Eating Disorders in a Capitalist World : Super Woman or a Super Failure?

Feminist critique has yet to deconstruct the new ‘superwoman’ ideal: the modern woman who can and must have everything, but who, in reality, is never good enough.This media myth is fertile ground for harmful practices that focus on a woman’s own body and of course for specific consumerist behaviours.Media equalization of success, self-control, and attractiveness with a thin, healthy body frame these achievements as individual responsibility.Thus, in a society where women can now do anything, only the woman herself can be blamed if she does not achieve her full potential.Combining scientific approach with personal voices, Eating Disorders in a Capitalist World presents a critical analysis of the social context of eating disorders based on in-depth interviews with women suffering from anorexia and bulimia.Employing a variety of influential socio-cultural theories, Jelena Balabanic Mavrovic closely relates various environmental influences on the development of low self-esteem, poor self-image and body dissatisfaction to the shaping of normative femininity and the experience of gender socialization in Western society.Chapters also provide a detailed review of the socio-historical development of discourses and practices related to anorexia and bulimia, including ‘healthism’, the war on obesity, and other current trends. Providing a new perspective on female identity, Eating Disorders in a Capitalist World offers a complete insight into the world of eating disorders in today’s society, exposing how new forms of freedom for women have also become new forms of self-surveillance.