I and my friend were working on a project for class when she showed me this website. At first I had trouble believing this was true. But yes, it is. In a society that tends to glorify the thin standard of "beauty", we have to deal with this. Pro-Ana and Pro-Mia deny that Anorexia and Bulimia are eating disorders, and some Pro Ana Mia sites promote what they call the Anorexia "lifestyle choice". Then there is this horror: PrettyThin or Thinspiration, which is an actual website. Not only does this site give fasting tips, but for "inspiration", they use photos of super-skinny celebs like Paris Hilton and stick-figure Keira Knightley. At first I did not think these sites could be legal, but then my friend told me that apparently, as soon as one site is deleted, others pop up in its place. Here is a link to this website.
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Thinspiration. Pro Ana Mia. WTF!?.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.feministing.com/cgi-bin/movabletype/mt-tb.fcgi/10517
Weekly Feministing Newsletter
Feministing RSS Feed
yeah well...
It _is_ their choice.
The anorexic women/girls I've known were all fully aware of how much danger they were placing themselves in. They fully knew that death was a possible consequence. They felt (and it seems, knew from evidence of pictures of skinny celebs) that death was preferable to life less-than-perfectly-beautiful. This one girl I know was incredibly intelligent and career-driven before landing herself in the hospital several times. She said that, because her parents were so controlling, eating was the only thing she could control herself. I agree that that's a factor, but her locker was lined with pictures of Mary-kate Olsen.
The eating disorder might not start with simple exposure to glamorously thin celebrities, but at least the women on proanamia sites turn to them for "thinspiration" once the disorder's already under way.
I think these women wouldn't be starving themselves if all the celebrities were muscular. Would they be out pumping iron?
It's sexy to be skinny I guess, because then it's easier for your big, strong man to pick you up. And from some conversations with men my age, I know that a lot of men like to feel protective, like they need something/one to physically protect. Even if most of them couldn't actually protect anyone against jack shit.
I know a guy who won't date women taller than he is, because then it's difficult to be the 'big spoon'. I asked him if he felt it was necessary for him to feel like a protector in order to have a good relationship. He thought hard and said yes.
Strong women who take up space don't need protecting and don't rank high on beauty scales. Flimsy women who are so close to starvation that they go through a beauty routine to hide the effects of their near-deathness DO need physical protection but they're also some of the most photographed and sought-after people in the world.
It's disgusting. I know. But in a climate where freedom to advertise, photograph, mass-market anything to anyone is a sacred RIGHT, I'm worried that there isn't much we can do to stop it.
I don't want to limit anyone's freedom to advertise. What what about womens' freedoms-to? Freedom to not feel like you have to starve yourself in order to be desirable to a mate, for one. Freedom to be accepted for more than your appearance.
You are free to do both of those. You don't have to feel like you have to starve yourself. And some people will accept you for more than your appearance. Some will not. Welcome to the human race.
Hell, some men prefer bigger women. I do.
"But in a climate where freedom to advertise, photograph, mass-market anything to anyone is a sacred RIGHT, I'm worried that there isn't much we can do to stop it."
Actually, it's not a sacred right. We regulate advertising and marketing, and even published photography to a degree. We don't live in a free-market. And the people running these sites can be responsible if someone gets hurt using the advise they find there.
The problem is, their defense would consist of "it's not advice, except that you should buy X." They aren't advising anything, because the thinness isn't the point. It's simply who they found attractive.
The problem with protesting the culture of anorexia, or whatever you want to call it, is that most people only have a problem with the anorexia itself. The people who are naturally that thin are the ones they are showing. If you don't naturally look like that, sucks to be you. The women are taking it too far, and most men actually find anorexic women REALLY unattractive (yeah, I know, we aren't supposed to judge. But we do, and I don't really want to be able to count the woman's ribs.)
It's not that you're not supposed to judge whether you find someone attractive or not. It's that it's not all about the menz. it's more about the cultural/societal pressures to fit into an idealized body type that most women don't naturally fit into.
The fact that sites like this exist is horrifying.
Sick people do strange things. Unfortunately, people with these types of mental disorders are never going to change unless it's something they truly want for themselves, no matter how many pro-nonsense sites are removed.
All you can really do is serve as a positive example yourself, and be supportive and non-judgmental if you discover a friend has a similar condition.
these sites have been around for years and aren't going to go away anytime soon. it's sad that they exist but they won't go away until we get a society that focuses less attention on how someone looks on the outside, and more on how people are on the inside.
I think it should be legal, in terms of free speech and whatnot, but I think that the companies that own the servers should have pretty strict policies about Acceptable Use, so that a company doesn't wind up supporting anorexia if it doesn't want to.
Most of us can agree that we'd rather support confidence and health, regardless of size or appearance, instead of a mentality that drives people to harm themselves in order to feel attractive or desirable, so it's our responsibility to support sites that promote these values.
We can't force change on people who are sick and don't want to change themselves. But we CAN make it more likely that people without strongly formed opinions will see sites that support our values, and maybe then join us. I don't like the idea of women or men without opinions on the matter thinking that pro-anorexia is a good way to be just because they saw a website about it.
Sadly, these sites are nothing new. I've seen a TON of these and it's embarrassing. It really tears me up, because part of me wants to grab these people, shake them and go "HEY GUESS WHAT? YOU NEED TO EAT. REALLY. YOUR MIDOCHONDRIA DON'T GIVE A RAT'S ASS ABOUT YOUR DESIRE TO BE A SIZE 00! YOU ARE JUST COMMITTING A LONG, EXTRA-TORTUROUS ACT OF SUICIDE." But then the fact they're victims holds you back and makes you feel guilty for that anger. Because it's not entirely their fault that they're this brainwashed.
The only way to really start making an impact, in my opinion, is to stop buying products that rely on painfully thin models advertising. That, in my opinion, would send a truly effective message.
What does this have to do with feminism? Eating disorders are an illness, just like depression or cancer. Yes, the media has a bit of an effect, but for lots of anorexics it's not even about being skinny, its all wrapped up in a lot of different emotions... If just seeing skinny women on television caused anorexia, we would all have it, and we don't.
Be careful before you judge them. They seem weird to you, but they really do serve a purpose.
I used to frequent "pro-ana" sites all the time. Except we referred to them as pro-choice when it comes to eating disorders, we referred to them as pro-truth, pro-talking about all the shit so it doesn't hurt anymore.
It's about being able to be honest with people. There are communities that are "pro-recovery" too, but they don't let you talk about anything that isn't recovery related. You can't talk about how much pain you're in, or how you feel fat or want to throw up, restrict calories, etc. You can't be honest.
The communities I was in were supportive when it came to recovery -- if you were ready, you were encouraged. No one wanted anyone to die. I would not have been able to recover without the support of people who understood, who I could talk to even when I slipped up. For me, it was a sense that even though I was sick, I was an okay person.
Thank you for this comment, this is exactly what I was thinking as I was reading the comments before yours.
I really think that people who have never had an eating disorder or have never been close enough to someone to understand an eating disorder from the POV of the person going through it (believe me, I`ve had very close friends who weren`t even close to understanding what I went through) shouldn`t make judgements based on logic such as `this is unhealthy, and those who do it know it is unhealthy`. Because, yeah, sure. We all know it`s unhealthy. Does our knowledge of this change which body types we desire (for whatever reason we desire them)? Probably not. I am a naturally skinny person, and all through junior high and high school I constantly heard people make comments that were either ``you`re so lucky to be so skinny``, or ``you`d better watch what you eat, one day your metabolism will slow down``. People will make comments like this to you, even before they`ll ``encourage`` you in other ways- you start to feel as if your thin-ness is all that matters. Pretty soon you fear that one day your metabolism will slow down, and you`ll lose that thin-ness. Then what? And so, you do begin to watch what you eat...
Thank you for this! Yes, our cultural fetishization of the female body and preference for slenderness does contribute in some way to eating disorders. But eating disorders are fundamentally a mental health issue - that's why it's sometimes successful to treat them as obsessive-compulsive disorders with food as their locus. As someone who's struggled (okay, still struggles sometimes) with an eating disorder, and has frequented those sites in the past, I can say (and am fairly confident that I speak for a lot of people) that aspiring to look like Keira Knightley whoever is a tiny part of the problem. If that were the issue, eating disorder sufferers could simply be made to see that they were being irrational, and then would reason their way out of the eating disorder. I wish to God it were anything like that easy.
I don't like the idea of these websites, but I don't see any reason why they should be illegal.
There was an article in the NY Times recently about people with paranoid schizophrenia (or was it anxiety disorder?) who were finding that there are online communities for people who are being "watched by the government" or are being attacked by "brain wave" weapons and the like.
Psychologists are worried about these websites because they can reinforce the unhealthy behaviors that contribute to the mental disorder. I worry that "thinspired" websites offer the same difficulties for those who might be fighting these eating disorders.
(but then the internet has always been dangerous in that you can get what you want, a la carte)