- Too Fat? Too Thin? Women and Eating Disorders

Catalog description

The course begins with a historical examination of the ways in which the female body has been coded with meanings, and the effects those meanings have had on women's real lives. We will study the ambivalence and contradictions regarding norms of health, thinness, and obesity. We will approach eating disorders from feminist perspectives, which consider these behaviors as women's responses to oppression. Finally, we will consider food from a scholarly as well as real-life perspective.