McVittie, ChrisCavers, DebbieHepworth, J.2018-06-292018-06-292005McVittie, C., Cavers, D. and Hepworth, J. (2005) ‘Femininity, mental weakness, and difference: male students account for anorexia nervosa in men’, Sex Roles, 53(5), pp. 413–418. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-005-6763-2.0360-0025http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11199-005-6763-2https://eresearch.qmu.ac.uk/handle/20.500.12289/1280The purpose of this study was to examine how men account for the diagnosis in men of anorexia nervosa (AN), a condition commonly associated with women. Male students participated in focus group discussions of topics related to AN. Discussions were tape-recorded with participants' consent, transcribed, and then analyzed using discourse analysis. The participants spontaneously constructed AN as a female-specific condition. When asked to account for AN in men, they distanced AN from hegemonic masculinities in ways that sustained both dominant masculine identities and gender-specific constructions of AN. These findings show how issues of health and gender are interlinked in everyday understandings of AN. Future researchers might usefully consider how the construction of gender-specific illness implicates wider notions of both feminine and masculine gender identities.413-418articlehttp://doi:10.1007/s11199-005-6763-2