Analysis Of Susan Bordo´s Reading The Slender Body

In todays society, body issues and the extremes people are going to are being troublesome and leading to many issues such as anorexia, bulimia and obesity – contrasting outcomes of Bordo’s explanation of the responses to contemporary media. Accordingly, contemporary society ideals have changed and are nearly unattainable by natural means. As Susan Bordo illustrates in her essay, Reading the Slender Body women have participated in a shift of how the body should look. For example, an hourglass figure in the fifties, to the present long, lean and slender build that has developed over the past decade. However, in present society it is not about being just skinny, but it is necessary to be “tight” and “toned”. Thus, in the essay, Bordo focuses on the anxieties that are embedded within the value of unattainable ‘beauty’ and she further illustrates that the way our body looks can speak to our social class and our inner qualities. She also explains that an increasing consumer culture is corrupt, …show more content…
Bordo illustrates that we live in an increasingly unstable, contradictive environment that largely affects our behaviours. Thus, the “double bind, in which the self is torn in two mutually incompatible directions” demonstrates that we are torn between indulging in our desires, or repressing them (Bordo, 1993). Accordingly, Bordo illustrates this by using food and diet as an example of how contemporary society pulls consumers in two directions. Essentially, this illustrates the difference between possessing a strong work ethic versus falling into a consumer trap – hard work versus convenience. It is convenient for a consumer to purchase a weight loss pill that promises a miracle or get fast food, but it takes dedication to work out in order to change your lifestyle, or time to prepare healthy