Feminist Perspectives on Eating Disorders

This collection of twenty-two essays by therapists, professors, researchers, and philosophers explores the sociocultural phenomenon of eating disorders from a feminist perspective, working through questions of theory and application with an eye toward cultivating a better-informed approach to the epidemic. The book begins with some historical framing, includes a section on the issues that mere fact of having a body raise for patient and therapist, deals with questions of textuality and discourse, and calls for a feminist model of treatment and recovery as well as a redefined research agenda for the entire field. Two important essays, Marcia Germaine Hutchinson's "Imagining Ourselves Whole: A Feminist Approach to Treating Body Image Disorders" and Deborah L. Tolman and Elizabeth Debold's "Conflicts of Body and Image: Female Adolescents, Desire, and the No-Body Body," unsettle the position of woman within speech and society by using the compound "body-image" to show how woman stands as both speaking, acting subject (body) and passive gazed-at object or picture (image).

The authors delve into some of the least-examined aspects of eating disorders with grace and insight. This is the book that the eating disorder literature has needed: one that incorporates a feminist perspective, involves cultural considerations, and combines theory with research for a dynamic text.

I have read many books on the multidimensional subject of eating disorders, and I can confidently say that this is one of the best. The 22 authors deal with all aspects of eating disorders: historical, cultural, social, and psychological, to name just a few. I especially like the on-going theme of the FEMINIST PERSPECTIVE--I find it empowering. Hopefully, the views in this book can generate discussion that will lead to change.