Who-Stole-Feminism.-How-Women-Have-Betrayed-Women

12 PREFACEto demonstrate that these disorders are an inevitable consequence of amisogynistic society that demeans women... by objectifying theirbodies." 5Professor Brumberg, in turn, attributes the figure to the AmericanAnorexia and Bulimia Association.I called the American Anorexia and Bulimia Association and spoke toDr. Diane Mickley, its president. "We were misquoted," she said. In a1985 newsletter the association had referred to 150,000 to 200,000 sufferers(not fatalities) of anorexia nervosa.What is the correct morbidity rate? Most experts are reluctant to giveexact figures. One clinician told me that of 1,400 patients she had treatedin ten years, four had died—all through suicide. The National Center forHealth Statistics reported 101 deaths from anorexia nervosa in 1983 and67 deaths in 1988. 6 Thomas Dunn of the Division of Vital Statistics at theNational Center for Health Statistics reports that in 1991 there were 54deaths from anorexia nervosa and no deaths from bulimia. The deaths ofthese young women are a tragedy, certainly, but in a country of onehundred million adult females, such numbers are hardly evidence of a"holocaust."Yet now the false figure, supporting the view that our "sexist society"demeans women by objectifying their bodies, is widely accepted as true.Ann Landers repeated it in her syndicated column in April 1992: "Everyyear, 150,000 American women die from complications associated withanorexia and bulimia." 7I sent Naomi Wolf a letter pointing out that Dr. Mickley had said shewas mistaken. Wolf sent me word on February 3, 1993, that she intendsto revise her figures on anorexia in a later edition of The Beauty Myth. 8Will she actually state that the correct figure is less than one hundred peryear? And will she correct the implications she drew from the false report?For example, will she revise her thesis that masses of young women arebeing "starved not by nature but by men" and her declaration that"women must claim anorexia as political damage done to us by a socialorder that considers our destruction insignificant... as Jews identify thedeath camps"? 9Will Ms. Steinem advise her readers of the egregious statistical error?Will Ms. Landers? Will it even matter? By now, the 150,000 figure hasmade it into college textbooks. A recent women's studies text, aptly titledThe Knowledge Explosion, contains the erroneous figure in its preface. 10The anorexia "crisis" is only one sample of the kind of provocative butinaccurate information being purveyed by women about "women's issues"these days. On November 4, 1992, Deborah Louis, president of the NationalWomen's Studies Association, sent a message to the Women's Stud-