“Very often, women tell me that from a very young age, in their childhood, they were described in their family as greedy.”
Lauren Malka East journalistbut it is also the author of Eatersa book available from Les Pérégrines, in which she returns to the way history has prevented women from eating.
Education and representational figures
From education, little boys and girls are treated differently about the gluttony. Indeed, according to the author, parents are more likely to tell boys : “You will learn to open your curiosity”while the girls would no longer be called to order with reflections as : “Don’t put your finger in the jam jar”. It’s not not the first time this distinction is singled out, since Lauren Malka says it, Françoise Heir had already spotted this difference by observing other civilizations: “She realized that mothers spent more time breastfeeding their little boy than their little girl.“ A phenomenon, which already shows the important place occupied by gluttony and the way of eating, from childhood among young girls.
The author says: “In literature, in mythology, in cinema, women do not eat. They prepare food, they serve food. They are themselves appetizing…” THE historians also used the figure of Cleopatra to demonstrate that the woman who eats and prepares food is dangerous. Rumors circulated about him and constituted a true dark legend. Lauren Malka explains that this rumor characterized her as manipulative, because of what she was preparing to eat. In particular, by having served food in abundance to Marc-Antoine.
The second figure is that of Eve who bites the apple. The author affirms that it is through this gesture that she led humanity to slide down there slope of the sins. Thomas Aquinas established that Eve was less guilty than Adam. And why this ? Because she would have a reason more weak than that of Adam and that in any case, it is the assistant housekeeper of Adam.
An appetite to regulate
Malka Lauren also says: “So the woman’s appetite, feminine gluttony must imperatively be regulated by men since they cannot govern themselves. The Church draws conclusions, writing, at that time, treatises which allow confessors to try to obtain confidences on the way of eating and cooking from women.” Already, from the 16th century, books of advice for young girls to marry were written. They taught women how to eat well, cook well, behave well at the table, with one motto: sobriety. Furthermore, she indicates that it is wrong to think that overweight was a sign of wealth, good health and beauty. In reality, the standard of slimming is a injunction well present since theantiquity. Lauren Malka adds: “Except that for women, there is a standard additionalan additional injunction which is to be, also, fat. SO thin And fat at a time“. That is, to be fat only in a few parts of the body. Namely, the parts eroticizedhips and breasts.
Thinness as we want it today was At departure a claim feminist. It is in the years 20 that women wanted to do competition to men by getting rid of their corsets And petticoats in order to have a best mobility. The author explains: “This aesthetic of mobility, in a very strange and completely frightening way, has been co-opted by the market of patriarchy, let’s say… That’s what Susan Faludi call him backlash.”
If we were now to explain anorexia simply by the diktat of thinness, it would in part be a way of reducing women to a Status of docility concerning a request from man, from desire of the man. As the author states, it’s much more complex than that: “This story is very particular. At the same time, it assigns women in kitchen and makes them spend much more time in contact with food, but at the same time stop of eat.” According to her, History would have kept women in a development of guilt towards food. Concretely, it has become a TRUE taboo which leads to the worst troubles pipes food that we see in very many women.
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