Why had none of us selected it? Because we were all so able bodied that we were able to get to a random building in the middle of an ice storm, so we didn’t think about the limitations of the body because none of lived that reality. What I noticed after we all shared what privileges we had chosen was that none of us had chosen were those dealing with able-bodiedness. The privileges ranged from being able to practice your religion to being being able to hear radio stations in your native language. Our presenters gave us this exercise where we were in groups with randomly assigned amount of money, and we could buy privileges. I was signed up to attend a session on white privilege that morning (which out to be about privilege in general). Every school district was closed, but predictably the university I work for remained open.
#Roxane gay hunger review full
While I was reading Hunger, we had an evening full of rain in Michigan, followed by a drop in temperature, which turned all roads and sidewalks into ice. People can’t address these types of everyday inequalities until they are aware of them. My issues with weight have been fairly superficial, such as not fitting into the shorts I want to wear, while Gay’s are more everyday and immediate, such as will she fit in the only chair that is offered to her? Hunger brings awareness of what life is like for those in “unruly bodies.” Gay talks about the problem of airline seat sizes, and also the embarrassment of being unable to keep up with friends when walking as a group to a destination, or never being able to sit on an unfamiliar toilet seat for fear of breaking it. While I definitely related to so many parts of this, it was definitely a learning experience for me. I, too, have always felt my body to be unruly, something never quite within my control, or as much in control as is possible in world where cancer or crippling car accidents can happen to anyone. I, too, have lived in fear of my own hunger, of the knowledge that my hunger for food might actually hint at deeper problems. While she and I might be in different BMI classes, I did relate to her memoir. While she has had doctors write her medical diagnoses as primary diagnosis “morbid obesity” and secondary diagnosis, “strep throat,” I have gained and lost the same 30 pounds repeatedly over the years.
My body issues are different from Roxane Gay’s. We see Gay as a sheltered child, as an intelligent yet damaged adolescent, and as an accomplished woman haunted by what she calls “the girl in the woods.” Hunger chronicles her complex relationship with her body. At her heaviest, Gay tells us early in the book, she weighed 577 lbs as a twenty-something. Underestimating the love of her Catholic family, she told no one about her rape but instead turned to food for comfort, and over time, her body became both a fortress and a cage for her.
When Roxane Gay was twelve years old, a boy she trusted led her into the woods where he and his friends gang raped her.
“What you need to know is that my life is split in two, cleaved not so neatly.