Main description:

This book explores the ways in which anorexic women use their eating to control their bodies. It argues that the female body in modern Western culture is understood as open and accessible and female appetite as dangerous and voracious. Anorexia attempts to resist both these constructions in the creation of a closed, desireless body. Since anorexic women resist the power of collective ideologies their resistance cannot work - the closed body becomes its own prison.

Contents:

Chapter 1 Introduction; Part 1 Explaining anorexia; Chapter 2 Anorexia nervosa; Chapter 3 The enigma variations; Chapter 4 Women's oppression; Part 2 Anorexic meanings; Chapter 5 Anorexic meanings; Part 3 The anorexic body; Chapter 6 The sociology of the body; Chapter 7 The feminine body; Chapter 8 The anorexic symptom; Chapter 9 Conclusion;