Inscribing gender on the body

I agree with our lecture and some of the articles we read that consumerism and major corporations have a huge influence on how women view their bodies. Companies make huge amounts of money by convincing women that we need to wear makeup and have the latest fashions (which don't stay in style as long as men's cloths) and that we need to buy the best hair and skin products so that we will look our best. Not only are we taught that we need theset things to "look our best", but we are also taught that it is importnat to look good (by society's definition of good) becasue if we don't we won't get jobs, have friends, find romantic partners, ect. Although companies profit from these ideas in our society, they aren't the only ones who reinforce them. Parents send strong messages to their daughters that they need to keep up with these standatds of beauty, as do peers and the media. Parents will buy girls certain clothes and beauty products and put strong pressure on them if they don't keep up with normal beauty rituals like shaving, doing their hair properly, or maintianing their weight. Peers put extremely tough pressure on girls to fit the proper gender standards of beauty, and when girls don't they are socialy punished. The media protrays girls and women that are unrealisticly thin and have expensive time consuming hair and makeup that the average women could never afford or be able to fit into her schedule. Their images are also often airbrushed. The ideal of what women are supposed to look like is so unattainable that almost all women have something about themselves they want to change. Even those who supposedly fit the mystical norm of what women are supposed to look like often have problems with how they look. These unatainable standards teach women to be selfconscious. They also give men unfair advantages becasue they are judged less harshly on their looks and are required to spend less time and money on their looks. The expectations for women's appearance can also lead to dangerous consequences in the form of eating disorders and dangerous practices such as excessive tanning, and plastic surgery.

Also on the topic of gender on the body, I really liked the article “Reading the Slender Body,” by Susan Bordo. I liked what she said about how our attempts to control all the fat spots on our body and to tighen up are our attempt to balance our conflicting expectations to be controllers of production and consumers, and how having a well controlled body is a sign of success in our capitalistic society. I also like the point she brought up about how men want to control women's bodies as an attempt to control our hunger/desire that can be threatening in times of changing roles and that women are trying to move away from a body that emphasizes maternity and fertility. I thought this brought up some very interesting points and a different way to look at this issue than has previously been presented to me. Great article!!!