Second-wave feminism in the 1970s went a long way in emancipating women from traditional ideals. But counter-attacks to it meant that by the 1980s women found themselves subjected to a new type of scrutiny. Women’s bodies were highly sexualised and under increasing pressure to be the right shape and size. Here Susie Orbach, writer of the seminal 1978 book “Fat is a Feminist Issue”, explores how these conditions exacerbated cases of bulimia in the 1980s, and examines the complexity and intensity with which women relate to their own bodies. In the edition of the New Statesman in which this article appears, the article is contextualised:
“An emaciated model no longer has the power to shock as Twiggy did 20 years ago. Today she is the model of femininity, though tomorrow her shoulders may be too broad, her breasts too low, her bottom too high. Susie Orbach, who has pioneered understanding of women’s tortured relationship to food and their bodies, here explores the 1980s problem of bulimia and argues that it stems from an attack on women’s space in the world.”
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