Reflecting on Thin
Two days ago, alone with a colicky baby in arms, I was channel-surfing, when I came upon an HBO documentary called Thin. It was shot in an expensive treatment facility for eating disorders. The profiles of the women featured, with feeding tubes and suicide-attempt scars and some with the ability to vomit on demand, were devastating. At least two of the women prominently featured were from working class families that went into debt to pay for this treatment. And my impression at the end of the documentary was that the prognosis for most of these women is not very cheerful.
When I was reasearching for and writing Sex & War, a book on gendered power and imperial militarism, I began reading more about so-called eating disorders. I also have personal experience with this among my own family members. While watching this film, exclusively recorded in a “recovery-based” tratment facility, I was struck by the scrupulous avoidance of the subject of gendered power, even as it seemed to be the film’s silently screaming subtext. In order to even acknowledge what was happening to them, these women had to be isolated from the rest of society.
My status as a combat veteran, and my activism with other combat veterans, has kept me right up next to the subject of another “disorder” called post-traumatic stress (PTSD). By now, discerning readers have sense my skepticism — declared in terms like “so-called” and scare-quotes — about the whole disease model commonly associated with psychiatry on the one hand and the “recovery movement” on the other.
Labeling these phenomena “disorders” — and legitimating them by inclusion in the DSM-IV — then “treating” the disorders using “recovery” orthodoxies, has not only demonstrated little long term success, seems to close off whole dimensions of investigation of these phenomena.
The fact that 50% of eating disorders are believed to be associated with early sexual abuse, the fact that the most common origin for PTSD is rape, the fact that rape and combat are situation where there are sudden and terrifying losses of control… these connections are always turned inward for resolution, approached with an individual therapeutic orientation, and medicalized with the treatments commodified… this should alert us to something. Beginning with the fact that were women not sexually abused and attacked, and socially subordinated in ways that associate their intrinsic worth with appearance, and stripped of any agency… and begining with the fact that men don’t just take the wrong turn on the way to work one day and end up in combat zones, we might assume that there is a social-power dimension, and therefore a poltical dimension to all these “disorders.”
Childhood sexual abuse, rape, body-image obssession cultivated for profit, and war all attack real human bodies, and they are all exercises of power. The woman who purges, as well as the veteran who self-medicates with alcohol, are both caught in the paradox that they have experienced a fundamental loss of control over their own lives, that they attempt to re-establish control in these highly circumscribed ways, and that even this “control” is lost as it becomes an obssessive ritual. Suddenly, one day, they discover that the ritual itself has become their prison.
One of the interesting things I learned as a soldier was that health (now called medicine as it has become specialized) is something most people can learn. Special Forces includes among its military occupational specialties the SF Medic. That was my specialty before I was promoted out of it. I went to school for a year to learn it. Special Forces has to operate remotely, so the SF Medic has to learn a good deal more than the average Band-Aid-and-Motrin medic. At the end of that year, I knew field sanitation, differential diagnosis, nursing modalities, trauma protocols, basic obstetrics, the prevention and treatment of a host of the most common diseases, rustic anesthesia and surgery, and a bit of veterinary medicine. I pulled teeth for chicken dinners in Honduras. I caught nine babies at Claremore Indian Hospital. I helped remove shrapnel from an abdomen in Venezuela. I saved a horse in Ferrier, Haiti. On and on… but the point is, I didn’t have to attend eight years of medical training, and I never required a multi-million dollar facility to treat helminths in Panama or Shigella in East Africa.
Ivan Illich — an Austro-Russian priest, who worked extensively in Mexico — wrote a modest little tome in 1973, called Tools for Conviviality, in which, among other thngs, he made a scathing critique of “medicine.” De Clarke, my friend and the editor for Sex & War, sent me a copy of that book a while back, and in the first chapter I found Illich articulating what I had come to feel about medicne, and the medicalization of all these “disorders.”
“The year 1913,” Illich begins, “marks a watershed in the history of modern medicine. Around that year a patient began to have more than a fifty-fifty chance that a graduate of a medical school would provide him with a specifically effective treatment (if, of course, he was suffering from one of the standard diseases recognized by the medical science of the time). Many shamans and herb doctors familiar with local diseases and remedies and trusted by their clients had always had equal or better results.”
Further down, Illich notes: “Since then medicine has gone on to define what constitutes disease and its treatment. The Westernized public learned to demand effective medical practice as defined by the progress of medical science. For the first time in history doctors could measure their efficiency against scales which they themselves had devised. This progress was due to a new perspective of the origins of some ancient scourges; water could be purified and infant mortality lowered; rat control could disarm the plague; treponemas could be made visible under the microscope and Salvarsan could eliminate them with statistically defined risks of poisoning the patient; syphilis could be avoided, or recognized and cured by rather simple procedures; diabetes could be diagnosed and self-treatment with insulin could prolong the life of the patient. Paradoxically, the simpler the tools became, the more the medical profession insisted on a monopoly of their application, the longer became the training demanded before a medicine man was initiated into the legitimate use of the simplest tool, and the more the entire population felt dependent on the doctor. Hygiene turned from being a virtue into a professionally organized ritual at the altar of a science.”
In a rather peculiar detour — which would eventually be subjected to the same monopolization — aspects of human misery that did not readily reveal themselves as a bug in the laboratory — from alcoholism to anorexia nervosa — were transformed into metaphorical diseases by an alcoholic medical doctor and a stock speculator in 1935; and this gave birth to the Recovery Movement. This movement has itself now become a kind of orthodoxy; but the interesting thing is that it has now gained acceptance in the medical community as part of a treatment protocol. The meetings are still free for AA, NA, OEA, and the rest; but if you are “failing,” as most do, then you can escalate to the medically-monopolized, commodified model of treatment featured on Thin
The limited success of the 12-step orthodoxy seems attributable more to the sense of community it encourages than its claim that every obssesive behavior is a disease… the result of a “character defect” that has to be removed — after petitioning through prayer — by a higher power. God becomes the doctor. But when God isn’t enough, seek treatment by professionals.
The way this invariably turns back on the individual victims to seek the etiologies of these very real phenomena, and the way it so readily lends itself to commodification, raises a lot of flags for this writer (also a veteran of the 12-Step Program).
Watching these waifish, self-starving women struggle with the paradox of control, and seeing their teatment continually focus on overcoming “character defects,” I grew very agitated at the fact that not a word was uttered about patriarchy. Not a single word.
The message in this silence? Deal with it.
My own frank discussions with a number of politically-conscious women reveal that even those women who have intellectually rejected the patriarchal demand for the eroticized infantile body-type still struggle affectively with body image. The indoctrination of body-hatred begins very early, and it is completely relentless. There is nothing about our bodies that does not, according to the demand-production propaganda of commodified sexuality, require correction. Particularly if you happen to be a woman.
So if this is a problem that is that difficult to deal with by women who actually understand something about the misogyny that underwrites these socially constructed “pathologies,” how is it that anyone expects the women in these commercial treatment facilities to “recover,” if the deeper source of their problem — internalized patriarchy — is intentionally concealed from them, and avoided like the plague in Recovery Orthodoxy as an “outside issue”?
The deal-breaker for me, after admittedly learning some valuable lessons about interpersonal relationships, with the 12-Step orthodoxy was that the goal stated in our manifesto was “to become productive members of society.”
What is it, then, that we were supposed to produce?
When those wounded women at the eating disorder recovery facility “succeed,” what is it that is the implicit measure of success?
This brings me back to my own repeated association with PTSD. In my second book Full Spectrum Disorder (no pun intended), I wrote briefly about PTSD. I close with an excerpt, since this doesn’t seem to have changed.
A friend asked me not long ago if I had ever been diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). I haven’t, not officially, but I picked up a book about trauma after she asked that question. Here’s what it said: “trauma destroys our fundamental assumptions about the safety of the world; trauma destroys the positive value of the self; trauma destroys the belief in a meaningful order of creation.â€
The Army sent me to a kind of two-decade school, and in school I learned something.
The world is not fundamentally safe.
So is it us, the combat veterans, the rape survivors, and the anorexic women, who have the disorder? If disease means dis-ease, does this means we are cured when we are at-ease with the world as it is, when we accept the power of others over us?
Only the medical professionals know for sure.
catherine:
Thank you St. Stan! Why can so few folks see the root problem, patriarchal power? Medicine, psychology, specialization, commodification, medicalization (one more bullshit “syndrome” or “disorder” and I’m gonna snap), all products of a male-ish mindset.
I was a very, very fat child - who was molested by my Grandfather. I was told I was bad for being fat, rather than brilliant for coping with my omnipresent fear without being completely self-annihilating, but damn I spent years, decades, and thousands of dollars trying to fix myself. After the destructive diets and drugs, the MDs wanted to take out my pituitary and adrenals, when I was 16 years old. That was the point where I told them to eat shit.
The Psychotherapists - exploitative, expensive, and ineffectual little shits. 12-step?? Honesty and community are what work there - the rest is more male / medical Daddy-worshiping silliness.
Thanks to growing beyond all of these established “modalities”, I am 45, healthy, strong, and very isolated from the folks who adhere to these ideas and actions, which is most people. But you give me hope, that men can think, feel, learn, and become People, and that women must snap to, refocus, and think for themselves - male-minded domination did not go away in the late 70’s.
24 November 2006, 12:17 pmElki:
Aye - thankyou for posting your analysis - it’s so good to hear someone else’s viewpoint, especially a man’s interpretation.
In such a world as we are in today, woman cannot avoid the constant pressure to be something extraordinary. There are countless billions of dollars going in to make it so through advertising, and through tv culture.
I have posted my experience before, but here is is again for anyone wanting to get help: http://www.scribespirit.org/ScribeSpirit/food/Elki/
For anyone suffering with the issue of an eating disorder it helps to educate yourself with aspects of your disease, and discuss it with someone, so that you can face it, and start your road to recovery. I went about reading as much as I could to understand my disease.
It’s a very complex issue for a sufferer, and I can say from my own experience, that it is difficult enough for the sufferer to work out, let alone explaining it to others. But I have stayed in recovery for 6 years now, which im very proud of. I have a loving husband and my career as an Architect is running smoothly (enough - hehe). There’s hope, and thats what id like someone to know ‘out there’.
24 November 2006, 7:19 pmElaina:
The whole language of “recovery” and of “addiction” as “incurable disease” fills my heart with unease, for a few reasons.
I’ve had several friends who’ve been on “the program” at various points in their lives, and have one who is currently.
I won’t go near it with a ten-foot pole. It’s too much like fundamentalist religion. It attempts to place clear frameworks and boundaries into parts of peoples’ lives that will never, ever be clarified.
And it does, oh so conveniently, attempt to diminish any anti-patriarchy analysis of any situation; all responsibility and accountability is thrust back into the hands of the participant in the program; people are pushed to blame themselves for everything, yet other folks can’t hold them accountable for what they do that affects them because they suffer from an incurable disease, etc. aaarh; it’s just too 1984, doublespeak, and contradictory for me to understand it.
A friend told me the other day that her sponsor really upset her, when she opened up to her about a rape and the sponsor pretty much told her she was almost as accountable as the guy that raped her- that were it not for her sundry “character” defects, the rape might not have happened, is how I read the commentary as it was relayed by my friend- and it worried me so much.
The reason people stay so fidelitious to those programs is ’cause they’re clearly defined programs. That’s ’cause people need programs, we’re not a bunch of romantically-industrious pioneer type rugged folk who can live without the input of other human creatures. I think that if more humans with serious problems had other humans telling them they weren’t crazy, here cry on my shoulder, reassuring them that what they go through isn’t some freakish thing but something that everyone feels, on a systematic level, less folks would rely on this model in order to “recover” from their “addictions.” Instead, people don’t want to have to deal with problematic folk- and as more of us continue to swallow the gringo-mainstream-culture meme, fewer and fewer of us are selfless enough to share much of anything with anybody else.
I don’t know if what I’m typing here makes sense. But it seems that this 12-step thing, since it attempts to put concrete terms around the inconcrete, is something that people cling to with a lot of faith. They swear by it. (Many swear by it while they are participants, and then are heavily critical when they separate from it, much like members of fundamentalist religions).
I don’t know. I’ve seen the 12-step thing really fuck hard with a lot of people, and have met many folks who have felt like it’s an alienating way to “recovery,” whatever state that’s supposed to define, and many find no help in it while others do.
I just don’t think it’s the only way to solve a problem. And the patriarchal bugs (like the need to find a “higher power”- that statement reeks of patriarchy, and it’s not the only part of the program that’s male-centric) have to be worked out of any system- and some systems have so many bugs that without them the system itself doesn’t function.
And I think that any sort of treatment that stresses “forgiveness” as vital to survival is utterly bogus.
There are a lot of people who abuse their power and hurt other people, terribly. There is no reason to forgive those people for what they do. None.
Forgiveness leads to forgetfulness. Any woman who has been raped or beaten or both by a man, has a right to be angry with men. Any child who has been molested by a relative has a right to harbor anger against that person.
Asking victims and survivors to “let go of their anger” and “forgive” isn’t just insultingly low, it doesn’t allow for change- change that begins in forcing members of the oppressive class to be held accountable for what they do.
Anyways, I’ll quit rambling now. This whole “recovery” thing really messes with my head, since it’s such a generally-accepted thing.
25 November 2006, 8:23 pmMarilyn Farhat:
Bulimia is one of the most common eating disorders afflicting young women. Before I go on further I need to explain that I have been working in the mental health field for ten years and I also knew a bulimic Lebanese woman in the early 1980s. I am also involved in the “Recovery Model†approach to individuals’ mental issues.
Women with eating disorders have a lot of self-esteem problems. Their perception of themselves is far removed from the perception of those around them. A 100 lb. bulimic woman will look at herself in the mirror and think she is fat despite what people and health care workers around her tell her and despite what her rational mind contains in terms of knowledge and logic. To her, 100 lbs. is grossly overweight. There is a disconnect between what she sees and how that information is translated.
There is nothing sinister or useless about the recovery model. It has been found to be more effective in community settings (when compated to forensic settings) as opposed to the medical model or diagnosis based model for example, for one important reason: it gives the individual seeking the help the POWER to choose the course or treatment or recovery they wish to be in and at their own pace. It also acknowledges that people can and do refuse to want to change.
Recovery does not mean a cure. It means that people are entitled to the opportunities that allow them to achieve the optimal level of functioning they are capable of at that particular time, based on their recognized needs and wishes.Those needs, wishes, and capabilities can progress or regress over time, but the individual is in control of their recovery, not the therapist.
Because we are dealing with human beings who have different personalities, life traumas, self-esteem issues, and cultural indoctrination, the benefit to the individual will vary.
I think that sometimes we get too involved in the desire to “cure†people of their ailment and we think that if we attribute their problems(s) to one main factor, that it will somehow make things easier for them if we look for a cure. It is not so simple.
We have to acknowledge and allow people the personal responsibility in taking care of themselves, especially in situations where help is accessible. Most women around the world have been abused or discriminated against but they do not engage in highly destructive behavior (although many do suffer effects which they can learn to manage, like PTSD, depression, panic attacks, borderline personality, etc.).
The excerpts from the priest diary are a reinforcement of the fact that the human mind is very powerful and that if people have the strong belief and the will to accomplish something, they will have a better chance than someone who does not.
In mental health it is a well-known fact that people who go to counseling and who improve do so not because of the skill of the counselors or the approach; their rate of improvement hinges on how well they identify with the therapist and how much rapport they have with them. Ultimately, it is the person seeking help who is in control of their own “recovery.†Medications and other interventions are there to assist, not to take the place of actual work by the individual herself.
While patriarchal control of the dissemination of morality can be blamed as being one of the contributing factors to such problems, it is not the only one. We have to let people know that they have control over their own ACTIONS, not the outcome. Even the most healthy individual cannot control the outcome of their life. They have to let the outcome part go in order to avoid this sense of helplessness. People who do not believe they have responsibility or choice will be caught in this endless trauma of victimhood and will never be able to improve.
Women in my old culture are not indoctrinated into the philosophy of “body hatred.†Middle Eastern society is very sensual, as opposed to sexual (when compared with Western society, at least), and we are taught to take care of our bodies and to feel proud of them (Middle Eastern culture does not have the obsession with thinness, quite the opposite). The difference is, many in that part of the world are encouraged to be “modest.†In fact, body exhibitionism is present in Middle Eastern society but is controlled and the women’s female attributes are very much emphasized under certain conditions. There is nothing more patriarchal than Middle Eastern society, but women’ self-esteem issues in that part of the world manifest themselves in other ways, mainly depression and they are not related to body image, but self-worth as free, intelligent, sensitive human beings. Bulimia is rare in the Middle East. As I said, I have known only one and she was very “Americanized.†She was the exception. Things may change in the future, though, because of the commercialization of women to sell products to both genders.
I would like to address the issue of forgiveness in recovery also. I am one of those who believe in the importance of forgiving. Forgiving does not mean forgetting. It means that you have let go of the poison that has been controlling your soul while you held a grudge against the person who hurt you. Anger is healthy if it is an impetus for positive action. Grudges have no useful purpose and make you focus on the painful things in life. If a woman is raped, she can still report the crime and go to court and help get the rapist punished for their crime (that is a major part of the healing process, by the way, getting acknowledgement for the wrong committed against you [anyone] by confronting your victimizer). After that, forgiveness can be given. Grudges cause hatred and hatred does destroy the soul and the mind. Forgiveness is the essence of letting go and taking care of yourself as a human being who deserves to be taken care of properly. People caught in the cycle of hate, addiction, and vengeance, do not have time to take care of themselves. In fact, one of the basic approaches to teaching people with addictive personalities or trauma (trauma can lead to addiction and addiction is usually a symptom of multiple problems) is to have your say, and say it assertively, get acknowledgement for the wrong, and let go.
Submitting to a higher power has nothing to do with patriarchy. Higher powers are not always male or male enforced and they do not have to be gender specific. It can be the Universe. It is a way designed for those who feel that they need to have something to believe and trust in to regain control over their own lives instead of living in constant fear. It is the fear of failing and of being alone. It is not mandatory. Most addicts find it difficult to control their addiction (whether it is to food, sex, substances, shopping, gambling, or dysfunctional relationships) because they just go through the motions without believing in them. Once addictions take a hold of you, they are difficult (but not impossible) to control and it is a lifelong “battle.†The brain has been “rewired†to interpret reality.
But that is the price we pay for being human. Most of us have seen or experienced trauma in our lives. The trick is to learn better coping mechanisms to help minimize the damage, but then the choice is up us what we do and how we do it based on how well we know ourselves and how honest we are about who we are and what we can and cannot do.
26 November 2006, 3:17 amVladimir:
There’s an article about anorexia published today in the NYT magazine. There is an interesting perspective on the “medical” aspect:
“Had the diagnosis been, say, diabetes, we would have been given a list of guidelines and medications ? a road map for recovery. We would have looked at research and treatment protocols. Look anorexia up on Amazon, and you’ll find hundreds of titles, but we couldn’t sort the useful books from the flaky ones. And in terms of treatment, there isn’t much systematic scientific research on the disease. No one could tell us exactly how to make our daughter well.”
The article does not offer any surprises from the feminist perspective though:
“I’ve heard the arguments that media depictions of unrealistic female bodies are what drive girls to starve themselves ? the Kate Moss syndrome. And it’s tempting to see anorexia as a metaphor, a result of a cultural crisis in the zeitgeist. If this were true, though, millions of American girls and women would become anorexic instead of the roughly 1 to 3 percent who do. Clearly there are other factors involved.”
I think the obvious question would have been to ask - was there anorexia before the rise of today’s stereotype of beauty as child-like thinness? It is obvious, looking at historical depictions of beauty in art, poetry and myth, that this stereotype has rather suddenly emerged as some sort of modern mass pedophilic neurosis. Cultures that, on the surface, appear much more patriarchal and misogynistic than today’s, seem at the same time (with some exceptions) to be more benign when it comes to ideals of female beauty. I have a suspicion that this is one in a series of subconscious patriarchal backlashes against the (rather wrongly, unfortunately) perceived challenges to patriarchy in modern society. To make a rather risque metaphor, it seems like the shift in imperial power from direct and directly observable colonial subjugation to the opaque abstraction and commodification of markets and increasingly complex financial structures has also happened with patriarchy in the shift from direct power over women to power over media and hence public perceptions and norms of/for women.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/magazine/26anorexia.html?pagewanted=1
26 November 2006, 3:58 amMarilyn Farhat:
Hello Vladimir,
I really liked the way you described the shift of power from a direct one over women (as more women become economically more independent) to one over politics and overall resources, through the media. I also agree with your observation about culture and thinness.
In my old culture, women may want to be thin (for health and appearance reasons), but their self-esteem is not tied to their thinness. It is more tied to their ability to attract a suitable husband and raise a properly functioning family and feel needed. This does not mean Middle Eastern women do not value appearance, they just use what they have to achieve the best (the essence of proper coping in situations beyond their control).
A more voluptuous body was a sign of affluence as well fertility in the old world and those traditions are still around to a large extent (this is changing).
Your observation of media control by a patriarchal system is so relevant. It is the same system that pushes violence, war, capitalism, state control, and control over women. I think the reason young women in the US are so vulnerable to eating disorders may be related to the fact that male and female roles are getting less well-defined and women have not been able to internalize, as a group, their place in the new century in all areas of life and in their relationship to the other men and women in their lives. When the time comes that they do and when they know where they stand on all aspects of this changing society, it may not be as much of a struggle. That does not mean most women will succumb to this ailment. What it means is that those who are susceptible to it will be more at risk for developing it. After all, the problems of patriarchal control can manifest themselves in all kids of ways. In the Middle East, the roles are still more well-defined and there is little conflict within the woman as to her role in society. However, because of the war problems and domestic problems that afflict the Middle East in general, you will see a lot of other mental problems: anxiety, depression, panic attacks, PTSD (but those are common to the men also. They are not strictly female problems in the Middle East because both genders are undergoing violence against them). The use of psychotropic medications in Lebanon is a very serious issue that you do not hear about at all. It is a culture living in the fog of drugs, alcohol, and prescription drugs, including the children. It is very difficult for a culture to survive such extended traumas, let alone the individual.
Isn’t it ironic that the people who write the “manuals” for some of the ideologies out there have never experienced anything related personally. For example, Vatsyayana’s “kama Sutra” was written despite the strong indication that the author was not even sexually active. Similarly, John Keegan wrote his most famous war history texts when he himself had never seen combat or been in the military. In fact, most of the writing out there is not based on personal experience and is as true and as inspiring as the objectivity of the research and the imagination and extrapolation skills of the author.
We are already seeing a rise in health problems with women that were typically associated with male professions, mainly heart disease, high blood pressure, alcoholism, substance abuse, and cancer (lung).
26 November 2006, 4:57 pmLouis Proyect:
In the 1980s I lived briefly with a woman who was a recovering anorexic. She had incredible food hang-up’s, including worries whether day old milk was “spoiled”, etc. She was involved with the theater and eventually developed a series of monologues about eating disorders, love affairs, etc. Here’s an announcement for one of her gigs, which are often booked by college groups involved with eating disorders.
http://womenscenter.utoledo.edu/archives/alicia.htm
I watched a fair amount of the HBO documentary and will try to write something myself before too long. I have a strong feeling that anorexia is an illness very much tied to life under capitalism. I doubt that it was a problem under feudalism, if you gather my drift.
26 November 2006, 5:22 pmStan:
Not only does it seem a capitalist phenom, it seems to be a late capitalist metropolitan problem. I never heard of Haitian peasants manifesting anorexia or bulemia.
In the current capital accumulation regime, there is a global division of market labor, with the US being a consumer to close the virtuous cycle, so to speak. In the face of all those things that are still most pertinent in the Marxist view, falling profit, expansion, organic composition, et al, demand creation has become a very key feature of core-nation economics.
This maps onto gendered power in that the ad industry (demand creation industry) mobilizes the most debilitating aspects of the socialization of women to push their shit on women.
Mies work on “housewifization” showed how this developed post WWII, the virtues of thrift was replaced by the virtue of consumption, and the role of women became that of sex object and consumer… a deadly combination, and one that readily coopted liberal feminism.
Consumption was pushed after the war, as a woman’s role (look at the stuff sold on daytime tv), as part of a Keynesian system, and now with neoliberalism we have to make sure that we sop up the production from China, et al.
Eating disordered women are the walking wounded of that culture, when the messaging for women’s demand production (here capitalism imbricates nicely with gender) is that you are (1) not good enough, (2) you will be held to an impossible standard, and (3) that if buying our shit doesn;t make you smile like the woman on tv, you are a failure. But there is more than economics at work. Capitalism atlomizes and alienates us all, but it alienates women in special ways — because women are pre-subjugated in the gendered power system. That’s where the additive effects of sexual abuse in a sexually objectifying and exploitative culture are equally damaging to women’s sense of being in control of their own lives, and why — I would submit — women resort to the psychically deformed and individually delimited methods of control like starving and cutting. Capitalist patriarchy is the double whammy that fragments the personalities of women this way.
Another disturbing trend is that this was seen not that long ago as a white woman’s issue. But with the deeper and wider generalization of consumer culture, and the ever more aggressively misogynist objectification of women by the media (that some people have the nerve to call sexual “liberation”), African American and Latina women are increasingly affected.
26 November 2006, 8:50 pmnew:
I would also put eating disorders under the same, rather large umbrella, as all the other self-harm that women inflict on themselves from within this corrupt and violent system. From the obvious such as cutting right through to substance abuse, dysfunctional relationships and so on.
The injuries are compounded by the appalling “care” that those who get entangled in the medical system are subjected to.
Damn them.
1 December 2006, 5:39 pm