Young Women and the Body : A Feminist Sociology

Young Women and the Body sets out to examine why the current generation of young women seem to be deeply unhappy with their own bodies. Dieting and disguising are commonplace, and inflicting serious harm by no means rare in fourteen to eighteen year olds. Despite prophesies to the contrary boys and adults are suffering far less. Drawing on feminist social constructionist perspectives the book seeks to examine this epidemic of body-hatred. Young Women And The Body Advances The Argument That An Unhappy Relationship With Their Own Bodies Is The Common Experience Of Contemporary Western Young Women. This Book Looks First At Currently Recognised Body Disorders: Eating Disorders, Self-harm And Dysmorphic Disorder, And Finds That These Are Primarily Diagnosed In Young Women. Having Briefly Considered Appropriate Theoretical Perspectives, It Then Proceeds To Argue That Body-hatred Is Not Just The Experience Of A Few Sick Girls, But A General Difficulty Of This Generation. Explanations For This Are Sought In Ways In Which Society Defines Young Women As Unstable Adolescents, As Rampant Consumers, As Sexually Suspect And As Relatively Powerless. The Book Also Considers Whether Modern Boys Suffer Such A Difficult Relationship With Their Bodies, And Finds Little Evidence For This. Interview Material With Girls In A Psychiatric Facility And Girls With No Known Disturbance In A School Setting Substantiates The Body-hatred Theme.--jacket. Introduction: The Alien Body -- The Concept Of Body-hatred -- The Body Projects -- What Is Body-hatred? -- Body-hatred And Psychiatric Medicine -- Body Dysmorphic Disorder -- Eating Disorders -- Self-harm -- Psychological Approaches To Body-hatred -- Feminist Sociological Approaches To Body-hatred -- Gender Ambivalence: A Liberal Feminist Perspective -- Body Debasement: A Radical Feminist Perspective -- The Capitalist Manufacture Of Bodily Discontent: A Socialist Feminist Perspective -- 'woman' As Inferiorised Category: A Feminist Social Constructionist Perspective -- The Limits Of Self-reflexivity -- Identity -- The Body -- Theorising The Female Body -- A Note On Female Embodiment -- Theorising Youth -- Young, Female And Self-hating? -- Adolescence And Body-hatred -- Age Difference And Social Difference -- Historical Constructions Of Adolescence -- Present-day Young People As Adolescents -- The Problematisation Of Adolescence -- Adolescent Girls -- Girls And Their Bodies -- Girls And Physical Changes: Menstruation And Breasts -- The Construction Of Womanly Appearance -- Vanity And Self-appreciation -- Teenage Consumers And Body-hatred -- A Consuming Society -- Consumption And The Visual -- Teenagers, Teen-culture And Consumption -- Young Women And The Process Of Consumption -- Young Women And The Products Of Consumption -- Gender And Teenage Leisure -- Girls As Viewers And Readers -- Teenagers And Friendship Groups -- Close Friends And 'bedroom Culture' -- Sexuality And Body-hatred -- The Sexualisation Of Girls. Liz Frost. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. Annotation "Young Women and the Body advances the argument that an unhappy relationship with their own bodies is the common experience of contemporary Western young women. This book looks first at currently recognised body disorders: eating disorders, self-harm and dysmorphic disorder, and finds that these are primarily diagnosed in young women. Having briefly considered appropriate theoretical perspectives, it then proceeds to argue that body-hatred is not just the experience of a few sick girls, but a general difficulty of this generation. Explanations for this are sought in ways in which society defines young women as unstable adolescents, as rampant consumers, as sexually suspect and as relatively powerless. The book also considers whether modern boys suffer such a difficult relationship with their bodies, and finds little evidence for this. Interview material with girls in a psychiatric facility and girls with no known disturbance in a school setting substantiates the body-hatred theme."--BOOK JACKET. Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved Front Matter....Pages i-x Introduction: the Alien Body....Pages 1-9 What is Body-Hatred?....Pages 10-33 The Limits of Self-Reflexivity....Pages 34-59 Adolescence and Body-Hatred....Pages 60-81 Teenage Consumers and Body-Hatred....Pages 82-107 Sexuality and Body-Hatred....Pages 108-130 Young Women’s Experience of Body-Hatred: Stigma and Shame....Pages 131-169 Young Men and Body-Hatred....Pages 170-193 Young Women and the Body: Some Conclusions....Pages 194-198 Back Matter....Pages 199-213 As the Introduction outlines, the overall thesis of this volume is that the relationship between young women and their bodies is a negative and frequently damaging one, that girls can be said to suffer from a set of emotions which can be distilled into the term 'body-hatred'.