Last week, Facebook news feeds across the continent blew up with the Internet’s latest viral “sensation”. These are usually limited to articles titled “Why Marriage Isn’t For You”, relatively harmless pieces that make you think outside of your work cubicle for a couple minutes, before you go back to your everyday.
This article, however, broadcast by http://www.returnofkings.com, was a cut above – or below, the usual. Popular opinion agrees that the article was written to incite response. This makes the article easy to dismiss as an annoying cry for attention, without having to actually think about its implications.
The website that the article was published on describes itself as aiming to, “usher the return of the masculine man in a world where masculinity is being increasingly punished and shamed in favor of creating an androgynous and politically-correct society that allows women to assert superiority and control over men. Sadly, yesterday’s masculinity is today’s misogyny.”
Examples of other articles found on the website include titles such as “20 Things Women Do That Should Be Shamed, Not Celebrated”, and “Paternity Fraud is Worse Than Rape”.
The article in question is titled “5 Reasons to Date a Girl With an Eating Disorder.” These “reasons” are:
- Her obsession over her body will improve her overall looks. While your girlfriend that is suffering from an eating disorder suffers from body dysmorphia on the inside, it’ll show on the outside, as she constantly fights to stay slim.
- She costs less money. It’s indisputably cheaper to take a girl out to an expensive restaurant knowing that she’ll order a side salad and water than a steak and glass of wine.
- She’s fragile and vulnerable. Girls with eating disorders are characterized by their modesty and eagerness to please.
- She probably has her own money. As the article says, “Eating disorders have been—quite appropriately—declared a luxury reserved for only the most privileged members of the female race.”
- She’s better in bed. The article claims that it is a “well-known fact” that “crazy” girls are the best in bed.
While it’s easy to tear this article apart for it’s blatant misogyny, that gives it more credit than it is due. The important issue worth focussing on in this article is how the subject of eating disorders is handled. Eating disorders are not to be trivialized. They are not to be construed as being desirable dating criteria. They are not to be defining characteristics of an individual.
It is important to note that the introduction to the article comes with a disclaimer: “*While obesity is, in most cases, also an “eating disorder,” this list doesn’t apply to emotional eaters, food addicts, and fatties with no self control.” The so-called ‘desirable’ eating disorder the article specifies is anorexia. However eating disorders are not so simply categorized. Individuals can suffer from anorexia, bulimia, binge eating disorder, anorexia athletica, orthorexia, eating disorder not otherwise specified (EDNOS), or any combination thereof. The article in question focuses almost exclusively on anorexia as being the only eating disorder, and the only one worth acknowledging. In reality, all of these diseases are devastating in different ways.
Eating disorders are a serious mental illness. They are not controllable and the effects of having one can be devastating. The death rate for eating disorders is alarmingly high. The annual death rate from eating disorders, is between 18% and 20%; 12 times higher for females between 15 and 24 than the annual death rate due to all other causes combined.
The opening line of the article reads, “Nothing screams white-girl problems louder than a good old-fashioned eating disorder.” In reality, eating disorders affect both men and women, from all socio-economic backgrounds. Eating disorders are in no way a luxury enjoyed by only the most affluent women of our society, they’re not a luxury for anyone, regardless of their walk of life. The article ascribes ‘daddy issues’, often including trauma, as being a source of eating disorders. Eating disorders are caused by a multitude of factors; there is no blanket cause. This makes every individual eating disorder unique.
The article falsely claims that having an eating disorder makes the sufferer attractively vulnerable and fragile, free of that “unearned self-esteem” that is plaguing today’s women. Those suffering from an eating disorder know that the disease takes an inordinate amount of strength to endure and then recover from. The vulnerability that comes with this is not to be exploited or celebrated. The article concludes by making it clear that it is only girls with “mild to moderate” eating disorders, ones who haven’t “let” the illness affect their appearance, are today’s “bargain bin best-buys” in today’s dating world. So while it extals the benefits of dating a girl with an eating disorder, a disease centered around control, the author makes sure to specify that she should never let it get out of her control.
If this article were titled “5 Reasons to Date a Terminal Cancer Patient”, the backlash would have been ten times more intense. We live in a society where eating disorders are seen as a norm. Joked about in pop culture in films such as “Mean Girls”, eating disorders are not seen as being worth taking seriously. Those who have eating disorders are often told to “get over it”. Because eating is something that is a natural part of life for us humans, those who have never experienced eating disorders see the diseases as being vain, selfish, and self-centered. It is important to understand that eating disorders can be viewed as an addiction to control; this differs from alcohol and drug problems in that no one can avoid food, it’s a necessity to survival.
Stereotyping eating disorders as a “white girl problem” compares it to other “problems” considered “white girl problems”, such as “getting annoyed that everyone has the same Brandy Melville sweater as you”, and “instagramming two selfies in a row”, is disrespectful.
This misdirected article should not serve as a reminder that misogynistic men exist. It is also not a statement that all men subscribe to this point of view. This article should remind us that we should never attempt to trivialize something that we do not understand, and that people are not to be defined by their eating disorders or any other kind of mental health issue. There is nothing shameful about eating disorders, but there is a lot of shame in assigning someone an identity based on one.