Abstract
The purpose of this study was to examine how men account for the diagnosis in men of anorexia nervosa (AN), a condition commonly associated with women. Male students participated in focus group discussions of topics related to AN. Discussions were tape-recorded with participants' consent, transcribed, and then analyzed using discourse analysis. The participants spontaneously constructed AN as a female-specific condition. When asked to account for AN in men, they distanced AN from hegemonic masculinities in ways that sustained both dominant masculine identities and gender-specific constructions of AN. These findings show how issues of health and gender are interlinked in everyday understandings of AN. Future researchers might usefully consider how the construction of gender-specific illness implicates wider notions of both feminine and masculine gender identities.
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McVittie, C., Cavers, D. & Hepworth, J. Femininity, Mental Weakness, and Difference: Male Students Account for Anorexia Nervosa in Men. Sex Roles 53, 413–418 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-005-6763-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-005-6763-2