What historical context impacted your topic? Societies and individuals play a role in what body image among women should look like. Our society's outlook on a woman's body image has dramatically changed since the early 1900's, a change is apparent every decade. Throughout this research I will be discussing how women attempt to satisfy society's standards of body image, and feel pressured to fall into drastic eating disorders in order to be accepted by society. Also how political and economic shifts may impacted society's ideal image of a woman.
The Cultural Politics of Body Image
Author Helen Gremillion
Throughout history body image has been a topic on which Anthropologists have had different perspectives, primarily regarding the cultural politics of body size. Bryan Turner, one of the most influential Sociologists, refused to categorize the body as an object that must appear in a specific manner for a given social system. Concentrating on a woman’s struggle to maintain the current body image, Turner found Anorexia to be a cultural indicator of the loss of self control. Anthropologists examine the meaning in producing, assessing, or managing bodies when size is important, especially when determining the cause and effect of obesity.
Author Helen Gremillion
Throughout history body image has been a topic on which Anthropologists have had different perspectives, primarily regarding the cultural politics of body size. Bryan Turner, one of the most influential Sociologists, refused to categorize the body as an object that must appear in a specific manner for a given social system. Concentrating on a woman’s struggle to maintain the current body image, Turner found Anorexia to be a cultural indicator of the loss of self control. Anthropologists examine the meaning in producing, assessing, or managing bodies when size is important, especially when determining the cause and effect of obesity.
The article “Biocultural Dynamics of Body and Shape,” Ritenbaugh (1991) conducted studies of “fatness” with high socioeconomic status among the vast majority of women and men in the industrial context. Ritenbaugh’s goal was to provide an explanation for
“fatness” that does not follow the medical standard of normal or healthy body sizes. Some Anthropologist refers to obesity as a “cultural-bound syndrome” most recognizes it as “fatness”.
“fatness” that does not follow the medical standard of normal or healthy body sizes. Some Anthropologist refers to obesity as a “cultural-bound syndrome” most recognizes it as “fatness”.
Cultural studies researcher Susan Bordo’s Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body (1993), examines slender femininities and the problem among women with anorexia. Bordo argues that woman’s body image is “constantly in the grip’…of cultural practices” (p.142) they can never be considered “natural.” Family’s disorders on body size have become a historical perspective over the last decade. Bordo analyzes the issues of body weight, exercise, media images, and anorexia.
These political topics above influenced by culture and society have affected what the ideal body image of women should portray.
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