Dedication to Hunger: The Anorexic Aesthetic in Modern Culture

"Holding Back": Negotiating a Glass Ceiling on Women's Muscular Strength

“…Despite these limitations, many women have experienced sport and fitness as 334 sites of power and agency where they have rejected narrow constructions of femininity and where they can embrace physical power and independence (Bolin 1992b;Cahn 1994;Hargreaves 1994;Heywood 1998;Kane 1995). Being physically independent is an important feminist theme if one considers the historical relationship between femininity and dependency.…”

“…That is, there are more works on female bodybuilders, on the one hand (Balsamo 1994;Bolin 1992aBolin , 1992b (Bordo 1993;Heywood 1996;MacSween 1996). Yet little work explores the everyday women in fitness who fall somewhere in between.2 Ultimately, it is far too simple to take what "we see" in fitness centers and use it to reinforce societal beliefs about natural, categorical gender difference.…”

Ascetismo y espiritualidad en la anorexia nerviosa: Un análisis psicosocial histórico

“…Este hecho la inclinó hacia una vida virtuosa, 26 en la que el control corporal sería signo de devoción 27 y rendirse ante el alimento, sinónimo de pecado, lo que traicionaba la fe en Dios. Tuvo además el ejemplo de su hermana, quien ayunaba buscando el cambio de los malos comportamientos de su esposo.…”

Social Fluids: Metaphors and Meanings of Society

“…Ascetic anorexia emaciates the body, disrupts menstruation and returns young women to a status of child-like dependency where the home becomes a 'golden cage' (Bruch, 1978). The cultural aesthetic of modern society is itself an anorexic one, in which slimming down is morally valuable (Heywood, 1996). By way of contrast, ageing bodies threaten to undermine the economic growth of modern society as compulsory retirement produces a greying society that intensifies the 'ratio of dependency'.…”