APPROACH OF ANOREXIA AT THE CROSSROADS OF PHENOMENOLOGY AND FEMINISM

Contrary to a strictly medical approach to anorexia, which views it as a behavioral disorder, this study focuses on relationships with others and with the body that are the expression of its food deprivation. Highlighting the contribution from phenomonelogy, which sees that expression as a way of being-with-the-world-and-others, the author uses Kafka's A Hunger Artist to show that anorexia is not only or essentially linked to the ideal of thinness. It is a question of autonomy based in the duality of mind/body that is characteristic of modern rationalism, and thus reflected in social representations. A feminist approach to anorexia can explain why the majority of anorexics are women. It is not only important to emphasize the social roles that clarify how today's women seek to respond to canons of thinness, but to analyze their forms of expression of the self within contexts that make autonomy an unachievable ideal.