Author Archives: melissada

Blog Topic 3 – Privilege

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In Paula S. Rothenberg’s Article “Invisible Privilege”, she describes the friendship between her daughter, Andrea, and her daughters’ African American best friend, Jewel. While in a school environment, the girls don’t realize the differences in their day-to-day lives, but when they start seeing each other outside of school, they realize how different they truly are.
When the two finally have their first play date at Andrea’s house, Jewel is shocked when taking a tour of the house because Andrea’s family has two bathrooms. That could be classified as an invisible privilege to most middle class white Americans. We take for granted the fact that the houses that we can afford come with three-plus bedrooms and two, sometimes two and a half to even three bathrooms. Andrea has no idea why Jewel is so shocked because she has grown up with luxuries such as this, but Rothenberg understands because with her life experience she can see the class differences between the two girls. Privilege, I feel, is invisible to only the middle class because they see themselves as the norm and is visible to the lower and upper classes because they can see what they are missing out on or how much extra they have, respectively.
Andrea’s reaction to Jewel’s home at the time of Jewel’s birthday party, though, is much the opposite. She is terrified of the ‘second bathroom’ in the basement and cannot, in fact, even go to the bathroom without her mother being with her, while Jewel takes pride in it. She feels out of place from all of Jewels family members and is uncomfortable because her mother and herself are the only white people in attendance.
In this situation, I do believe people can overcome this type of social difference. In the instance of Jewel and Andrea, I think they were too young and too naïve to actually realize why they couldn’t essentially work things out, but their mothers understood. In a better circumstance, the parties involved would be able to get past the race/class barrier and grow to understand the other party’s side.

By Mellissa

thinness assignment fall 2011

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Currently there are three theoretical models used to explain the epidemiology, etiology, and treatment of eating disorders: the biomedical, psychological, and culture of thinness model (offered by feminists). While the three theories attempt to address the causes of eating disorders through labeling them as psychological (biomedical and psychological models) or cultural problems (culture of thinness model), they fail to address certain other causes like race, poverty, and sexual abuse.
The biomedical model begins to address eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa as having biological characteristics: hypothermia, slowed heartbeat, and excessive body hair. But it often, however, fails to address a shared biological characteristic as a cause of the disorder. This model offers physiological evidence of the negative effects of long-term starving and cycles of binging and purging, but fails to address aspects of some cultural, historical, and social causes that attribute to the disease. The second model, the psychological model, states that eating disorders are multidimensional and influenced by biological, psychological, and cultural factors. It offers effective therapeutic treatment, but it also, along with the biomedical model, fails to address race, sexuality, and class standing. The third and final model, the ‘culture of thinness’ model, was created by feminists and equates eating disorders with women feeling like they need to be thin to meet the beauty standards of the time and to be successful.
One of the underlying causes of eating disorders that Becky W. Thompson talks about during in her article is sexual abuse. Throughout it Thompson explains her research on the links between sexual abuse and disordered eating habits. She says that the disorders were a survival response, and that the girls who attributed the sexual abuse to their eating disorders tried to either become thinner or chunkier in response to their own gatherings about what the ‘perverts’ wanted in little girls.
Other underlying causes of eating disorders as stated by Thompson are race and class standing. Her research states that women of color, Latina and African American women alike, sometimes develop eating disorders in response to their class standing. They may be impoverished or under stress in their current class, and so they, believing that white, thin women have it better off, try to control their weight thinking that if they become more slender and elegant they will be able to more easily move through the class barriers holding them back.
It used to be believed that eating disorders were in response to a control factor, you couldn’t control many aspects in your life so you controlled your eating habits and weight. Now it is being more debated and more causes are being discovered, like the aforementioned race, class standing, poverty, and sexual abuse. Hopefully in the future diagnosis and therapy for eating disorders will be better and more person-specific and accurate.