Susan Bordo - The Body and the Reproduction of Femininity

Selection from text:

"The symptomatology of these disorders reveals itself as textuality. Loss of mobility, loss of voice, inability to leave the home, feeding others while starving oneself, taking up space, and whittling down the space one's body takes up - all have symbolic meaning, all have political meaning under the varying rules governing the historical construction of gender. Working within this framework, we see that whether we look at hysteria, agarophobia, or anorexia, we find the body of the sufferer deeply inscribed with an ideological construction of femininity emblematic of the period in question. The construction, of course, is always homogenizing and normalizing, erasing racial, class and other differences and insisting that all women aspire to a coercive, standardized ideal. Strikingly, in these disorders the construction of femininity is written in disturbingly concrete, hyperbolic terms: exaggerated, extremely literal, at times virtually caricatured presentations of the ruling feminine mystique. The bodies of disordered women in this way offer themselves as an aggressively graphic text for the interpreter - a text that insists, actually demands, that it be read as a cultural statement, a statement about gender" (Bordo, 1993: 168-69).




Super skinny models/celebs

My Response:
I think this video clip summarizes just how skinny many models and celebrities have become. It is actually frightening, since their health obviously suffers. We have expectations about the way models/celebrities "should look", and what size their bodies should be. We want everyone to look the same, but this is not a possibility. We must account for the inevitable variation in human beings, since we are each different.

Weight Loss Video Made by a Mom
This video stands out to me, since it is done by a middle-aged woman looking to find her "original" body through exercise and diet. Doing things in moderation seems to be working for her, and she loses the weight. What stands out to me is that she actually posted this video on a public site...to be seen by anyone. I guess she is proud of her accomplishments, but it seemed sort of sad to me when I first saw it.


Sources:
Bordo, Susan. 1993. The Body and the Reproduction of Femininity. Pp. 165-184.
http://www.youtube.com/
http://images.google.com/imghp?tab=wi