The Ana Sanctuary: Women’s Pro-Anorexia Narratives in Cyberspace

In this paper I explore cyberspace as a space where women who are struggling with anorexia can potentially find sanctuary from the surveillance and regulatory mechanisms of control in the public sphere. I explore the narratives of women who create and visit pro-anorexia or pro-ana websites in order to listen to these women's experiences of anorexia and rationale for inhabiting these spaces. (2) Taking seriously the voices of these women can be viewed as a transgressive act, in contrast to hegemonic biomedical and psychiatric discourses of anorexia that portray women with eating disorders as 'irrational' and 'in denial' of their behavior, and pathologize and medicalize their experiences. Through their narratives we see how dominant cultural scripts about their bodies are reproduced, negotiated and/or resisted. We can also observe women's engagement in the interpretation of their own experiences. The transient and fluid nature of pro-ana websites (in response to the backlash they receive) also illustrates the resilience of the women who seek them out and (re)create them. Just as the body is a site of struggle (and resistance), so too there are struggles over where and how women's stories of their body can be told. Background Given that women's bodies and experiences of embodiment are subjected to relentless surveillance and regulatory mechanisms of control in the public sphere (Bray and Colebrook "The Haunted Flesh"), cyberspace can potentially provide a space that is safer for women to meet than traditional public spaces and places in the built environment. (3) Cyberspace can be conceptualized as an alternative space for women with eating and body issues, one that may serve as a sanctuary. (4) Since the public realm is regulated by banishing from sight behaviors that are considered abnormal, repugnant or deviant (Duncan), cyberspace can provide a space to escape the scrutiny of others (though perhaps not self-scrutiny), as well as the opportunity to interact with other women struggling with eating disorders who offer non-judgmental support. This could be helpful since the early stages of anorexia are usually marked by extreme isolation, secrecy, and disconnection. Ironically, cyberspace is a public space. While in contemporary Western culture not interacting within the public spaces of society is considered abnormal and unhealthy, occupying public spaces and revealing one's abnormality or deviance is considered equally if not more unhealthy (Bankey). The backlash these websites have received from the media and professionals in the field, which I will discuss later in this paper, has been extensive. The stigma and shame that come with both diagnostic labeling and society's misunderstanding of eating "disorders" contribute to women's need to find creative ways to connect and find support. "With such labels as 'disorder' we ... unconsciously create barriers to real support, add to personal embarrassment and shame, and foster discrimination and isolation" (42). In contrast to the dominant discourses of anorexia and eating disorders in general, my research is informed by these women's narratives in an attempt to access alternative definitions and understandings that they may have of their own mental states (Parr 183). (5) Narratives may embody, reproduce, and/or alter cultural scripts; they may also push at the boundaries of what is unsayable and untellable in particular contexts (Chase 24). What women struggling with anorexia may not be able (or ready) to say to family, friends or professionals, they may be able to say in the safer and less confronting space of cyberspace. Third Wave Feminism The issue of body image has been named as a central issue in Third Wave Feminism because all women, feminist or not, "offer heartfelt and complex emotions on the topic" (Richards 198). (6) Third wave feminists have directed much of their attention to the impact that popular culture has on their subjective experiences, rather than adopting legal or political strategies (Carter 119), because they see "the media and entertainment industries [are their] most visible 'oppressors'" (Richards 198) and an analysis and critique of popular culture as important to the political struggle towards female empowerment (Heywood and Drake 51). …