The F-word discussion

April's non-fiction selection is Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body by Susan Bordo. A lot of folks have made some very interesting comments about this - here's one:

"Unbearable Weight is brilliant. From an immensely knowledgeable feminist perspective, in engaging, jargonless (!) prose, Bordo analyzes a whole range of issues connected to the body—weight and weight loss, exercise, media images, movies, advertising, anorexia and bulimia, and much more—in a way that makes sense of our current social landscape—finally! This is a great book for anyone who wonders why women's magazines are always describing delicious food as 'sinful' and why there is a cake called Death by Chocolate. Loved it!"—Katha Pollitt, Nation columnist and author of Subject to Debate: Sense and Dissents on Women, Politics, and Culture (2001)

Has anybody started this one yet?

Not yet, but got my copy from the library. Looks interesting!

I read this last year as one of the textbooks I used for an essay on analyzing the concept of 'holy anorexia' (anorexia mirabilis) in medieval fasting saints. Bordo is an excellent writer, I really enjoyed reading this book and it left me with a urging to research more into the concept of food, gender, and western Christianity.

So far I`ve only read the introduction and I`m looking forward to continuing. Body (image) in relation to culture is a topic I`m really interested in for quite a while now (partly because I`m working with women with eating disorders), so I`m happy about this month`s group read as I hope to get some deeper insight.

Just started it - this is definitely a textbook!

How are people doing with this one? I'm about 180 pages in - I was a bit concerned during the Intro that it might be a bit heavier than I wanted right now, but as I got into Bordo's essays I found it wasn't quite as heavy as I had anticipated.

I'm curious if Bordo's opinions/theories have changed since she wrote these - the reason I ask is because in the second essay she wrote extensively about how society insisting pregnant women not drink or smoke is an attack against women by controlling them (or not allowing them control over their own bodies), and I found that a bit outdated considering all of the statistics that have come to light about the effect of those things on the fetus since she wrote that. Did that strike anyone else as strange, or am I in the minority on that? I can see where Bordo was coming from, but it didn't quite work for me.

Beyond that, it would be great to read an updated essay from Bordo, because I'd be curious to see how she feels about media today. It's sort of amusing to see these ads from the 80s and 90s in this book - but sad then when I realize commercials and ads are definitely not any better today as far as how women and their bodies are portrayed.

I got a late start on this - I'm in the middle of the introduction, which is interesting if a bit heavy. Glad to hear, El, that it lightens up! Usually the introduction is the easy part - which is making this a tiny bit scary!

I haven't gotten a copy yet as it's textbook priced at like $35 on amazon and my library doesn't have it. I'll keep looking!

Ha, scrap that last comment, found one on ebay for $12. :):):)

Once I got over my fear of sentences like: "I consider postmodern culture, poststructuralist thought, and some aspects of contemporary feminism as embodying fantasies of transcendence of the materiality and historicity of the body, its situatedness in space and time, and its gender" and just relaxed into it, I realized there's a whole bunch of wonderful food for thought here!

For example: "for women, associated with the body and largely confined to a life centered on the body (both the beautification of one's own body and the reproduction, care, and maintenance of the bodies of others), culture's grip on the body is a constant, intimate fact of everyday life."

Or "a depiction that overlooks both women's collusions with patriarchal culture and their frequent efforts at resistance."

Or "practices which train the female body in docility and obedience to cultural demands while at the same time being experienced in terms of power and control."

And two more gems that grabbed me:

“Affirmative action should not be understood as only about redressing historical exclusions in the interests of justice to those groups excluded, but as essential to the diversification and reinvigoration of the dominant culture.”

“Most men, equally with women, find themselves embedded and implicated in institutions and practices that they as individuals did not create and do not control – and that they frequently feel tyrannized by.”

I got side-tracked away from this for a while and just now was able to pick it up again. There is so much wonderfulness here! El, I particularly loved the essay on motherhood. I didn't find it dated at all. If anything, pregnant women are treated even more now as "containers" of a fetus. That women are constantly attacked for their choices while pregnant, while at the same time no one else takes responsibility for optimizing the fetus's environment is simply outrageous! Her point that we could do so much more for children's health by insuring adequate prenatal care than by preaching at pregnant women is inspired. And the way in which pregnant women are losing their legal personhood in relation to the fetus is even worse now.