Omolade, "Hearts of Darkness," p. 354.
   

7. Susan Brownmiller,
   Femininity
   (New York: Ballantine, 1984).
   

8. Foucault,
   Discipline and Punish,
   p. 138.
   

9. Michel Foucault, "The Eye of Power," in his
   Power/Knowledge,
   ed. and trans. C. Gordo (New York: Pantheon, 1977), p. 155.
   

10. Even in the politics of appearance, of course, external coercion may figure infor example, when women are threatened with loss of their jobs unless they lose weight, or are fired for looking too old.
    

11. See in particular Michel Foucault, "The Subject and Power," interview in Hubert Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow,
    Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics
    (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983).
    

12. See, for example, Harry Brod,
    A Mensch Among Men: Explorations in Jewish Masculinity
    (Freedom, Calif.: The Crossing Press, 1988); Michael Kimmel and Michael Messner, eds.,
    Men's Lives,
    2d ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1992); Michael Kimmel, ed.,
    Men Confront Pornography
    (New York: Meridian, 1991); Richard Majors and Janet Mancini Billson,
    Cool Pose: The Dilemmas of Black Manhood in America
    (New York: Lexington Books, 1991); Brian Pronger,
    The Arena of Masculinity: Sports, Homosexuality, and the Meaning of Sex
    (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990).
    

13. Diane Johnson, "Something for the Boys,"
    New York Review of Books
    (Jan. 16, 1992): 13.
    

14. The phrase "cultural dope" comes from Anthony Giddens. Giddens stresses that "every competent actor has a wideranging, yet intimate and subtle, knowledge of the society of which he or she is a member"
    (New Rules of Sociological Method
    [New York: Basic Books, 1976], p. 73). Giddens, however, does
    not
    take this to meanas many "postmodern" writers havethat we are free agents with regard to culture, which, on the contrary, he
    

regards as strongly recursive, reproductive, and "socializing." Giddens's point is that this socialization is not done behind people's backs, but involves their active participation.

1. Sandra Bartky,
   Femininity and Domination
   (New York: Routledge, 1990); Wendy Chapkis,
   Beauty Secrets
   (Boston: South End Press, 1986); Rita Freedman,
   Beauty Bound
   (London: Columbus Books, 1986); Frigga Haug, ed.,
   Female Sexualization: A Collective Work of Memory
   (London: Verso, 1987); Robin Lakoff and Raquel Scherr,
   Face Value: The Politics of Beauty
   (Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984); and Naomi Wolf,
   Beauty Secrets
   (New York: William Morrow, 1991). Wolf's book has received a good deal of media attention and shows some promise of stirring up a new generation of young women about such issues. See also Kathryn Pauly Morgan, "Women and the Knife: Cosmetic Surgery and the Colonization of Women's Bodies," in
   Hypatia
   6, no. 3 (Fall 1991): 2553; and Iris Marion Young, "Breasted Experience," in her
   Throwing Like a Girl and Other Essays in Feminist Philosophy and Social Theory
   (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), pp. 189209.
   

2. Joan Jacobs Brumberg,
   Fasting Girls: The Emergence of Anorexia Nervosa as a Modern Disease
   (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988).
   

3. Susie Orbach,
   Hunger Strike: The Anorectic's Struggle as a Metaphor for Our Age
   (New York: W. W. Norton, 1986); Kim Chernin,
   The Obsession: Reflections on the Tyranny of Slenderness
   (New York: Harper and Row, 1981), and
   The Hungry Self: Women, Eating, and Identity
   (New York: Harper and Row, 1985).
   

4. Richard Mohr,
   Gay Ideas: Outing and Other Controversies
   (Boston: Beacon Press, 1992), p. 142.
   

5. Emily Martin,
   The Woman in the Body,
   pp. 12835.
   

6. Joan Peters, "Mittelschnerz: A Lady's Complaint upon Reaching the Age of 44,"
   Michigan Quarterly Review
   (Fall 1991): 68593. Peters ends her piece with a plea for us to "fuse" these "divided camps" which have "chopped us each into ineffectual bits" (p. 692).
   

7. Ann Snitow, "A Gender Diary," in Marianne Hirsch and Evelyn Fox Keller, eds.,
   Conflicts in Feminism
   (New York: Routledge, 1990), p. 9.
   

8. Sherman Silber,
   How to Get Pregnant with the New Technology
   (New York: Wagner, 1991), p. 375. In fact, such protocols involve tremendous commitment of time and expense, as well as subjection of the body to numerous invasive procedures and powerful drugs: a twoweeklong series of injections to stimulate ovulation in the donor, replace the necessary hormones in the recipient, and synchronize the cycles of donor and recipient, numerous ultrasounds and blood tests, the surgical procedures of follicle aspiration and gamete intrafallopian transfer from donor to recipient, and continued hormonal supplements and monitoring for three months for the recipient. All this, Silber assures his readers, is "really not that difficult for the patient" (p. 276).
   

9. Susan Faludi,
   Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women
   (New York: Crown, 1991).
   

This essay grew out of a shorter piece, "Eating Disorders: The Feminist Challenge to the Concept of Pathology," which was written for Drew Leder, ed.,
The Body in Medical Thought and Practice
(Dordrecht, Holland: Kluwer Press, 1992). Early versions, under the original name, were delivered at Le Moyne College and at the University of Missouri at Columbia. I thank all those who commented on those versions.

1. Kim Chernin,
   The Obsession: Reflections on the Tyranny of Slenderness
   (New York: Harper and Row, 1981); see also her
   The Hungry Self: Women, Eating, and Identity
   (New York: Harper and Row, 1985).
   

2. Rachel Calam and Peter Slade, "Sexual Experience and Eating Problems in Female Undergraduates,"
   International Journal of Eating Disorders
   8 (1989): 392 97; Alexander McFarlane et al., "Posttraumatic Bulimia and Anorexia Nervosa,"
   International Journal of Eating Disorders
   7 (1988): 7058; Justin Schechter et al., "Sexual Assault and Anorexia Nervosa,"
   International Journal of Eating Disorders
   6 (1987): 31316.
   

3. Catherine SteinerAdair, "The Body Politic: Normal Female Adolescent Development and Eating Disorders," Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University Graduate School of Education, 1987.
   

4. Susie Orbach's analysis is presented in detail in
   Hunger Strike: The Anorectic's Struggle as a Metaphor for Our Age
   (New York: W. W. Norton, 1986). Orbach is also cofounder of the Women's Therapy Center Institute in New York and the Women's Therapy Centre in London, which have developed techniques of treatment grounded in object relations and feminist theory.
   

5. See in particular Marlene Boskind White and William White, "Bulimarexia: A HistoricalSociocultural Perspective," in Kelly Brownell and John Foreyt, eds.,
   Handbook of Eating Disorders
   (New York: Basic Books, 1986), pp. 35366; Lisa Fabian, "Body Image and Eating Disturbance in Young Females,"
   International Journal of Eating Disorders
   8 (1989): 6374; D. Greenfeld et al., "Eating Behavior in an Adolescent Population,"
   International Journal of Eating Disorders
   6 (1987): 99111; Robert Klesges et al., "SelfHelp Dieting Strategies in College Males and Females,"
   International Journal of Eating Disorders
   6 (1987): 40917; Debbie Vanderheyden et al., "Critical Variables Associated with Binging and Bulimia in a University Population: A Factor Analytic Study,''
   International Journal of Eating Disorders
   7 (1988): 32129.
   

6. See, as paradigmatic of this approach, Paul Garfinkel and Allan Kaplan, "Anorexia Nervosa: Diagnostic Conceptualizations," in Brownell and Foreyt,
   Handbook of Eating Disorders,
   pp. 26682; Harrison Pope and James Hudson, "Is Bulimia Nervosa a Heterogeneous Disorder?"
   International Journal of Eating Disorders
   7 (1988): 15566.
   

7. Craig Johnson and Mary Connors,
   The Etiology and Treatment of Bulimia Nervosa: A Biopsychosocial Perspective
   (New York: Basic Books, 1987).
   

1. H. G. Pope et al., "Is Bulimia a Heterogeneous Disorder?"
   International Journal of Eating Disorders
   7, no. 2:158.
   

2. Joan Jacobs Brumberg,
   Fasting Girls: The Emergence of Anorexia Nervosa as a Modern Disease
   (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988); S. Lee et al., "Anorexia Nervosa in Hong Kong: Why Not More in Chinese?"
   British Journal of Psychiatry
   154 (1989): 68388; Orbach,
   Hunger Strike.
   See also "Reading the Slender Body," in this volume.
   

3. Brumberg,
   Fasting Girls,
   pp. 41125.
   

4. D. J. BenTovim et al., "Bulimia: Symptom and Syndromes in an Urban Population,"
   Australia and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry
   23:7380; A. Crisp et al., "How Common Is Anorexia Nervosa?"
   British Journal of Psychiatry
   128 (1976): 54954; D. Jones et al., "Epidemiology of Anorexia Nervosa in Monroe County, New York: 19601976,"
   Psychosomatic Medicine
   42 (1980): 55158; Marianne Rosenzweig and Jean Spruil, ''Twenty Years After Twiggy: A Retrospective Investigation of BulimicLike Behaviors,"
   International Journal of Eating Disorders
   6 (1987): 5965.
   

5. Presentday clinicians may still occasionally (or more than occasionally) see symptoms like those the nineteenth century diagnosed as "hysterical." The tendency to produce such a diagnosis, however, has greatly diminished. The woman who spends her days sleeping, daydreaming, dissociating, languishing in bed, is far more likely today to be diagnosed as suffering from depressive disorder than from hysteria or neurasthenia. Contemporary clinical descriptions of the personality profile of anorectics are often remarkably similar to those nineteenthcentury medicine constructed as the "hysterical personality"—and, indeed, anorexic behavior was then almost always seen as an hysterical symptom. Today, however, anorexia is associated with other rubrics of disorder: affective, perceptual, narcissistic, depressive.
   

6. Kelly Brownell and John Foreyt, "The Eating Disorders: Summary and Integration," in Brownell and Foreyt,
   Handbook of Eating Disorders, p.
   508.
   

7. Brownell and Foreyt, "The Eating Disorders," p. 507.
   

8. Harrison Pope and James Hudson,
   New Hope for Binge Eaters
   (New York: Harper and Row, 1985).
   

9. Paul Garfinkel and David Garner,
   Anorexia Nervosa: A Multidimensional Perspective
   (New York: Brunner/Mazel, 1982), p. 159.
   

10. Ira Sacker and Marc Zimmer,
    Dying to Be Thin
    (New York: Warner, 1987), p.
    50.
    

11. Vanderheyden et al., "Critical Variables Associated with Binging and Bulimia"; Vanderheyden et al., "Very Low Calorie Diets and Obesity Surgery After 5 Years,"
    International Obesity Newsletter
    3, no. 5 (May 1989): 3338; Brett Silverstein et al., "Possible Causes of the Thin Standard of Bodily Attractiveness for Women,"
    International Journal of Eating Disorders
    5 (1986): 90716.
    

12. Hilde Bruch,
    Eating Disorders
    (New York: Basic Books, 1973), p. 89; Hilde Bruch, "Perceptual and Conceptual Disturbances in Anorexia Nervosa,"
    

Psychosomatic Medicine
24 (1962): 18794.

1. Roberta Marks, "Anorexia and Bulimia: Eating Habits That Can Kill,"
   RN
   (Jan. 1984): 44 (emphasis mine).
   

2. "Feeling Fat in a Thin Society,"
   Glamour
   (Feb. 1984): 198201,25152.
   

3. Kevin Thompson, "Larger Than Life,"
   Psychology Today
   (April 1986): 3944. Also see Sandra Birtchnell et al., "Body Image Distortion in NonEating Disordered Women,"
   International Journal of Eating Disorders
   6 (1987): 38591.
   

4. Linnea Lindholm and G. Terrence Wilson, "Body Image Assessment in Patients with Bulimia Nervosa and Normal Controls,"
   International Journal of Eating Disorders
   7 (1988): 52739; A. Whitehouse et al., "Body Size Estimation,"
   British Journal of Psychiatry
   149 (1986): 98103; M. Willmuth et al., "Body Size Distortion in Bulimia Nervosa,"
   International Journal of Eating Disorders
   4 (1985): 7178.
   

5. Thompson, "Larger Than Life," p. 42; Thomas Cash et al., "The GreatAmericanShapeUp,"
   Psychology Today(April
   1986):3037;D. Goleman, "Dislike of Own Body Found Common Among Women,"
   New York Times,
   March 19, 1985; Dalma Heyn, "Why We're Never Satisfied with Our Bodies," in
   McCall's
   (May 1982); Klesges et al., ''SelfHelp Dieting Strategies."
   

6. In 1991 an article finally appeared in the International Journal of Eating Disorders questioning the value of the concept of Body Image Disturbance and acknowledging that "it has generated little meaningful research despite the attention it has attracted in the last 16 years ,creates confusion both in the mind of the public and in our own . . . [and] suggests progress when there is none. It is certainly sad to abandon a term that seemed such a conceptual breakthrough at first sight, but we believe that it is time to move on to new ideas." (George Hsu and Theresa Sobkiewicz, "Body Image Disturbance: Time to Abandon the Concept for Eating Disorders?" International Journal of Eating Disorders 10, no. 1 [Jan. 1991]: 28.) I applaud Hsu and Sobkiewicz for being willing to "move on," but I find their suggestion limited, in that they seem to expect to discover in the new research on "body attitudes and feelings" the distinctive "pathology" that is lacking in the concept of Body Image Disturbance.
   

7. See Garfinkel and Garner,
   Anorexia Nervosa;
   Craig Johnson and Darryl Pure, "Assessment of Bulimia: A Multidimensional Model," in Brownell and Foreyt,
   Handbook of Eating Disorders,
   pp. 40649; Reinhold Laessle et al., "Cognitive Correlates of Depression in Patients with Eating Disorders,"
   International Journal of Eating Disorders
   7 (1988): 68186; Deborah Thompson et al., "The Heterogeneity of Bulimic Symptomatology: Cognitive and Behavioral Dimensions,"
   International Journal of Eating Disorders
   6 (1987): 21534.
   

8. Garfinkel and Garner,
   Anorexia Nervosa,
   p. 159.
   

9. W. Stewart Agras and Betty Kirkley, "Bulimia: Theories of Etiology", in Brownell and Foreyt,
   Handbook of Eating Disorders,
   pp. 36778; F. M. Berg, "Starvation Stages in Weightloss Patients Similar to Famine Victims,"
   International Obesity Newsletter
   3 (April 1989): 27.
   

10. "SemiStarvation Diets Gain in Popularity,"
    International Obesity Newsletter
    3 (April 1989): 25, 2830.