by Naomi Wolf
159 1983 random survey: Report of the Los Angeles Commission on Assaults Against Women. See Page Mellish, ed. “Statistics on Violence Against Women,” The Backlash Times, 1989.
159 By her husband or ex-husband: Diana E. H. Russell, cited in Angela Browne, When Battered Women Kill (New York: Free Press, 1987), p. 100. For U.S. marital rape figures of one wife in ten, see David Finkelhor and Kersti Yllo, License to Rape: Sexual Abuse of Wives (New York: The Free Press, 1985). Menachem Amir’s figures, now thought to be too low, showed rates of rape for black women to be 50 percent; for white women, 12 percent, or one in eight. See Menachem Amir, Patterns in Forcible Rape (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971), p. 44. See also Diana E. H. Russell, Rape in Marriage (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982), p. 66.
159 Dutch families: see Geweld tegen vrouwen in heteroseksuele relaties (Renee Romkers, 1989); Sexueel misbruik van meisjes door verwanten (Nel Draijer, 1988).
159 Sweden: Research by Gunilla Bjarsdal. Stockholm: Legenda Publishing Research, 1989. For an international overview of the prevalence of marital rape, see Diana E. H. Russell, “Wife Rape in Other Countries,” in Rape in Marriage, pp. 333–354.
159 Canada: Caputi, op. cit., p. 54.
159 England: R. Hall, S. James, and J. Kertesz, The Rapist Who Pays the Rent (Bristol, England: Falling Wall Press, 1981). Spousal rape was not a crime in Canada until 1983, in Scotland until 1982, and is not yet a crime in England or in many states in the United States.
159 London women: Ruth Hall, Ask Any Woman: A London Inquiry into Rape and Sexual Assault (Bristol, England: Falling Wall Press, 1981).
159 Epidemic: Mellish, op. cit. Also Lenore Walker, “The Battered Woman,” The Backlash Times, 1979, p. 20. Walker estimates that as many as 50 percent of all women will be battered at some point in their lives.
160 Harris poll: See Browne, op. cit.
160 94–95 percent of cases: Ibid., p. 8.
160 Assault each year: Ibid., pp. 4–5.
160 One quarter of violent crime in United States: M. Barret and S. McIntosh, in Taylor et al., op cit.
160 Researchers in Pittsburgh: Browne, op. cit., pp. 4–5.
160 Canadian married women: Linda McLeod, The Vicious Circle (Ottawa: Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women, 1980), p. 21. One woman in Canada raped every 17 minutes: See Julie Brickman, “Incidence of Rape and Sexual Assault in Urban Canadian Population,” International Journal of Women’s Studies, vol. 7 (1984), pp. 195–206.
160 NIMH study: Browne, op. cit., p. 9.
160 Incest: Kinsey et al., op. cit., Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, cited in John Crewdson, By Silence Betrayed: Sexual Abuse of Children in America (Boston: Little, Brown, 1988), p. 25.
160 Diana Russell: Reported in ibid., p. 25.
160 Bud Lewis: Ibid., p. 28.
160 Worldwide research . . . year out: Taylor et al., op. cit.
161 Anorexics . . . sexually abused: Deanne Stone, “Challenging Conventional Thought,” an interview with Doctors Susan and Wayne Wooley, Radiance, Summer 1989.
161 Elizabeth Morgan: Quoted in Joyce Egginton, “The Pain of Hiding Hilary,” The Observer, November 5, 1989.
161 Sexual pleasure . . . not from a good place: Caputi, op. cit., p. 116.
162 Theorists . . . of pornography: See Susan Griffin, Pornography and Silence (London: The Women’s Press, 1988); Susan G. Cole, Pornography and the Sex Crisis (Toronto: Amanita, 1989); Andrea Dworkin, Pornography: Men Possessing Women (New York: Putnam, 1981); Gloria Steinem, “Erotica vs. Pornography,” in Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1983), pp. 219–232; Susanne Kappeler, The Pornography of Representation (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986).
163 12 percent of British and American parents: “Striking Attitudes,” The Guardian, November 15, 1989, citing The British Social Attitudes Special International Report by Roger Jowell, Sharon Witherspoon, and Lindsay Brook (London: Social and Community Planning Research, Gower, 1989).
164 MTV: Quoted in Caputi, op. cit., p. 39.
164 Alice Cooper: Adam Sweeting, “Blame It on Alice,” The Guardian, December 1, 1989.
165 Ms. magazine: Robin Warshaw, I Never Called It Rape: The Ms. Report on Recognizing, Fighting and Surviving Date and Acquaintance Rape (New York: The Ms. Foundation for Education and Communication with Sarah Lazin Books, 1988), p. 83; research by Mary P. Koss, Kent State University, with the Center for Prevention and Control of Rape.
165 Relate directly to acquaintance rape: Ibid., p. 96.
165 “I like to dominate a woman”: Survey was conducted by Virginia Greenlinger, Williams College, and Donna Byrne, SUNY-Albany; cited in Warshaw, p. 93.
165 8 percent of college men had raped: Ibid., p. 84. The pornography that respondents read consisted of: Playboy, Penthouse, Chic, Club, Forum, Gallery, Genesis, Oui or Hustler.
165 58 percent of college males: John Briere and Neil M. Malamuth, “Self-Reported Likelihood of Sexually Aggressive Behavior: Attitudinal versus Sexual Explanations,” Journal of Research in Personality, Vol. 37 (1983), pp. 315–318.
165 30 percent rated faces showing distress more attractive: Alfred B. Heilbrun, Jr., Emory; Maura P. Loftus, Auburn University; cited in ibid., p. 97. See also: N. Malamuth, J. Heim, and S. Feshbach, “Sexual Responsiveness of College Students to Rape Depictions: Inhibitory and Disinhibitory Effects,” Social Psychology, vol. 38 (1980), p. 399.
165 Among 3,187 women: Warshaw, op. cit., p. 83.
166 Heart attacks: Ibid., p. 11.
166 Auburn University: Ibid., pp. 13–14. Also at Auburn University, Professor Barry R. Burkhart found that 61 percent of male students said they had sexually touched a woman against her will.
166 Did not call it “rape”: Ibid., pp. 3, 51, 64, 66, 117.
166 Violence from dating partner: Browne, op. cit., p. 42.
167 Fourteen- to eighteen-year-olds: See study by Jacqueline Goodchild et al., cited in Warshaw, op. cit., p. 120.
167 A recent survey in Toronto: Caputi, op. cit., p. 119.
169 Preoccupation with face and hair: Daniel Goleman, “Science Times,” The New York Times, March 15, 1989.
172 William Butler Yeats: “For Ann Gregory,” in The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats (London: MacMillan, 1965).
173 Mary Gordon: Final Payments (London: Black Swan, 1987).
174 Gertrude Stein: Quoted in Arianna Stassinopoulos, Picasso: Creator and Destroyer (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988).
Hunger
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181 Woolf: Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1981); reprint of 1929 edition.
182 Anorexia and Bulimia Association: cited in Joan Jacobs Brumberg, Fasting Girls: The Emergence of Anorexia Nervosa as a Modern Disease (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1988), p. 20.
182 AIDS: “AIDS Toll Rises by 50 percent,” Glasgow Herald, January 7, 1990.
182 5 to 20 percent of women students: Brumberg, op. cit., p. 12.
182 50 percent of college women: Ms., October 1983. A recent University of California at San Francisco survey showed “all [italics added] the 18-year-olds said they currently use vomiting, laxatives, fasting, or diet pills to control their weight. [Jane Brody, “Personal Health,” The New York Times, March 18, 1987.]
182 Bulimic: Cited in Roberta Pollack Seid, Never Too Thin: Why Women Are at War with Their Bodies (New York: Prentice Hall, 1989), p. 21.
182 Death rate: L.K.G. Hsu, “Outcome of Anorexia Nervosa: A Review of the Literature,” Archives of General Psychiatry, vol. 37 (1980), pp. 1041–1042. For a thorough overview of the literature, see L. K. George Hsu, M. D., Eating Disorders (New York: The Guildford Press, 1990).
182 Never recover completely: Brumberg, op. cit., p. 24.
183 Medical effects: Brumberg, op. cit., p. 26. According to The Penguin Encyclopaedia of Nutrition (New York: Viking, 1985): “The patient’s teeth are eroded by acidity of ejected gastric conten
ts. Imbalance of blood chemistry can lead to serious irregularities of the heartbeat, and to kidney failure. Epileptic seizures are not uncommon. Irregular menstrual pattern [leads to infertility],” op. cit.
183 Failure to thrive: Seid, op. cit., p. 26, citing Michael Pugliese et al., “Fear of Obesity: A Cause of Short Stature and Delayed Puberty,” New England Journal of Medicine, September 1, 1983, pp. 513–518. See also Rose Dosti, “Nutritionists Express Worries About Children Following Adult Diets,” Los Angeles Times, June 29, 1986.
180 50 percent of British women suffer: Julia Buckroyd, “Why Women Still Can’t Cope with Food,” British Cosmopolitan, September 1989.
183 Spreading to Europe: Hilde Bruch, The Golden Cage: The Enigma of Anorexia Nervosa (New York: Random House, 1979), cited in Kim Chernin, The Obsession: Reflections on the Tyranny of Slenderness (New York: Harper & Row, 1981), p. 101.
183 Sweden: Cecilia Bergh Rosen, “An Explorative Study of Bulimia and Other Excessive Behaviours,” King Gustav V Research Institute, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, and the Department of Sociology and the School of Social Work, University of Stockholm, Sweden (Stockholm, 1988). “Social seclusion and economic problems were seen as the two most negative effects of bulimia. Although physical consequences were severe, the probands were not deterred by this. . . . In all cases bulimia was said to have caused social withdrawal and isolation” [p. 77].
183 Italian teenagers: Professor N. Frighi, “Le Sepienze,” Institute for Mental Health, University of Rome, 1989; study of over 4,435 secondary-school students.
183 Middle-class: Brumberg, Fasting Girls, p. 9. Ninety to 95 percent of anorexics are young, white, female, and disproportionately middle- and upper-class. The “contagion” is confined to the United States, Western Europe, Japan, and areas experiencing “rapid Westernization” [Ibid., pp. 12–13]. Recent studies show that the higher the man’s income, the lower his wife’s weight [Seid, op. cit., p. 16].
184 The look of sickness: Ann Hollander, Seeing Through Clothes (New York: Viking Penguin, 1988), p. 151.
184 The average model . . . 23 percent: Reported in Verne Palmer, “Where’s the Fat?,” The Outlook, May 13, 1987, quoting Dr. C. Wayne Callaway, director of the Center for Clinical Nutrition at George Washington University; cited in Seid, op. cit., p. 15.
184 Twiggy: Quoted in Nicholas Drake, ed., The Sixties: A Decade in Vogue (New York: Prentice Hall, 1988).
185 Playboy Playmates: See David Garner et al., “Cultural Expectations of Thinness in Women,” Psychological Reports, vol. 47 (1980), pp. 483–491.
185 25 percent on diets: Seid, op. cit., p. 3.
185 Glamour survey: Survey by Drs. Wayne and Susan Wooley, of the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, 1984: “33,000 Women Tell How They Really Feel About Their Bodies,” Glamour, February 1984.
187 Obesity . . . heart disease: See “Bills to Improve Health Studies of Women,” San Francisco Chronicle, August 1, 1990: According to Rep. Barbara Mikulski (Democrat, Maryland), nearly all heart disease research is done on male subjects; the National Institutes of Health spends only 13 percent of its funds on women’s health research.
187 J. Polivy and C. P. Herman: “Clinical Depression and Weight Change: A Complex Relation,” Journal of Abnormal Psychology, vol. 85 (1976), pp. 338–340. Cited in Ilana Attie and J. Brooks-Gunn, “Weight Concerns as Chronic Stressors in Women,” in Rosalind C. Barnett, Lois Biener, and Grace K. Baruch, eds., Gender and Stress (New York: The Free Press, 1987), p. 237.
188 Other theories: Rudolph M. Bell, Holy Anorexia (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1985); Kim Chernin, The Hungry Self: Women, Eating and Identity (London: Virago Press, 1986); Marilyn Lawrence, The Anorexic Experience (London: The Women’s Press, 1984); Susie Orbach, Hunger Strike: The Anorectic’s Struggle as a Metaphor for our Age (London: Faber and Faber, 1986); Eva Szekeley, Never Too Thin (Toronto: The Women’s Press, 1988); Susie Orbach, Fat Is a Feminist Issue (London: Arrow Books, 1989).
190 Rome: Sarah Pomeroy, Goddesses, Whores, Wives and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity (New York: Shocken Books, 1975), p. 203. Under Trajan, the allowance for boys was sixteen sesterces, twelve for girls; in a second-century foundation, boys were given twenty sesterces to girls’ sixteen [Ibid.].
190 Infanticide: M. Piers, Infanticide (New York: W. W. Norton, 1978); and Marvin Harris, Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches: The Riddles of Culture (New York: Vintage, 1975).
190 Botswana: See Jalna Hammer and Pat Allen, “Reproductive Engineering: The Final Solution?,” in Lynda Birke et al., Alice Through the Microscope: The Power of Science Over Women’s Lives (London: Virago Press, 1980), p. 224.
190 Less nutritious: See L. Leghorn and M. Roodkowsky, “Who Really Starves?,” Women and World Hunger (New York, n.a., 1977).
190 Turkey: Debbie Taylor et al., Women: A World Report (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), p. 47.
190 Not hungry: While both Kim Chernin and Susie Orbach describe this pattern, they do not conclude that it directly serves to maintain a political objective.
190 Anemic: Taylor et al., op. cit., p. 8, citing E. Royston, “Morbidity of Women: The Prevalence of Nutritional Anemias in Developing Countries,” World Health Organization Division of Family Health (Geneva: 1978).
191 In a sample of babies: Susie Orbach, op. cit., pp. 40–41.
192 Healthy twenty-year-old female: Seid, op. cit., p. 175.
192 38 percent body fat: Anne Scott Beller, Fat and Thin (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1977); for discussion of set-point theory (the weight which the body defends), see Seid, op. cit., p. 182. See also Gina Kolata, “Where Fat Is Problem, Heredity Is the Answer, Studies Find,” The New York Times, May 24, 1990.
192 Caloric needs: Derek Cooper, “Good Health or Bad Food? 20 Ways to Find Out,” Scotland on Sunday, December 24, 1989; Sarah Bosely, “The Fat of the Land,” The Guardian, January 12, 1990.
192 Women who exercise: Seid, op. cit., p. 40.
192 Ovarian cancer: Ibid., p. 29.
192 Inactive ovaries, Saffron Davies, “Fat: A Fertility Issue,” “Health Watch,” The Guardian, June 30, 1988.
192 Frisch: Rose E. Frisch, “Fatness and Fertility,” Scientific American, March 1988.
192 Low-birthweight babies: British Medical Journal, cited in British Cosmopolitan, July 1988.
192 But desire: Seid, op. cit., pp. 290–291.
193 Develop breasts: Magnus Pyke, Man and Food (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1970), pp. 140–145.
193 Loyola University: Seid, op. cit., p. 360, quoting Phyllis Mensing, “Eating Disorders Have Severe Effect on Sexual Function,” Evening Outlook, April 6, 1987.
193 Exercisers lose interest in sex: Seid, op. cit., p. 296, citing Alayne Yatres et al., “Running—An Analogue of Anorexia?,” New England Journal of Medicine,” February 3, 1983, pp. 251–255.
193 Sexless anorexics: Brumberg, op, cit., p. 267.
193 Sexless bulimics: Mette Bergstrom, “Sweets and Sour,” The Guardian, October 3, 1989.
193 In India: Taylor et al., op. cit., p. 86.
193 Self-inflicted semi-starvation: Seid, op. cit., p. 31.
193 University of Minnesota: See ibid., p. 266; excerpts from Attie and Brooks-Gunn, Gender and Stress, op. cit.
194 Social Isolation: See Rosen, op. cit. See also Daniota Czyzewski and Melanie A. Suhz, eds., Hilda Bruch, Conversations with Anorexics (New York: Basic Books, 1988). See also Garner et al., op. cit, pp. 483–491.
194 Half-crazed confessions: Seid, op. cit., pp. 266–267.
195 [Dutch] great famine: Pyke, op. cit., pp. 129–130.
195 Lodz ghetto: See Lucian Dobrischitski, ed., The Chronicles of the Lodz Ghetto (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984). See also Jean-Francis Steiner, Treblinka (New York: New American Library, 1968).
195 Starvation rations: Paula Dranov, “Where to Go to Lose Weight,” New Woman, June 1988.
195 Food deprivation: Seid, op. cit., p. 266.
196
Eating diseases caused by dieting: Attie and Brooks-Gunn, op. cit., p. 243: “According to this perspective, dieting becomes an addiction, maintained by (1) feelings of euphoria associated with successful weight loss, requiring further caloric restriction to maintain the pleasurable, tension-relieving effects; (2) physiologic changes by which the body adapts to food deprivation; and (3) the threat of “withdrawal” symptoms associated with food consumption, including rapid weight gain, physical discomfort, and dysphoria.”
197 Woolf, op. cit., p. 10.
200 Austin Stress Clinic: Raymond C. Hawkins, Susan Turell, Linda H. Jackson, Austin Stress Clinic, 1983: “Desirable and Undesirable Masculine and Feminine Traits in Relation to Students’ Dieting Tendencies and Body Image Dissatisfaction,” Sex Roles, vol. 9 (1983), p. 705–718.
210 An indifferent eye: The Intercollegiate Eating Disorders Conference, mentioned by Brumberg [op. cit.], did draw many colleges’ representatives. But according to women’s centers in several Ivy League universities, eating diseases are not dealt with beyond self-help groups, and certainly not at an administrative level. The entire term’s budget for the Yale University Women’s Center is $600, up from $400 in 1984. “Diet-conscious female students report that fasting, weight control and binge eating are a normal part of life on American college campuses.” [Brumberg, op. cit., p. 264, citing K. A. Halmi, J. R. Falk, and E. Schwartz, “Binge-Eating and Vomiting: A Survey of a College Population,” Psychological Medicine 11 (1981), pp. 697–706.]
213 Disgust: Quoted in Robin Tolmach Lakoff and Raquel L. Scherr, Face Value: The Politics of Beauty (London and Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984), pp. 141–142, 168–169.
213 Friedan: Betty Friedan, Lear’s, “Friedan, Sadat,” May/June 1988.
215 Meehan: Quoted in Jean Seligman, “The Littlest Dieters,” Newsweek, July 27, 1987.
215 Little girls’ cosmetics: Linda Wells, “Babes in Makeup Land,” The New York Times Magazine, August 13, 1989.
Violence
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