Susan Bordo Unbearable Body

In the novel “Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body,” Susan Bordo illustrates the impact that media has on women and their relationships with their bodies. Susan Bordo highlights how modern advertising has morphed what women think of as an “ideal appearance.” Bordo utilizes factual evidence, modern allusions, and examples to portray the consequences of an idealized figure on a contemporary woman. Although Bordo’s argument is primarily based on philosophy, she uses logos to establish her notions. Before depicting her thoughts about the impact of an idealized body on women, Bordo defines the basic elements of her argument by providing evidence about the “$1.75-billion-a-year industry in the United States” (Bordo). The foundation of …show more content…
By using informal allusions, the Bordo depicts her philosophies in a way that makes her writing easier for all audiences to fathom. By linking the extensively known celebrity, Cher, to the idea that “her various surgeries have gradually replaced a strong, decidedly (if indeterminately) "ethnic" look”, Bordo makes her argument clear and visible to the reader. These prominent refreces make the reader connect to the author’s real world problems she is aspiring to display; thus, persuading the reader to believe in the authors assessment and its relationship to the societal dilemmas she is trying to divulge. Bordo’s involvement of these contemporary allusions also adds a layer of entertainment to the work. By involving witty references to “collagen-plumped lips or corn rows on white models, [and] Barbra Streisand noses” Bordo involves the reader’s imagination in the process of explaining her viewpoint (Bordo). In contrast to using dry and ancient references in order to sound erudite, Bordo displays her ideas in a unique way that involves the reader’s prior