Medical definitions of acceptable size play directly into body image, and are emphasized by gender. Hunger begins with Gay’s analysis of the medical industry, specifically their creation of the phenomenon of weight loss, and how this affects not only body image but life altering care. This means that bodies and the world are co-configured, in a relationship that relies on one another as they are created from one another. Bodies are not limited in their capacity by the physical body alone, however bodies are structured in the ways we live, according to forces that “regulate, discipline, and structure” ( Feminist Theory Reader 498). Affect theory, according to Feminist Theory Reader, gives “attention to the affective components of living – visceral responses, emotional states, and the mood of the room”, in order to address how bodies are moved to act in their environments (497).
By examining Gay’s intersectional identity in conjunction with her affectual experiences, Hunger is an important tool in order to better understand the body according to feminist theory and therefore better mobilize these ideas.īy using both intersectionality theory with affect theory, there lies a possible solution to look at the ways in which women’s experiences can be used to better understand and therefore better interact with others. Gay’s writing examines her personal relationship to her body as it pertains to outside forces that have acted upon her body in some way in other words, the environment and experiences Gay’s body has endured shaped her relation to her body. Gay’s memoir begins with that statement, “I was not only writing a memoir of my body I was forcing myself to look at what my body has endured, the weight I gained, and how hard it has been to both live with a lose that weight” (8-9). Intersectionality is a tool that can be used to study how our relation to bodies affects our production of knowledge affect theory studies emotions and experience together in order to understand how actions are performed in relation to the environment. As a memoir of gender-based violence and weight, Hunger is an example of intersectional work that, according to Bonnie Thornton Dill and Ruth Enid Zambrana, “validates … previously ignored groups of people… and is seen as a tool that can be used to help empower communities and the people in them” ( Feminist Theory Reader 191). Because Gay’s story is based on her lived experience as a black woman and survivor of sexual assault, it demonstrates an intersectionality and works to dismantle structures of power that marginalize these identities. Hunger explores Gay’s relationship to gender and the body. Gay’s experience can help further the study of bodies and understand how knowledge about women’s lives can be derived from bodily experience and sensations.
By doing this, we will be able to think about how bodies are affectually created.
This paper will explore key scenes from Hunger, and analyze the intersectionality at work in Gay’s lived experience. Gay desires to be “seen and understood” through Hunger, and looking at the book through an intersectional feminist lense allows for Gay’s lived experience to be not only validated but valuable to the understanding of the intersection of race, gender, weight and the body. Gay says her story, “demands to be told and deserves to be heard”, implicating the reader by creating direct involvement in her story, and encouraging the reader to be active in their response. The purpose of the memoir is to help people understand our complicated relationship with weight, weight loss, and weight gain, especially as women in a society which places value in appearance and passes unfair judgement on those who do not fit the typical, ascribed body. Gay emphasizes that the memoir is not a story of weight-loss, but a story of the journey of her relationship with her body, including weight gain and loss, eating disorder, shame, guilt, strength, and willpower. Hunger follows Gay’s life through her childhood, describing how sexual assault shaped her eating habits and how this entwined with her identity. Roxane Gay’s memoir Hunger: A Memoir of (my) Body demonstrates an intersectionality of race and gender through lived experience within her life writing.