What bothers me about the Hermenaut article is the way it conflates anorexia with fasting for a political purpose. The women who will be fasting to bring home the troops, first, are not skinny waifs, but real, full-bodied women, and they won't be trying to make a fashion statement or saying "look at how miserable I am," but rather, once someone looks at them, will be essentially pointing toward the others for whom they are fasting, in this case, the troops who are literally dying overseas for no damn good reason. Another thing that bothers me about it is, that by conflating the two, and making a fast equivalent to (i.e. something lower than its intention) it's also trying to frame the discussion around anorexics by scapegoating them and making fasting less meaningful. If fasting is less meaningful politically, there are probably other reasons for it. And, although it's true that anorexics are most often from financially comfortable families, that doesn't mean these women-- whether young or old-- are not suffering some kind of oppression, i.e., being denied self-determination. Or, as some recent research suggests, they may have a genetic predisposition. After the fuss the GOP made over Terry Schiavo's feeding tube, one wonders what their reaction will be to this fast.

So, the way I took the article was that society has been so warped that it can be very easy to conflate anorexia and fasting. The world has become so "image" conscious that the Kate Moss' of the world have become the role models, not Dawn Wilson and Medea Benjamin. No one says, "oh my gosh you look fabulous! How much weight have you gained?" or "You look wonderful just the way you are." It's easy for me to imagine a political faster who has lost a lot of weight being inundated by clueless people wanting to know how she did it, which completely negates the purpose of the fast.

Interesting... You might be interested in medievalist Carolyn Walker Bynum's book on excessive fasting by medieval religious women: Holy Feast, Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women.

Anne, thank you for the recommendation. I'll add it to the list.