Responding Post: More Than Just Body Image and Ads

As I read Joan Brumberg's "Body Projects" and Boston Women's Health Book Collective's "Our Bodies, Ourselves," I noticed the differences and similarities these two articles revealed about the correlation between women's bodies and empowerment. While Brumberg provided the historical swifts of different body parts as a sense of women's empowerment, the Boston Women's Health Book Collective advocated for women's empowerment through the knowledge of their bodies; theses two articles illustrate the divide between the external body and internal body of women's power. On another note, both of these articles present a common theme: change--whether it's the change in body images society, mainly females, focused on or the changing knowledge society have about females internal bodily functions.

In Brumberg's article, she discussed different accounts that illustrated society's shifting focus on females' bodies--the evolution from hair to legs to breasts to everything below the waist line to weight and being tone. For me, the different body parts which society focused on in a specific period suggest that the standards of "beauty" are changeable and, more importantly, power is also malleable. Furthermore, I wasn't clear what Brumberg meant when she wrote, "But as young women became more independent of their mothers and more knowledgeable about the world, their self-esteem began to have more to do with external attributes than with inter qualities..." (101). This quote can be taken in two ways: is Brumberg suggesting that women need to be dependent on their mothers and docile/oblivious (or else they won't develop morally righteous) or that women have misused their freedom and knowledge (or is she suggesting something different)? I also find her statement "it should not surprise us that some young women today regard the entire body, even the most private parts, as a message board" problematic (137). Are we really? This statement, for me, gives the impression that girls are dressing and doing things to their bodies with alternative motives beyond the reason for just, simply, for themselves. Lastly, from Brumberg's article I see the beauty and health to be closely related to class and race. Not only does eating healthy and looking "beautiful" is associated with wealth and privilege, there is also a cultural component to leanness. When she mentioned how family is a factor that pushes their children to be skinny, I thought about the Asian culture and our take on what's "fit." I have often been told by others how they have never seen an overweight Asian person before, especially a female. Why are some races more likely to be overweight than others? How much does our body image have to do with cultural, social, and monetary factors/value?    

Gloria Steinem's "Sex, Lies & Advertising," discuses the plight Ms., a feminist magazine, have with getting advertisements in their magazine. Her article sparked a very interesting question: can a magazine exist without any advertisements? On a larger scale, can any form of media exist without advertisements (if we don't take into account that money is the key factor of ads)? A good majority of any magazine is filled with ads, of and hour television show 20 minutes is devoted to ads (and even within the show, the actors are advertising products), and just generally we live in a society cluttered with advertisements. Since Ms. magazine have a difficult time finding advertisements that 1) align with its belief and 2) advertisers who want to invest in placing their ads in the magazine, this reveals how strategic marketers are with their target groups. This idea isn't something new or something consumers don't know about; the more important things this reveals, is how consumers continue to feed the system (in this case advertisements and consumerism).                                  

Response Post

Fausto-Sterling's "Hormonal Hurricanes" had a theory that I had never heard before in my life. She argued against the theory that women are inferior and incapable of certain professions because of their monthly gift of PMS. Fausto-Sterling talks about this "double bind" idea. She wants to know how scientists and researchers are making the judgement of emotional disturbance and whether it is based off of men's emotional stability. This is a completely legitimate point on Fausto-Sterling's part.

I also never knew the other symptom's of PMS before reading this article. I never knew that crimes and physical abuse by women are blamed on symptom's of PMS. This fact was really interesting to me. Also, I couldn't help but laugh at the argument that women eat less than men so they are overall smaller and therefore men will always think more then women. This argument might be the dumbest and most idiotic thing I have ever heard of. First off, my entire women's Ice hockey team can probably eat more food then a lot of the boys at Colgate so the statement that men eat more than women is a stereotype and completely false. Also, how much food you can eat has no effect on how much you can think. There are so many other factors that contribute to thinking power.

In Douglas's "Lean and Mean" chapter, I thought she touched on some very important points, as she has done throughout this entire book. She talked about the stereotype that Victoria Secret portrays as sexy. What is sexy? Victoria Secrets answers with wonder bras and the hottest models. They are basically saying that your body is the central place for you to gain power. you can only be powerful if you are sexy. This is followed up by other examples of what is sexy when stores like Abercrombie and Fitch design t-shirts that say "Who needs brains when you got these?" This puts emphasis on the fact that women need their bodies to be successful in life instead of their brains. The media has made more women today dissatisfied with their bodies then in history and the only way we can stop it is if we put an end to enlightened sexism and the media supporting it. However this is a far fetched goal when the media plays such a huge role in our nation today.

Body, Power, Meanness

Hormonal Hurricanes: Menstruation, Menopause, and Female Behavior

In this article, Fausto-Sterling addresses and invalidates the argument that justifies women’s inferiority in society. The biological argument that because men and women differ hormonally has long justified the inequalities between males and females, while also upholding the ideologies of patriarchy. However, Fausto-Sterling argues that the common perceptions that women are less capable, less intelligent, and less emotional stable than men are faulty. She criticizes and finds faults in all the research that have been conducted to understand females’ menstruation, menopause, and behaviors. She strongly believes that these researches are bias and tainted with preconceived notions that skew their outcomes; either researchers have set hypotheses that guide how the experiments is executed or researchers only collect data that support their hypotheses. In addition, Fausto-Sterling finds empirical data, such as interviews and surveys, to be also invalid because society has placed “fixed ideas about what to expect” into people’s minds (104). Ultimately, these false notions of women’s inferiorly are mechanisms that rationalize why women should stay at home and fulfill the domestic role in society.    

Fausto-Sterling also analyzes the double bind of being of a woman. Instead of focusing on the female’s cycle and what society has deemed as “abnormal”, Fausto-Sterling puts into question the “normality” of testosterone. For example she questions, “Why, for instace, do researchers looking at women’s hormone cycles and mood change fail to mention the monthly cycle of testosterone?” (105). Fausto-Sterling is dissatisfied with how society has deemed men to be the “normal” standard whereas women are seen as their opposite counterpart—“abnormal.” By questioning the normalized notion of men being the standard, Fausto-Sterling tries to emerge a new notion that women are completely normal (once society stop using men as the base line to compare women).      

Lean and Mean

In this chapter, Douglas problematizes society’s, especially young girls and older women’s, over obsession with the image of beauty: size 0 with 38D. Enlightened sexism has justified females’ extreme actions of altering their body to fit what society pins as beautiful—because being beautiful is actually empowering. In addition to this notion, television shows, clothing stores, and advertisements have fostered a culture where girls believe their “body is [their] capital, crucial resource in establishing [their] net worth as a female…” (215-16). Such culture has caused a dramatic increased in plastic surgery, breast implants, eating disorders, and dieting products. What I found absurd is the fact that America has spent more money on dieting products than on education (229).     

Douglas goes further to address the culture of “mean girls” and “queen bees” by drawing popular examples from the movie “Mean Girls” and the television show “Gossip Girls.” On her analysis of girl-on-girl hatred, Douglas points out the irony behind girls’ obsession with looks and being the “it” girl. Not only do girls evaluate themselves stepping on other girls, but also “what girls’ power really did, according to these fables, was magnify their essential traits—pettiness, cattiness, emotional vapidity, materialism, and a desperate need for a guy” (241). Instead of developing a sense of empowerment, females’ obsessions with beauty and popularity have further perpetuated female stereotypes. What enlightened sexism have claimed as empowerment only backfired and continued to make female look bad.         

 

Unrealistic "ideal" body

Susan Douglas’ chapter “Lean and Mean” discusses the problems with media’s portrayal of the ideal female body. Douglas talks about how women wish to have large C or D cups breasts and small waists and legs, a size 0 or 2 because that is what the media shows as sexy and attractive to men. Media represents practically all women like this and the ones who don’t fit into that body-type are pushed to by any means necessary. No matter what magazine, or advertisement, or movie, there is bound to be a large portrayal of “sexy” women as extremely skinny with big breasts. Douglas brings up points about how girls began idealizing this body type and obsessing about it. After reading Douglas, I noticed that this idea body obsession was extremely prevalent in my life, but I noticed with age, that this was an unrealistic image and needed to be changed.

At a young age I remember seeing my classmates and sisters become obsessed with boob size. My friends would always compare boob-size and bodies with each other. Saying things like, “I wish I had your butt” or “your boobs are so much bigger than mine, I’m jealous”. As sad as it is, I can recall multiple times when different friends have said those exact words to another friend. This stereotypical “sexy body”, like Douglas says, causes emotional and possibly physical pain to young girls whose bodies do not fit the unrealistic 1% Victoria’s Secret model body.

As I have matured, I have noticed not only a boost in confidence in my own body, but my friends gaining confidence as well. I think that once girls are exposed to the real world and aren’t lead to believe that everyone must look like Giselle, they become much more confident in their bodies. As a girl I always thought boys would only be attracted to me if I was skinny, medium height, and had great boobs. But boy was I wrong. Men are attracted to all body types. I can’t tell you how many times my guy-friends would point someone out as attractive that didn’t fit the Victoria’s Secret body. As a woman, I can say that I am attracted to all body types of men. I think that people need to realize that while there is a certain represented “ideal” body, it is not the real, natural, sexy bodies most women have.