‘Cos girls aren’t supposed to eat like pigs are they?’ Young women negotiating gendered discursive constructions of food and eating

Abstract

While psycho-medical understandings of 'eating disorders' draw distinctions between those who 'have'/'do not have' eating disorders, feminist poststructuralist researchers argue that these detract from political/socio-cultural conditions that invoke problematic eating and embodied subjectivities. Using poststructuralist discourse analysis, we examine young women's talk around food and eating, in particular, the negotiation of tensions arising from derogating aspects of hetero-normative femininities, while accounting for own 'feminine' practices (e.g. 'dieting') and subjectivities. Analysis suggested that eating/dieting was accounted for by drawing upon neo-liberalist discourses around individual choice; however, these may obscure gendered, classed and racialized power relations operating in local and wider contexts.

Embodied empathy‐in‐action: overweight nurses’ experiences of their interactions with overweight patients

“…Moreover, the experience of being a nurse and being overweight and how this shapes or hinders the support of overweight patients are poorly understood. Anti‐obesity discourses are known to subject large women to deeply harmful attitudes and pejorative judgements that perpetuate internalised individual feelings of shame and failure (Carryer 2001; Woolhouse et al. 2011).…”

The Palgrave Handbook of the Psychology of Sexuality and Gender

“…Throughout the texts there is a clear classed and gendered discourse on the appropriateness of language and action (Day, 2012). Here, educated trans women are ridiculed for the consumption of self-care products and the perceived 'effort' required to maintain markers of femininity, while women, written as cis-gender and working-class, are positioned as acting outside normative boundaries by being angry, argumentative, 'never one to miss out' on a 'fight'.…”

“…Feministinformed poststructuralist discourse analysis was employed, a mode of analysis that aims to identify dominant discourses, or ways of talking, that are drawn upon and resisted to construct identities. Woolhouse et al (2012) specifically explored the ways in which classed and gendered discourses were drawn upon in order for the girls to make sense of various ways of eating and body management practices. Perhaps unsurprisingly, a key finding was that eating was generally constructed as an 'unfeminine' activity, involving expressions of desire, appetite, greed, and animality.…”

“…In the broad area of health, and in particular food, eating, and body management practices, Woolhouse et al (2012) examined the talk of predominantly working-class teenage girls in the context of focus group discussions. Feministinformed poststructuralist discourse analysis was employed, a mode of analysis that aims to identify dominant discourses, or ways of talking, that are drawn upon and resisted to construct identities.…”

‘Doing’ risk, ‘doing’ difference: towards an understanding of the intersections of risk, morality and taste

“…Apart from having the main responsibility for providing and preparing food, women are also responsible for ensuring that it accords with family preferences and finances and is as healthy as possible (Anving, 2012, Devault, 1991Ekström, 1990;Lupton, 1996), as well as deploying what can be termed 'maternal altruism' -denying themselves for the best of the men and children in the family (Caplan, 1997). When it comes to understandings of what constitutes good or healthy food, or indeed bad or unhealthy food, individuals draw on gendered and classed discourses (Woolhouse, Day, Rickett, & Milnes, 2011), something that is reinforced by parenthood, for while mothers feel a moralising pressure to follow health advice for their children's eating habits (Murphy, 2003), this is not as prominent in fathers' accounts of their children's eating habits -something that Owen, Metcalfe, Dryden, and Shipton (2010) discuss as a possible pattern of resistance against the norms of healthy eating. The ideal of 'correct', healthy eating practices thus functions as a moral vantage point against which moral status, especially that of women, is measured (Madden & Chamberlain, 2010).…”