This past weekend, The Renfrew Center Foundation had their 20th Annual Conference, entitled “Feminist Perspective and Beyond: Honoring the Past, Embracing the Future,” of which the keynote speaker was, if not everyone’s, if not many peoples favorite, feminist Gloria Steinem. But the focus of the center’s work is not just the general empowerment of women – they’re specifically a nonprofit treatment facility that does research about eating disorders. The Center’s choice to have this conference use feminism as a lens through which to view …

… eating disorders is an interesting one, but also explains the inclusion of Steinem as keynote speaker, who has written and talked about so many different issues. She said:

“If we’re going to change the ethic where a size zero and plastic surgery is the admirable norm, then the rest of us who aren’t part of the admirable norm have to say so.”

I’d take it one step further: Even those who are the admirable norm should probably say something.

Steinem’s involvement with the Center is particularly notable because of the issues she has chosen to focus on throughout her career. Aside from her “I Was A Playboy Bunny” expose written in 1963, which combined her career as a journalist with her budding activism, Steinem often avoided discussion of women’s bodies for decades to come, as did many other second-wave feminists, who primarily focused on political emancipation. Steinem herself could never leave behind those photos of her in the bunny suit, and it was upsetting to her that her looks and her body were often so commented on. It was not until 1981, with the publication of her essay “In Praise of Women’s Bodies,” that she really began to discuss the relationship between societal pressures and how women view themselves.

In her speech at the Center, Steinem pointed out that the pressure on women to have it all, or do it all, manifests itself in their relationships with their bodies, as much as it does on them to have both a promising career and a stable domestic life. “Women are told they can have it all, that they can do anything, as long as they also keep doing everything else they were doing before,” she said.

The most beautiful way I’ve ever heard this put was in Courtney Martin’s book Perfect Girls, Perfect Daughters: The Frightening New Normalcy of Hating Your Body, where she explains that “We are the daughters of feminists who said, ‘You can be anything’ and we heard ‘You have to be everything.’”

Steinem also looked back on the movement, and when asked what she thought feminists of her generation failed at, she replied, “We were too nice. We’re women. We were trained to be nice. We weren’t direct enough.” I’d agree that this is no time to lie down, and that while it is always good to see eating disorders be related as a general feminist issue, it is also important to remember that society is not wholly responsible for how women relate to their bodies. It is unhelpful to blame our past or our present for our illnesses, but fitting it all into our picture of what people look like, and what feminism should be working towards, will always be important.

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One Response to “Gloria Steinem On Eating Disorders and How They Fit into a Feminist Agenda”

1. nina says:

   November 20, 2010 at 8:02 am

   I agree, its up to all of us to speak out!
   I hope by shedding light on this topic we can reduce the shame. I have been recovered from eating disorders for several years and hope to help others to recover.

   Reply

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