Feminine Hunger: A Brief History of Women’s Food Restriction Practices in the West

Abstract

Intentional hunger, or the experience of voluntarily restricting one’s food intake, has long been considered a women’s issue. From tales of female fasting saints in thirteenth century Europe to today’s Instagram celebrities sharing clean eating tips, the gendered connotations of food restriction and intentional hunger have been a consistent theme throughout Western history. While some sociologist and feminist writers have argued that the meanings ascribed to female food restriction practices should be located within their historical contexts and thus cannot be neatly compared, very few writers have situated intentional hunger within a broader feminist framework, citing patriarchy and the role of gender norms in relation to their diverse impact on women’s eating behaviors and, subsequently, their health. Indeed, despite largely affecting women, the women’s health movement (WHM) has not yet played an active role in challenging these gendered norms in relation to diet culture. This chapter presents a feminist sociological analysis on women’s intentional hunger using historical examples from a Western context. In doing so, the chapter shows that gender norms have played a central role in women’s harmful and restrictive eating practices, and that contemporary challenges to “diet culture” must focus on challenging these gender norms in public health and health promotion materials.