Femininity, Self-harm and Eating Disorders in Japan: Navigating contradiction in narrative and visual culture

Published in 2016 as part of the Nissan Institute/Routledge Japanese Studies series, this academic volume was authored by Gitte Marianne Hansen. The work emerged from a need to bridge the gap between clinical psychological perspectives on eating disorders and the sociocultural realities of contemporary Japan, focusing on how female identity is constructed and constrained within a culture of perfectionism and self-surveillance.

The book draws extensively on a diverse range of cultural artifacts, including manga, literature, and digital media, to illustrate how themes of self-harm and disordered eating are visually and narratively encoded. Hansen’s methodology examines how these contradictions are navigated by individuals, receiving scholarly attention for its interdisciplinary approach and its refusal to treat Japanese cultural expressions of distress merely as exoticized pathology.