ABSTRACT
Eating disorders are directly linked to the female body, in many ways constituting an assault on the body and femininity. Contemporary eating disorders are a form of protest and rebellion in which women express the distress and oppression they experience through their bodies at the hands of patriarchal society. In this sense, eating disorders are the heirs and successors of the witchcraft, demon possession, and hysteria with which women were earlier branded. As then, the true causes of these female disorders continue to be suppressed. This chapter examines the significance of the control over and politicization of the female body in a male-dominated society, the meaning eating disorders carry in the context of the female/feminine body, and the association between childhood sexual abuse and the female/feminine body and eating disorders.
