Why are we so concerned with keeping our bodies slim, and how do we reinforce those standards through society and culture norms? In her essay, Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and The Body, Bordo centers on the complexly and densely institutionalized system of values and practices within which girls and women come to believe they are nothing unless they are trim, tight, lineless, bulgeless, and sagless. (p. 32) Preserve the critical edge of the “old: feminist discourse, while incorporating a more postmodern appreciation of how subtle and multifaceted feminist discourse must be if it is to ring true to the complex experiences of contemporary women and provide systemic perspective on those experiences. She pursues aspects and intersections:
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A common theme throughout the readings so far have centered on motherhood, Bordo speaking in the literal sense of control over the mother’s body. Women are challenged over the fact of whether they have control over their own body. She gives several examples of embodiment, one being that of bone marrow donation in the case of McFall v. Shimp, where bodily integrity was legally protected. While in many other cases, those of reproductive control, the woman might simply be seen as the incubator to her fetus, and in the face of such conflict, her valuations, choices, consciousness’s are expendable. (p. 79) In this section she gives insight into the history of involuntary sterilization, which is the start to the cultural concerns of the intersections of class, race and gender. Women, especially women of color, are not allowed to uphold their bodily integrity. Once a woman is carrying a fetus, her right to privacy and bodily integrity is denied, and she inevitably becomes someone else’s business. She is now open to criticism and ridicule when it comes to decisions made about her own body. The fetus has become the patient, and the mother is treated as though she is required to follow the doctor’s recommendation, otherwise she will be seen as a monster or child …show more content…
Generally, being white (blonde hair, blue eyes, etc.) that have set the standards for beauty, and also create the “grand narratives of legitimation” (p. 221), reaffirming what is culturally acceptable. It then becomes practice to follow the homogenizing and normalizing images that are portrayed in the media. (DuraSoft contact lenses, hair relaxers/perms, tanning, etc.) Bordo describes White women with cornrows as privilege because of her ability to receive an “exotic touch of otherness” (p. 254) where there is no danger of racial contamination. We have had a social construction of reality, and topics of racism and sexism in this country were not seen as sexy, she states, “the systemic racism and sexism of our culture, we found our accounts reduced to nothing more than talk-show topics…” (p. 283)
Poststructuralism has encouraged recognition of the fact that prevailing configurations of power, no matter how dominant, are never seamless but are always spawning new forms of subjectivity, new difference for resistance to and transformation of existing relations. Also, that the body is not only materially acculturated, but also mediated by language that organize and animate our perception and experience. (p. 288) At the end of the section she emphasizes the fact that we are not empowered, and that our culture continues to construct our reality. (p.
A common theme throughout the readings so far have centered on motherhood, Bordo speaking in the literal sense of control over the mother’s body. Women are challenged over the fact of whether they have control over their own body. She gives several examples of embodiment, one being that of bone marrow donation in the case of McFall v. Shimp, where bodily integrity was legally protected. While in many other cases, those of reproductive control, the woman might simply be seen as the incubator to her fetus, and in the face of such conflict, her valuations, choices, consciousness’s are expendable. (p. 79) In this section she gives insight into the history of involuntary sterilization, which is the start to the cultural concerns of the intersections of class, race and gender. Women, especially women of color, are not allowed to uphold their bodily integrity. Once a woman is carrying a fetus, her right to privacy and bodily integrity is denied, and she inevitably becomes someone else’s business. She is now open to criticism and ridicule when it comes to decisions made about her own body. The fetus has become the patient, and the mother is treated as though she is required to follow the doctor’s recommendation, otherwise she will be seen as a monster or child …show more content…
Generally, being white (blonde hair, blue eyes, etc.) that have set the standards for beauty, and also create the “grand narratives of legitimation” (p. 221), reaffirming what is culturally acceptable. It then becomes practice to follow the homogenizing and normalizing images that are portrayed in the media. (DuraSoft contact lenses, hair relaxers/perms, tanning, etc.) Bordo describes White women with cornrows as privilege because of her ability to receive an “exotic touch of otherness” (p. 254) where there is no danger of racial contamination. We have had a social construction of reality, and topics of racism and sexism in this country were not seen as sexy, she states, “the systemic racism and sexism of our culture, we found our accounts reduced to nothing more than talk-show topics…” (p. 283)
Poststructuralism has encouraged recognition of the fact that prevailing configurations of power, no matter how dominant, are never seamless but are always spawning new forms of subjectivity, new difference for resistance to and transformation of existing relations. Also, that the body is not only materially acculturated, but also mediated by language that organize and animate our perception and experience. (p. 288) At the end of the section she emphasizes the fact that we are not empowered, and that our culture continues to construct our reality. (p.