Discontinuities: A Study of Lesbians and Body Image Recipient: Graduate Prize in Feminist Scholarship

By: Raina Lenney, MA Liberal Arts, Women’s Studies

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In 1990 Dawn Atkins, founder and chair of the Body Image Task Force (BITF),

was asked to do a workshop for the Lesbian and Gay Community Center in Santa Cruz,

CA. The leaders of the organization, an educational and activist group devoted to

promoting positive body image, realized that they had never considered the specific body

issues associated with lesbians, gay, or bisexuals (xxix). Although information abounded

on the topic of eating disorders in communities of white, middle-class, heterosexual

women, the issues of non-normative populations had never been considered. The

outcome of this revelation is a collection of essays edited by Dawn Atkins entitled

Looking Queer, Body Image and Identity in Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay, and Transgender

Communities. Atkins’ book is one of the only collections available that analyzes these

topics among queer populations; the scarcity of material is indicative of the necessity for

research and writing. This collection, while broad in scope, must only be the beginning

of an inquiry into the study of eating disorders and body dissatisfaction among deviant

populations.

It is commonly assumed that eating disorders and compulsive body issues are

issues contained within a white, upper-middle class, heterosexual, and female segment of

society. In a study conducted by Gayle E. Pitman, she states “Feminists have

traditionally focused on gender role conflict, cultural misogyny, and female oppression in

constructing a sociocultural theory of the etiology of body dissatisfaction, weight

preoccupation, and eating disorders in women” (Journal of Lesbian Studies 130). These

are such familiar refrains that despite a changing economic and cultural climate, other

groups of women, such as minorities and lesbians, are completely erased from

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considerations of these concerns. Although each of these groups deserves the utmost

consideration, in this article I will attempt to evaluate the specific place of lesbians within

this burgeoning epidemic. Do lesbians have problems with eating disorders or

compulsive habits concerning weight? It would seem not, or at least a general hypothesis

circulates that suggests that lesbians have cultivated a body image that is in opposition to

the normative traditional image constructed for heterosexual women (presumably by

heterosexual men). This opposing image provides a hypothetical space where differing

body images for women may proliferate. Although this is seemingly true, many lesbians

have suggested that the impact of cultural images is strong, and these women find

themselves struggling to assume a normative body role. In “Resistance and

Reinscription” by Sara Auerbach and Rebekah Bradley a group of lesbians are

interviewed about their body perceptions. One woman, Jamie, states:

I thought for a long time that lesbians

shouldn’t, you know, feminists shouldn’t have all these issues, but I don’t think we can erase them, our subculture; they’re so ingrained in us as children…I mean, there’s certainly a lot of movement going on within the lesbian community, of nonbody image oppression…and you certainly see a lot of large women that carry themselves beautifully, but I think…in the past few years, people are starting to worry more about body image (Atkins 33).

Other women corroborate this report, describing the conflicting messages from within

and without the community to rebel against heterosexual norms and yet to maintain an

acceptable body weight (33). In Naomi Tucker’s essay “Contradictions of the Spirit:

Theories and Realities of Lesbian Body Image”, Tucker states: “In oral interviews, some

of the same women later discussed how, although they no longer felt confined to

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heterosexist, male-defined beauty standards for women, they did feel restricted by a new,

lesbian standard of beauty and attractiveness, including physical strength requisites and a

particular dress code” (Atkins 39). Conflicting ideals about body and resistance to

heterosexual norms may cause some of these women to feel stigmatized by the lesbian

community, and thus unsure about voicing concerns. A lack of attention from the

medical community, cultural theorists, feminists, and philosophers complicates these

issues, and while queer theorists are certainly focused on concerns relevant to lesbians,

discussions of the physical lesbian body are minimal at best.

Culture plays a larger role than might be imagined in the formation of women’s

bodies. This includes the lesbian body, as not only are lesbians women, but lesbians are

forced to contend with multiple forms of oppression, and may feel desperate to abide by

normative roles. In addition to the myriad ways in which misogyny seeks to oppress

women, lesbians must contend with rampant, sanctioned homophobia in society; this

homophobia is dangerous externally but may also have an impact on the lesbian body. In

the last twenty years, post second-wave feminism and in the midst of a backlash, there

has been a marked increase in the incidence of eating disorders, and of compulsive eating

habits in general. In The Obsession, Reflections on the Tyranny of Slenderness, Kim

Chernin suggests that the second wave feminist movement, and its subsequent backlash,

can be seen as contributing to the debilitating images of women that proliferate presently.

“I am suggesting that the changing awareness of women of our position in this society

has divided itself into two divergent movements, one of which is a movement toward

feminine power, the other a retreat from it, supported by the fashion and diet industries,

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which share a fear of women’s power” (99). This “fear” of an assumption of power by

women has resulted in the infantilizing of women in the media images of the culture. In

an effort to reassert the sense of power that masculine society feels has been lost, the

woman’s image as victim is moderated; her youthful appearance (often only possible

through the use of fifteen and sixteen year old models), and unnaturally boyish figure are

now the normalizing images presented to women (99-100).

How has this trend impacted the lesbian body? Although the absence of this

subject in medical literature may suggest that there is no impact, I believe that a

systematic erasure of women, and more specifically of lesbians, has occurred. In the

introduction to Looking Queer, Body Image and Identity in Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay, and

Transgender Communities, Atkins says, “The influence of body image disturbances on

lesbians and bisexual women was not even considered by most researchers. This erasure

can have a profound negative impact on the health of lesbian, bisexual, and gay people”

(xxxii). Exclusion within the medical community leaves no available space where these

problems may be considered, and thus lesbians are left without resources. This lack of

consideration, combined with the secrecy within the community surrounding issues of the

body mentioned above, may make many women reluctant or unable to discuss struggles

with body image.

In this paper I will attempt to demonstrate that the cultural influences that impact

women’s interpretations of their bodies are not limited to upper-middle class heterosexual

women. I will focus on lesbians as a group to demonstrate that these cultural influences

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are prevalent in shaping, or helping to shape, women’s bodies, and while different groups

of women may react differently to these factors, the influences are strong regardless. In

other words, although women may not be categorized as a monolithic category, nor may

lesbians, the cultural influences that dictate the normative body echo throughout society

and these pressures may have negative repercussions for all female bodies. I will explore

a concise history of compulsive eating habits, and demonstrate the cultural impact on

each of these historical moments in an effort to sustain a cultural theory of eating

disorders. I will consider the erasure of lesbians within the medical community, and

suggest some reasons why society, the medical establishment, and cultural theorists have

ignored this issue in particular. I will look briefly at various lesbian identity

constructions, particularly the glamorization of the femme lesbian via lesbian chic, and

will demonstrate the impact of this identity category on the body of the lesbian. Lastly, I

will examine the minimal data that does exist, and demonstrate the potential for further

study.

A large body of writing has been devoted to the study of eating disorders; the

scope of this writing traverses the medical canon, feminist and cultural constructionism,

historical perspectives, autobiographies, theatre and film, and practically every other

form of expression and inquisition. There are three theories concerning the cause of

eating disorders: a biomedical theory, a psychological theory, and a cultural theory. The

biomedical theory suggests that these disorders are pathological and attempts to define

their biological root. According to Joan Jacobs Brumberg, in her landmark historical

analysis of anorexia nervosa, Fasting Girls, this biomedical model, while serving some

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important functions, is limited in crucial ways. “The question that biomedicine must

address…is not whether the disease has somatic components (it obviously does) but

whether these symptoms are primary or secondary in the etiology of anorexia nervosa”

(26). The biomedical model fails to explain why this disorder mainly affects women, and

this model is unable to address the question of incidence—why are there so many women

afflicted with these disorders at this precise historical moment (27)? More importantly,

the biomedical model, with its narrow scope, facilitates the erasure of homosexual bodies

within the medical community and thus does not allow it to function as explanatory nor

definitive of lesbian needs. The psychological theory interrogates the influences of the

home and the internal workings of the mind, and the effects that these factors have on the

manifestation of these disorders (28). While this model is useful in some ways, it too

ignores the social factors surrounding these disorders. The cultural model seeks to

demonstrate the role of society and culture (particularly mass media) and the effects these

systems have on the structure and severity of these disorders. It is this model that is the

most widely contested within the medical profession, yet it is also this model that may

provide the most complete set of answers. An awareness of the body image issues within

lesbian communities may demonstrate or contribute to the power of the cultural model to

explain the origins of these disorders.

Although the specific terms anorexia nervosa or bulimia may not be carried

successfully throughout history, it is evident that women have experienced a myriad of

issues concerning the physical body. In this section I will outline a brief historical

perspective to demonstrate how these disorders have manifested themselves in other

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times and places. I use this section not to demonstrate that anorexia or bulimia is

historically pervasive (nor would it be historically accurate to assign those terms to the

following relationships between women, food, and their bodies) but rather to demonstrate

that the culture surrounding each of these incidents is predominant in dictating the forms

these compulsive habits assume. If culture is indeed largely explanatory of these

disorders (as I am suggesting that it is), then it seems plausible to assume that

marginalized groups of women, such as lesbians, may also suffer as products of a

particular culture. With this historical foundation we may then extrapolate the influence

of culture on women’s bodies, and thus it will be possible to view the lesbian body as a

body contained within, and influenced by, the pervasive culture.

As early as the fourteenth century there are writings available that attest to the

tumultuous relationship between women and their bodies. Caroline Walker Bynum has

constructed a comprehensive collection of religious women and their complex

interactions with food entitled Holy Feast and Holy Fast. One famous example of a

saintly faster was Catherine of Siena, a young woman who began fasting at puberty and

devoted her life to religious teaching and miraculous events. Catherine was the youngest,

and most favored, of twenty-three children. The death of her twin sister, a result of

having been weaned outside the home while their mother weaned Catherine, may have

contributed to Catherine’s excessive guilt surrounding food (165-167). She is said to

have considered her prolonged fast an “infirmity” (168), and appears to have been

motivated through her guilt and a desire to control the sins (such as material

consumption) of the body. Bynum questions the central theme of food in women’s

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religious lives and suggests: “Food is important to women religiously because it is

important socially” (189). She elaborates that women’s traditional roles have centered on

the growth and preparation of food, stressing that food is the one resource that women

control. “Food-related behavior was central to women socially and religiously not only

because food was a resource women controlled but also because by means of food

women controlled themselves and their world” (193). The conflation of the female body

with sin, and the necessity to contain this sin has been noted repeatedly. Susan Bordo, in

her essay “Reading the Slender Body”, suggests that the female body has been “coded”

morally and economically “in terms of its capacity for self-containment and the control of

impulse and desire…” (191). Here the containment of desire is reflected through the

woman’s convoluted relationship with food. In a society where women are allotted a

limited medium of power, and where the activities of their minds and bodies are regularly

policed, it seems inevitable that food will become a means of manipulation. Bynum, like

Bordo, stresses the cultural impact on the bodies of women and suggests that although

these early forms of starvation may resemble modern day anorexia, the importance lies

not in the label but rather in both cultures’ emphasis on the relationship of women and

food. “The behavior [fasting], then, whatever basis it may in some cases have in the

physiology and the family history of individuals, is also, in the very particular form it

takes, learned; and it is learned from a culture that has complex and long-standing

traditions about women, about bodies, and about food” (Bynum 198). Thus it seems

evident that the cultural impact on these women is substantial.

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Another example of the contested relationship between women and their bodies is

exemplified in the Victorian era. In Fasting Girls, Joan Jacobs Brumberg outlines the

relationship of food and love in the bourgeois family in France, and documents the

emergence of mass starvation among middle class girls at the onset of puberty. The rise

of industrialization in the nineteenth century had a number of effects on the middle class

family. With more economic power to purchase products outside of the home and with

factories producing goods of better quality more cheaply, the role of the woman in the

domestic sphere diminished significantly (126-127). For the young women of the

household, this meant that they were left to a leisurely existence; no longer required to

work in an effort to assist the family, these women were encouraged to cultivate traits

traditionally associated with their feminine role. The mothers, who were displaced as

domestic goods producers by the factories, took this opportunity to refine their daughters

for their future marriage, as a desirable match could enhance the wealth and property of

the family. This pressure to conform to a standard image, an image reinforced by the

normalizing practices affected earlier in the century1, was often unbearable to a young

woman (135). Similar to the fourteenth century woman whose only form of power was

invested in food, so too did the Victorian adolescent barter with this medium. The

preparation, serving, and consumption of food, for the middle class, had assumed a new

level of importance: “Among the middle class it seems that eating correctly was

emerging as a new morality, one that set its members apart from the working class”

(136). Thus it was through rejection of this eloquent ceremony of meals that these

1 In Enforcing Normalcy, Lennard Davis documents the rise of a normalizing image for the middle class. The rising bourgeois used this image to distinguish themselves from the lower classes. One effect of this image was to standardize the size and shape of women (particularly young, marriageable women), in an effort to demonstrate the status (middle-class) of the family.

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women could assert their discomfort with the limited roles that were available to them

(135-138).

By the late nineteenth century the bourgeois mother was no longer even a midwife to her daughter in childbirth. She gave that role to professional medicine and became, instead, midwife to her daughter’s social persona. Because she was so actively engaged in managing her daughter’s physical growth, appearance, and moral development, the middle-class mother had a significant investment in how her daughter fared in the marriage market. A daughter was, after all, an extension of the mother. To see her consistently refuse food was hurtful and frustrating indeed. (137)

It seems apparent that the emphasis on food in Victorian culture, combined with the

enormous pressure to conform to a particular ideal, served as a catalyst for these eating

disorders. I would like to reiterate here that while it seems evident that biological and

psychological factors certainly contributed to these disorders, it appears that the

surrounding culture largely influenced the form and prevalence of these patterns of

starvation.

In both of the previous examples it is evident that women both manipulate and are

manipulated by the culture at large. In this way these women may be seen as products of

a restrictive culture while simultaneously exhibiting a form of agency. I use the two

examples above to demonstrate several things. First, it appears obvious that women have

had a long and turbulent history with food. In societies where the bodies of women are

constantly under surveillance, women have developed a course of action that both limits

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and liberates them. In other words, these women exercise a form of power in resistance

(refusal to eat, etc.) but this power is subsumed by the detrimental body image fostered

by the culture. This image is associated with other factors, such as chastity, freedom

from sin, etc., and is seen as reflective of the normative roles dictated by society, and thus

necessary to obtain. Second, although historical records may only tell the story of those

in power, it seems obvious that many women who live in a particular culture potentially

feel the impact of that culture. Thus, although little may exist to confirm the existence of

a mass epidemic of body dissatisfaction among lesbians, enough exists to suggest that

these women may also struggle with body image, and that this struggle may then lead to

eating disorders for some of these women. A proliferation of issues surrounding food

and the female body among less-studied populations may help to confirm a cultural

theory as explanatory of eating disorders, and to suggest a need for further study.

It seems evident that the convoluted relationship between women and food

reappears at several historical junctures, and is influenced strongly by cultural factors.

Although these cultural factors have only been examined in relation to heterosexual

women, it is logical that all women in a particular community may be susceptible to

normalizing factors. In this section I will consider the homophobia within the medical

community and the resultant erasure of lesbians from medical study and consideration2.

In “Contradictions of the Spirit: Theories and Realities of Lesbian Body Image”, Naomi

Tucker defines three reasons why lesbians are invisible in medical literature and

2 It is important to note that lesbians have not always been excluded from medical consideration. Until 1973, homosexuality was considered a disease, and prior to this seemingly benevolent reclassification, homosexual was simply seen as deviant, criminal behavior. For a full discussion of the transition of the lesbian body through history, see: Chauncey, George Jr. “From Sexual Inversion to Homosexuality: Medicine and the Changing Conceptualization of Female Deviance.” Homosexuality: Sacrilege, Vision, Politics. Eds. Robert Boyers and George Steiner. No. 58-59, (Fall 1982-Winter 1983) 114-146.

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communities, and why lesbians may be hesitant to seek treatment for issues surrounding

body image. First, until recently the issue of sexuality was not considered in empirical

studies on body image, as sexuality was considered irrelevant in defining a problem.

Second, the clinical treatments available are based upon the same “psychopathological

paradigms” created in a patriarchal system that perpetuate and sustain the very problems

(eating disorders and dissatisfaction with body image) that they attempt to address.

These treatments usually fail to acknowledge and address an inherently oppressive

system as a root cause of body image issues. Last, the lesbian and bisexual community

does not address these issues within the community, as there is a general assumption that

lesbians do not struggle with these concerns (Atkins 38). These three items offer some

insight into the lack of material available and interest paid to this issue. Combined with a

history of homophobia and pathologization within the medical community, these reasons

serve to erase the concerns of lesbian and bisexual women.

In Diagnosis Difference: The Moral Authority of Medicine, Abby Wilkerson

describes the pathologization of homosexuals in the medical communities. Her argument

suggests that the “moral authority” of medicine—in other words, the power of the

medical structure to dictate an implicit moral stance—perpetuates and sustains the

institutionalized homophobia that echoes throughout society (43). Wilkerson describes

the transition of homosexuality from a criminal to a pathological state, and the resultant

belief that homosexuality could be cured by the medical establishment as “a clear and

direct instance of medicine as a form of social control” (45). This intermingling of

medical authority and moral presumptions (which Wilkerson terms pathologization) may

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have negative consequences for lesbians attempting to navigate the medical community.

Wilkerson extends the notion of homophobia and defines a concept of “erotophobia” to

“consist not only of explicit declarations of pathology, but also of other practices and

attitudes which more subtly reflect cultural taboos against sexual practices, desires, and

identities” (66). This concept, pioneered by Cindy Patton, describes a political and

cultural motivation to sustain the stigmatization of lesbians, gays, and bisexuals, as these

deviant sexualities are condemned by the culture at large (66). This moral condemnation,

sanctioned by society, is cloaked in the seeming benevolence of the medical institution

and used to reify compulsory heterosexuality. “Beneath the stated concern for the

medical ramifications of sexual behavior are moral judgements that certify the medical,

hence moral, correctness of white, middle-class, monogamous, married heterosexuality,

and prescribe a whole set of gender relations in marriages” (71). Thus it seems obvious

that lesbian bodies are not sanctioned by medicine, and therefore are susceptible to

erasure and negligence within that community.

The pathologization of deviant bodies, and the use of these bodies in defining and

sustaining the desired norm, was existent prior to the mass medicalization of

industrialized countries. In Extraordinary Bodies, Figuring Physical Disability in

American Culture and Literature, Rosemary Garland Thomson describes the popularity

of the nineteenth-century freak show. These freak shows, according to Thomson,

“represented a dramatic resurgence of the tradition of publicly displaying and reading

extraordinary bodies” (58). Thomson describes this display of disabled and deviant

bodies as means by which normalcy was solidified. She states, “In an era of social

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transformation and economic reorganization, the nineteenth-century freak show was a

cultural ritual that dramatized the era’s physical and social hierarchy by spotlighting

bodily stigmata that could be choreographed as an absolute contrast to ‘normal’

American embodiment and authenticated as corporeal truth” (63). Thus a desired

position of normalcy became sanctioned, and the bodies that did not fit this notion were

simultaneously erased and stigmatized with the rise of a medicalized society.

Audre Lorde presents a striking example of the pathologization of homosexual

and deviant bodies by the medical institution. In The Cancer Journals, Lorde describes a

day in the hospital following the removal of one of her breasts due to breast cancer.

The woman from Reach For Recovery who came to see me in the hospital, while quite admirable and even impressive in her own right, certainly did not speak to my experience nor my concerns. As a 44 year old Black Lesbian Feminist, I knew there were very few role models around for me in this situation, but my primary concerns two days after the mastectomy were hardly about what man I could capture in the future, whether or not my old boyfriend would still find me attractive enough, and even less about whether my two children would be embarrassed by me around their friends (56).

It is evident in the passage that Lorde suffered alienation at the hands of those presumed

to be helpful. When the concerns of the patient do not suit the political and moral

ideology of the medical institution, these concerns are subsumed by the practices

designed to uphold the “correctness of white, middle-class, monogamous, married

heterosexuality” (Wilkerson 71). Thus one may see how the concerns of lesbians may be

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consumed by the larger moral ideologies perpetuated by the powerful institutions

medicine. According to an article in a 1997 issue of the Washington Blade, only 11%-

37% of doctors compile a sexual history from their new patients and only 33% of

lesbians are comfortable disclosing their sexual identities to their doctors (Keen 19). If

patients are presumed to be heterosexual and no consideration is given to specific health

concerns, this may pose serious problems for a lesbian seeking counseling or treatment

for an eating disorder.

In the passages above I have tried to demonstrate, however briefly, the

pathologization of deviant bodies prior to and throughout the rise of medicalized society.

The systematic erasure of all deviance, including lesbianism, has cast the concerns of

these populations as unimportant and undeserving of attention. If lesbians are to be

heard, if the populations of women suffering grievances are to be registered, then a

consistent and diligent research effort must be mounted.

The role of the femme lesbian complicates issues of body image for lesbian and

bisexual women. In “Butch-Femme and the Politics of Identity”, Tracy Morgan

describes a brief history of the butch-femme identity. The butch, Morgan states, can be

traced back to the advent of sexology; the sexologists label for those with queer

tendencies was ‘invert’, and it is from the invert that the idea of the mannish lesbian

arises (38). This was a purely homophobic generalization—if the mannish woman could

be identified as such, she could surely be cured. The femme lesbian was defined by her

relationship with a butch—in other words, the femmes’ ability to pass for heterosexual

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denied her an identity of her own. As Joan Nestle says in The Persistent Desire, A

Femme-Butch Reader, “Butches were known by their appearance, femmes by their

choices” (139). Although Nestle was speaking of the 1950’s and the resurgence of a

butch-femme aesthetic, certainly the theme of a dependent femme persists even to the

present.

In the 1990’s there has been a decided movement to reclaim a femme identity.

These women strive to claim an identity of their own; to validate the existence of a

femme lesbian, and to subvert the notion that butch is the only signifier for queer.

Lesbians have begun to rebel against the restrictive androgynous or masculine costume

that the lesbians of the 1960’s and 70’s deemed as a standard response to a male

heterosexual standard of beauty imposed on and accepted by heterosexual women, and

insist upon their right to be “feminine”. In addition, these women have begun to subvert

traditional notions of powerlessness and suggest that the dependency and timidity

associated with femme women are not the traits that femmes embody. Joan Nestle

embodies this reclamation; in the introduction to The Persistent Desire she states:

And I wanted to edit this book because I am a

femme woman, tired of devaluation by myself and other, tired of past and present attacks on the integrity of our desire, tired of the penalties we have had to pay because we look like “women”—from straight men, from so-called radical feminists, and from some lesbian separatists who, because of their anger at the social construction of femininity, cannot allow us to even exist. I understand the possibility for surface confusions, but we deserve more careful thinking and feeling (18).

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This empowerment includes reclamation of one’s life and sexual persona as well as an

assertion to a separate and valid identity. In “A Coincidence of Lipstick and Self-

Revelation”, Katherine Millersdaughter states, “Finally, in knowing myself femme, I

assert a poetics of my own sex, gender, and desire, a study of the infinite excess of my

body, the title, the frame of clean space on my page, my margins dripping with the

orgasmic, critical trace that bears the tumultuous meeting of my body with hers, our sex”

(Harris, Crocker 123). These femme women attempt to reserve a space whereby the

power and agency they wield is recognized.

While a reclamation and assertion of identity is positive in many respects,

embracing a look that mirrors the heterosexual standard of beauty is dangerous for

several reasons. In “Commodity Lesbianism” and essay by Danae Clark, Clark theorizes

the intersection of capitalist consumerism with a resurgence of the lesbian femme

identity. Clark describes the increasing visibility of the gay community and the

recognition by marketers that these lesbians are potential consumers with a disposable

income. She describes a technique of marketing designed to appeal to the largest

audience possible; this technique is termed the “gay window” of advertising. These ads

are not overtly homosexual nor are they anti-homosexual—this style of advertising is

attractive to both straight consumers trying to feel chic, and lesbian consumers who feel

that they may have glimpsed a representation of themselves in the ad. Clark states:

Generally, gay window ads avoid explicit references to heterosexuality by depicting only one individual of same-sexed individuals within the representational frame. In addition, these models

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bear the signifiers of sexual ambiguity or androgynous style. But “gayness” remains in the eye of the beholder: gays and lesbians can read into an ad certain subtextual elements that correspond to experiences with or representations of gay/lesbian subculture. If heterosexual consumers do not notice these subtexts

or subtextual codes, then advertisers are able to reach the homosexual market along with the heterosexual market without ever revealing their aim

(Creekmur, Doty 486).

While this strategy allows for the validation and embracing of the femme woman, it has

the negative effect of collapsing the image of the femme with the image of the

heterosexual woman (495). This creates a normalized, acceptable version of the category

lesbian, and in these ads both lesbians and straight women become subject to the

dominant constructions of feminine appearance and normative roles. How does a more

mainstream version of a lesbian cater to body image issues within that community? If

lesbians are attempting to reflect an image projected by the advertising industry, and that

industry ruthlessly perpetuates the thin ideal, where do lesbians fit in? It is no stretch to

assert that the media dominates the present day with a proliferation of images designed to

commodify everything within reach. This commodification extends to women and their

bodies, which are used to sell products ranging from clothing, perfume, and cars to palm-

pilots (About Face). The body of the woman is glorified, idealized, subordinated,

exaggerated, and mythologized, creating again the impossible ideal that must be attained.

It is obvious that heterosexual women are affected by this proliferation of images—with

the advent “gay window” advertising, are lesbians subject to the same standardizing

practices? Does it stand to reason that these lesbians are subject to body norms that are

similarly oppressive to heterosexual woman?

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In a study conducted by Jeanine C. Cogan (1999) called “Lesbians Walk the

Tightrope of Beauty: Thin is in but Femme is Out” Cogan addresses these very questions.

Cogan collected 181 questionnaires at a gay pride festival in Sacramento, CA. These

questionnaires addressed concerns such as why these women exercised (if they did), and

what type of exercise they engaged in, as well as concerns of body image and weight.

The results of the study were interesting, and tended to complicate the notion that

lesbians are fully satisfied with their bodies. Cogan found that these women tended, on

average, not to exercise for thinness, but rather for functional health reasons. She also

found that these women engaged in a myriad of activities, ranging from softball to

walking, dancing, hiking and weight lifting. In the area of body image satisfaction, the

evidence demonstrated that these women were just as unhappy as heterosexual women

with the state of their bodies and that they had, to some degree, internalized the dominant

culture’s thinness ideal. Many of these women were conflicted by how they thought they

should feel about their weight and overall body image, and how they actually did feel

about these concerns (78-84). As Cogan states, “What is potentially dangerous for

lesbians is a tension between the outside expectations within lesbian communities for size

acceptance/body love and lesbians’ internal experiences” (82).

These findings were corroborated by a study conducted in 1990 by three college

students interested in examining eating disorders among lesbians. In “Body Image

Dissatisfaction and Disordered Eating in Lesbian College Students”, Ruth Striegel-

Moore, Naomi Tucker, and Jeanette Hsu questioned thirty college students about body

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dissatisfaction in an effort to discover similarities between lesbian and heterosexual

women. Although their sample was small, and limited by age and economic status, the

findings were similar to Cogan’s study and suggested that lesbian women do not differ

from straight women in body esteem and image issues. They state “Although lesbian

ideology rejects our culture’s narrowly defined ideal of female beauty and opposes the

overemphasis placed on women’s physical attractiveness, such ideology may not be

strong enough to enable lesbians to overcome already internalized cultural belief and

values about female beauty” (498). Thus it seems evident that lesbians are in a

precarious double bind; neither legitimated by the heterosexist medical community or

their peers, lesbians are left with few options when confronting body issues or relief from

a debilitating eating disorder.

Another important consideration in both of these studies was the intersection of

homophobia with manifestations of eating disorders. In many cases the women

themselves had internalized homophobia and manifested this internalization in the form

of compulsive eating tendencies or, in drastic cases, in the form of an eating disorder. In

Pitman’s study, “Body Image, Compulsory Heterosexuality, and Internalized

Homophobia”, she isolates homophobia as a causal factor: “Through the internalization

of societal homophobia, lesbians and gay men begin to believe that there is something

inherently wrong with them, rather than seeing the prejudicial and discriminative forces

at work that promote and reinforce the heterosexism in our culture” (133). This

dissatisfaction with the self may manifest in the form of an eating disorder for women

bombarded by the dominant culture’s mandate of thinness. Many of these women report

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feeling less concerned with body image after coming out; this is indicative that

sanctioned homophobia can have dire consequences for the bodies of lesbians. Jeanine

C. Cogan remarks “…a common thread among many of these [women interviewed]

responses is the sense of freedom women felt from the constraining beauty expectations

of dominant culture after coming out” (86). While this theme is prevalent in these studies

it is often countered by the restrictions fostered by the lesbian community. As Esther D.

Rothblum states in “Beauty Mandates and the Appearance Obsession: Are Lesbians

Better Off?:

Thus, while for many women coming out

represents freedom from the dominant culture’s ideal of beauty, mere coming out does not solve the problem. Although, in theory, lesbian communities afford women the opportunity to define themselves and to find the appearance they find most pleasing to themselves, our research suggests that appearance norms continue to exist among lesbians. Some lesbians experience these norms as being just as restrictive as those of the dominant culture (24).

Thus it seems evident that lesbians must contend with a multitude of forces when

defining an acceptable body image. This combination of internal and external

homophobia, which manifests in the desire to erase any vestige of the lesbian in culture

and medicine, is devastating to the bodies, souls, and minds of these women.

Throughout this paper I have attempted to demonstrate that lesbians occupy a

precarious and conflicted space within the multifaceted world of eating disorders.

Lesbians are forced to contend with a multitude of oppressions; erasure from the medical

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community, silence and secrecy within their own communities, and a dangerous

intersection of identity and capitalism pose serious threats to the lesbian body. A brief

history of women’s contested relationship with food, combined with a contemporary

preoccupation with thinness, suggests that all women may be susceptible to the cultures’

preoccupation with a normalized body. There is little room for a lesbian struggling to

come to terms with her body; at the intersection of a culturally mandated thinness,

sanctioned homophobia, and silence from the medical community, these women are left

with little recourse. Attempting to confront these issues, Naomi Tucker states:

Clearly we have to fight this battle on several fronts. Externally, we must confront heterosexism in all its forms, especially the forces that perpetually subject us under male dominance. Internally, we must enter into a mode of critical thinking with respect to our own community and create models of queer women’s community, social structure, and politics that do not re-create heterosexist paradigms of oppression (45).

The limited amount of research that has been conducted concerning this issue makes it

clear that lesbians have been erased from what traditionally have been considered

heterosexual concerns. It is evident from the existing studies that a problem does exist,

and this problem must be confronted if the oppression of women is to be dealt with in all

of its manifestations. A research effort must be mounted, as lesbians too are subject to

the beauty mandates of our culture. Only through a sustained effort to recognize and

include marginalized populations will all women ultimately be freed from the normative

standards that haunt us.

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Nestle, Joan. The Persistent Desire, A Femme-Butch Reader. Alyson Publications, Inc., 1992. Patton, Cindy. “Why We Can’t Get Women and AIDS on the Agenda.” Z 3 (12): 99-103. 1990. Pitman, Gayle. “Body Image, Compulsory Heterosexuality, and Internalized Homophobia.” Journal of Lesbian Studies. Vol. 3, No. 4 (1999) 129-139. Rothblum, Esther D., Anna Myers, Jennifer Taub, Jessica F. Morris. “Beauty Mandates

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