Body Culture

 Response Paper 3/16

GEOG101

Alice Williams

Body Culture

"The Body and the Reproduction of Femininity" by Susan Bordo, discusses the matter of female body image and expectations in culture, and how that has impacted women in our society. Bordo’s perspective shows how women are defined by their physical appearance as objects expected to fit a certain mold, dictated by societal standards. She explains how these expectations have historically been a cause for women to suffer from anorexia, hysteria, and agoraphobia. Bordo shares also how the embodiment of feminine and masculine characteristics also pertains to the anorexic state of societal standards. Bordo states, “The ideal of slenderness, then, and the diet and exercise regimens that have become inseparable from it offer the illusion of meeting, through the body, the contradictory demands of the contemporary ideology of femininity.” This feminine ideal thin body type and desired characteristics are often only achievable by rigorous dieting, exercise or starvation.

In our other reading “The Eaters and the Eaten” by John Berger, the matter of food and the way we eat is compared between peasantry and the bourgeois. The peasant’s way of eating was dependent on the day’s work and harvest, and had very little to do with societal standards. Bourgeois meals were more of a social space, meant to show wealth, often overeating or over indulging in certain foods. Yet, women were expected to have small appetites and eat very little, and were meant to be delicate and in need of a man to provide for them. Their clothing was designed to show a specific feminine figure with a very small waist, and in order to achieve this look women wore bustiers and girdles to cinch their waists.

These readings are related as Berger’s reading discusses changes in eating habits and expectations from food, women and their appearance. Bordo’s reading takes women’s image to the next level addressing the negative impact of physical standards and expectations for women. Women’s appearance in relation to food culture is very relevant today in how women are marketed in ads, movies and media. The constant focus on weight loss, the perfect figure, perfect skin, and being ageless have been common societal standards for women. Whether it be a fad diet, fitness gadget, magical pills or cellulite cream, women are being told they need to do these things to be thinner and look better. Women's health, beauty and weight loss are heavily marketed, money making industries, which no doubt impacts the continuation of these standards.