STOP. Summertime.

It's only been about a month into summer, and I am bored as shit. I miss blogging. I miss Women's Studies solidarity. I miss reading and discussing articles, or listening to other people's opinions of articles I don't underfuckingstand. Since I don't have to blog anymore, I haven't been keeping up with my regular dose of feminist literature, which is unfortunate, to say the least. Actually, I've been reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, but that's another story entirely.

A few weeks ago, I finished Jessica Valenti's The Purity Myth. Although Valenti's books are pretty much the center of my universe, I found that I was disappointed with it overall. It's difficult for me to discern whether I really thought it was lacking, or whether I was just too goddamn depressed and involved in my own issues to care about right-wing propaganda and funny, intelligent feminist prose. I'm guessing it's the latter, because Valenti is practically Jesus in my eyes.

This brings me to the point of this blog: a definite lack in mentally ill or psychological feminist literature. Elizabeth Wurtzel notwithstanding (Prozac Nation is incredibly relevant to my interests), I'm hard pressed to find feminist survival guides to, well, myself. I mean, is there a feminist way of coping with mental illness? I certainly think so, but I would love to read up on some discourse on the links between patriarchy and mental wellness (or the lack thereof). In the self-help/improvement section of Barnes and Noble, I found a memoir of a woman who struggled for (literally) decades with anorexia and bulimia. I find memoirs to be feminist in themselves, but after reading through just the second chapter, I found this woman to be an incredibly feminist inspiration. I'm always unsure about memoirs, as there is an element of narcissism in their very nature. However, I'm much more open about them since Wurtzel's Prozac Nation, and I think they can certainly be beneficial to people in similar situations.

Anyway, the link between the eating disorder memoir and feminism is that at practically infanthood, the woman was subjected to unhealthy attitudes about eating. Body image is thematic throughout (obviously), which is very much a third-wave issue. Why, then, is feminism not addressed at all? It's certainly not necessary to market feminism in a memoir about eating disorders, but the two are inextricably linked. Perhaps it was the choice of the author, or it may have been the publishing house itself. Maybe I'm making too big a deal about the inclusion of feminism within psychological/mental health literature just because I believe it would be beneficial to me. Soapbox soapbox soapbox.