Individualistic Influence On Body Image

Controversies on body image have been a prevalent issue throughout the world dating for centuries that predominantly target women. This contention branches out into the matters regarding body dysmorphic disorders which became the foundation for eating disorders. The motives for eating disorders are attributed to individualistic influences, as well as sociocultural and political-economic influences. Individualistic influences “reflect the differences in women’s psychosexual development” (Hesse-Biber, 1991, p.173). Sociocultural and political-economic influences highlight the opposed view, while focusing on causations for eating disorders that are not credited to the individual, but rather concentrated in society (Hesse-Biber, 1991, p.174). Be …show more content…
While power was once centralized, throughout time, it has become scattered, allowing for several organizations to have a voice in society. Years ago, women were interlaced by the patriarchic power, in which a man puppeteers the woman, and molds her into his idealistic beauty (Hesse-Biber, 1991, p.176). In the nineteenth century, women were merely a shadow in the eyes of a man. They fell to a man’s feet, as he was the income producer, and she was obligated to be the caretaker of the children, while also juggling the chores of the house and the satisfaction of her husband. Due to the fact that the husband was the sole provider of financial stability, a woman felt the need to compete with other women in regard to femininity, sexuality, and personality, so that she may secure her place as a wife (Ewen, 1976, p 179). These insecurities constantly immersed women in a concern that they would not be valuable enough for their husband. Creating these distortions in body image was the reason “natural beauty became displaced by artificial beauty” (Hansen & Reed, 1986, p. 63). The outcome of this adaption held the place that “individuals were made to become emotionally vulnerable, constantly monitoring themselves for bodily imperfections which could no longer be regarded as natural” (Featherstone, 1982, p. 20). A paradigm of this drastic outlook on body image was in the Victorian era, when women had corsets synched to their waists, so that they gave the illusion of having an immaculate hourglass figure. Women were defined by the dimensions of their compressed waist and proportionate figure. The more feminine and thin that a woman looked, the more she would be given attention to and honored. The culture of the Victorian era was blamed for the prominent illnesses such as anemia, and classical conversion hysteria (Hesse-Biber, 1991, p.