Chernin, Kim - The Obsession: Reflections on the Tyranny of Slenderness

[oyceter]

Precisely what the title says. I thought it was an interesting read, although it didn't quite go in directions that I wanted. The book is a great deal of reflection, and while I find Chernin's thoughts interesting, there was definitely a little part of my brain that kept yelling for statistics! citations! anecdotes, for heaven's sake! I think this is my problem with works that focus more on the theory than on the application -- I always want something to back it up, and I'm not quite sure if that is within the realm of literary type theory or not. This seems to be a more theory-oriented book, in which Chernin posits that our culture's obsession with thinness and losing weight is equated with a fear of strong women.

I did like how she compares the vocabulary of dieters to that of feminsits -- the dieters are always seeking to reduce, to slim down, to silence the appetite, basically. And I can see how she draws that to the thought that starving the body is much like starving the mind, starving the will, paring away anything that is socially unacceptable, like loudness and bitchiness. Being not-thin makes one visible; being thin means blending in with cultural expectations, means not standing out. Then she goes down a line of thought about a fear of the feminine being connected to a fear of the female-only power of giving birth to new life, of the roundness of breasts and belly being equated to the mother, and then the book started edging way to close to the ideology of the sacred feminine for me. While I like that women's work is respected and such, I think giving such reverence and power to motherhood can ignore the other areas in which females can be capable. I mean, I am more than my womb, or so I would hope.

I also got frustrated because Chernin was posing this as a sort of universal assumption, and I wanted more of a chance to hear the viewpoint of anorexics and dieters and the like. I mean, it is a bit like the slash argument. One can't just accuse one's opponents of universally disliking females. There's an entire layer of subtley and various voices that I wanted to hear from and didn't get to.

I think I was approaching the book more like a history, when it is a much more personal book.

Comments

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Don't know what date this book is, but it sounds like it might be reiterating several of the arguments made in Susie Orbach's pioneering Fat is a Feminist Issue - which came out in 1978.

[oyceter]

Hrm, looks like the copyright date is 1981, so it probably is reiterating. Is the Orbach book worth checking out?

[oursin.livejournal.com]

It should be worth reading, Orbach was one of the founders of the Women's Therapy Centre in London during the 70s (she later treated Princess Diana and was constantly being doorstepped by the press, but hasn't moved far from those original roots, I think).

[oyceter]

Ooo, thanks!

[livinglaurel.livejournal.com]

I second oursin -- it's a remarkable book.

[angeyja.livejournal.com]

Being not-thin makes one visible; being thin means blending in with cultural expectations, means not standing out.

I am not sure where exactly she is writing from; but, the odd thing is that I think in most of the environments I've been in since college being thin would make you stand out. I think that anything outside of average (which varies from group to group) and maybe a little more so the last couple of years.

[angeyja.livejournal.com]

I can tell I'm tired. That last sentence is hard for me and I knew what I meant. I can see the pressures to conform, and that can vary from place to place and group to group. The last couple of years refers to just a general sense of more conservatism the last couple of years.

[oyceter]

I suppose it's something from getting teased and laughed at when one is fat? I'm not quite sure either.

[angeyja.livejournal.com]

*nod* it's become a greater focus now. There was an article in our paper last night about the results of a study by soem Intenantional Committee on Obesity. My sense is there is a type of demonization potentially occurring now that is beyond what happens in schools.

Didn't Josh just nail that aspect of high school? I got called all sorts of things as there were glasses and braces and no money for clothes, and "oh my god, she reads!"

[livinglaurel.livejournal.com]

I like Chernin a lot (altho more for memoirs like Crossing the Border and My Life as a Boy) altho as you say she is v theoretical, and a lot of her theory comes from being trained as a Jungian analyst -- she is v v into the sacred feminine, along with a whole host of other archetypes. She's interesting to me because she's a good writer, or at least I like her style, but yeah, not so much with the case histories and empirical evidence.

If you're looking for some of that wrt anorexia Hilda Baruch (I think that spelling's right) wrote some good books based on case histories -- The Golden Cage is one of them, and Marya Hornbacher's Wasted is pretty much a modern classic abt anorexia and bulimia, altho it's v much a personal memoir and hard to take sometimes.

Bonnie Friedman in her book Writing Past Dark, about problems that often cripple writes, draws some v interesting parallels between anorexia and writer's block as it occurs in women -- wanting to be a good girl, perfectionism, wanting to pare everything down, &c &c. IIRC her source is Baruch.

[oyceter]

Yeah, I'm not so sure if I hold with the sacred feminine in general, so I did have a bit of a problem with some of what she was saying.

Thanks for the book suggsetions! I've only read Brumberg's history of anorexia, which was really interesting, and fannishly just got something called Appetites which I've been meaning to snitch as well.

[livinglaurel.livejournal.com]

If that's Carolyn Knapp's Appetites, it's quite good -- she had anorexia for quite a while and the book is a bit abt that.