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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
This is an 8 page paper discussing society’s perceptions of the body and Western culture’s obsession with the body. Western culture’s obsession with the image of the body is very much a dominant topic among today’s sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists and feminists. The perfect body image that is expected today is detrimental to both men and women but it has been found that women have a higher possibility of being dissatisfied with their body shape and are more inclined to exercise to improve their body image rather than for health reasons. In addition, many critics believe that objectivity in body shape image is actually male-biased and ultimately effect women’s self image.
Bibliography lists 10 sources.
Page Count:
8 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_TJfbody1.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
today is detrimental to both men and women but it has been found that women have a higher possibility of being dissatisfied with their body shape and are more inclined
to exercise to improve their body image rather than for health reasons. In addition, many critics believe that objectivity in body shape image is actually male-biased and ultimately effect womens
self image. Section I The Western cultural obsession with the body has long been a topic of debate in todays society as women and men struggle to obtain the perfect
body as perceived by Western culture. Susan Bordo in her book "Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture and the Body" (1993) discusses how todays society revolves around the cultural construction of
the body and the body as it appears in Western society is unbearable in its weight and it the cases of anorexia, a retreat from this weight (Hekman, 1995). Bordo
emphasizes the materiality of the body which is often referred to as the "real" body and this embracing of the materiality of the body is a major focus on todays
feminist and political issues. Bordo states that postmodernists treat the body as pure text and they deny the materiality and locatedness of the body and produce a "stylish nihilism" which
is essentially a rejection of the traditional values and argues for an "authority of our own experiences" (Bordo, 1993, 283). In practice, Bordo and other feminists agree that while a
postmodernist theory can be developed in which men and women can formulate definitions of the body based on their own experience, it is quite another thing to place the theory
into practice in society and this creates a certain ambivalence toward postmodernist theory (Hekman, 1995). In Bordos previous work she describes a theory whereby when making generalizations about womens bodies
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