Body Outlaws By Ophira Edut: An Analysis

There are beauty standards all over the world, but America has one of the most highest and unreachable standard of the all. In the article “Whose Body is This,” the author Katherine Haines reflects the issue on how narrow-minded society, magazine and the rest of media is depicting the perfect body. The ideal body in America is established as skinny, tall, perfect skin, tight body are characteristics that destroyed majority of woman’s self esteem (172). As girls get older and into their teen years, they have been brainwashed to need to look like the unrealistic, and photoshopped models in magazines and advertisements. Girls don’t feel comfortable to be in their own skin, because they were not taught to love themselves for who they are right in the beginning.

In the personal narrative “My Body, My Weapon, My Shame,” Elwood Reid retells his experience playing football for a Big Ten college. He goes through practice with intense ferocity and cares little about physically abusing his body. However, despite his strength and athletic prowess, the coaches only view him as something of their possession rather than a human being. From the practices to the training room to the parties, Reid describes with reluctance and candor the sad reality of belonging to someone else. As a football player who lends his body out every single play, from whistle to whistle, enduring the pain and fatigue from both physical and mental abuse, he does not even get the satisfaction of being called a human. Through similes and

A body image is a subjective combination of all the thoughts, emotions, and judgments that an individual may perceive about his or her own body. Each individual has a unique perception of his or her own body. This image is strongly influenced and often times skewed due to the increasing pressure created from outside, societal factors. With a world that is continuously creating new forms of social media and entertainment, individuals are constantly exposed to images that supposedly define bodily perfection and are then expected to resemble these images in order to fit in and/or please society. The expectations that have been put in place by society has created unwanted pressure on individuals who feel as if they need to resemble these images to get society’s approval.

You know what’s so beautiful about imperfection? It creates a space for everyone to share their uniqueness to our world. In the article, Hello, I Am Fat by author Lindy West discusses the issues of being treated poorly and wrongfully shamed for one’s body appearance. Spreading negatively, shame, or hatred towards individuals who are “fat” can truly affect a person’s life including yours. West felt obligated to explain the importance behind fat acceptance in today’s society to her current boss, Dan. Who believes he’s constructing a better work environment and helping individuals by sharing his rather “tame” statements to the public. Society is often times our worst critic by making us believe that body image and personal health will evaluate a person’s success.

In the current era, most of the people are obsessed with their body ritual wealth. They are in a constant race of outshining the others in terms of their outer looks and body shapes. To appear attractive, many people do stuff that might give them short term happiness or satisfaction but their results can be horrifying. Are people playing with their bodies? Well, I guess they are. They tend to ruin their natural self. Horace Miner, the writer of “Body Rituals Among the Nacirema,” was absolutely right when he mentioned in his article that today’s main focus is the human body, and that people have taken in their appearances and health so much that they have become a major component of America’s culture today. In fact,

Body modifications have existed in our society for centuries and the way in which it is perceived has changed somewhat over the years. But certain stigmas still persists to this contemporary day. One such body modification is the act of inking or marking the skin: Tattooing. Like most body modifications, tattoos are an often misunderstood form of body modification. Despite the stigmas, tattoos have become a unique object of desire to diverse groups of people. But are the popular perceptions of tattoos out of synch with the true meaning behind them? This essay will explore the social and cultural practices of tattooing and the causal connection between the mind and the tattooed body. It will also explore why tattoos engender

Ophira Edut is the editor of Body Outlaws: Young Women Writing About Body Image and Identity , and Rebecca Walker created the foreword. Ophira Edut has spent almost a decade creating media projects for young adult women, and is the founding publisher of HUES ( Hear Us Emerging Sisters) which is a intersectional magazine geared toward women of different walks of life. She is also a contributor to Ms magazine which is a popular feminist magazine. Her work has been published in major magazines such as, Glamour, Sassy, Vibe, and Enertainment Weekly. This novel is a composition of personal essays of women from different social groups, ethnicities, race, and sexuality aabout their body image concerns and personal experiences. The essays cover a wide range of topics such as, The butt: its politics, its profanity , its power , by Erin J. Aubry , which is about the black women not being able to fit in and how that their bodies have become (mainly their backsides) the obsession of society and a means to shame them. Sizing myself up: tales of a plus-size model by Kate Dillon, which is about how being a plus size model is a source of empowerment for the author, and she views it as a means to change the perspective of society from “youre pretty for a big girl” to

In her essay “Beauty (Re)discovers the Male Body,” Susan Bordo manages to recognize an underlying fundamental change in society’s attitude towards advertisements and specifically sees that unfold in the growing shift towards male sexually oriented advertisements with a focus on feministic qualities. Furthermore, since Bordo wrote this essay in the 1990s, the advancements in technology have caused growing ideological differences between generations as their responses to things like social media and advertisements elicit contrasting reactions. The Millennials, also known as Generation Y, have been born into the various outlets of social media and have become accustomed to a greater sense of comfort with the Internet as they share all of their life stories and photos with other human beings. On the other hand, Generation X and the Baby Boomers were born into an era that didn’t depend on technology to perform everyday tasks. As a result, their mindsets make them reluctant to the changes in technology, which inadvertently makes them more uncomfortable to any massive changes in social media. By using sexually oriented advertisements, Kraft Foods and Axe, effectively display differing ideological differences between Generation X and Generation Y. In conjunction, Bordo’s elements of the gaze, objectification, and the rocks and leaners pose allow us to better understand the construction of the advertisements and the role they play on influencing each targeted generation.

As our current society stands, it is miserable to stand still and speculate the outstanding amount of people who have been put aside by society, who have been bullied upon, and suffered due to physical appearances. These individuals, instead of enjoying a normal life, are forced to confront the one problem they can't run away from; themselves.

This article was written by Sunny Sea Gold on a popular wellness website named Greatist. The beginning of the piece addresses the question , what does someone gain from just being ok with their body? The author states that she intentionally avoids saying “loving” your body because she feels that loving ever aspect of your body all the time is an unrealistic goal. She also points out that research has linked positive mental and physical states are linked with being satisfied with ones body. The issue of weight and its relationship to body acceptance is the main theme of the article, and the author presents arguments such as, disliking your body may increase your risk of obesity, and women of any weight who accept their flaws are able to handle

The ID norms pertain to be being fit, caring about one’s body, living a healthy lifestyle and working out even when short on time. By conforming to these norms, Bordo (1989) explains that it allows oneself to become a symbol of correct attitude. It suggests that the individual has willpower, energy and control over impulse. The ID deviant actions are being lazy, not having a consistent work out schedule, not working out and not working for a slim and toned body figure. Because Kayla conformed to the ID norms and followed the work out routine, she was able to achieve the abs she wanted. Therefore, the audience should be able to achieve abs like Kayla within seven minutes. Given society’s pressure for women to have a toned and slender body, the audience critically analyzes their own bodies. They believe that their bodies are imperfect because they do not have the bodies of the model on the cover page of magazines. These images surround their daily lives and they are forced to believe that they are flawed beings. In essence it is the battle between being a strong and beautiful woman or being an insecure, lazy

Positioning the body in such a way that it actively participants in the consumption and reproduction of dominance as well as subordination allows a framework through which to view the body as a text. Functioning as an agent of cultural production, possessing the power to define cultural constructions, practices, and perceptions, inevitably acting as a form of social control. Susan Bordo in her article, The Body and the Reproduction of Femininity from

"Body image is the perception that a person has of their physical self and the thoughts and feelings that result from that perception.” The American society has been broadcasting a certain type of body,

Quick Write September 12th, chapter 5, What Beauty Sickness Does to Women I included the author's message “when Taffy writes that last sentence explaining how a woman's body is everyone’s business but her own, she means that a women knows the ‘ideals’ or ‘norms’ of a perfect body for a woman and she is constantly changing it or alternating it in order to please everyone around her… it is brought up how one study showed that when college women spent just a few minutes viewing a magazine advertisements that featured idealized images of women, their body shame increased”. My understanding of body image has really changed my perspective because I learned if I am constantly thinking about what others think about my body then I will never be happy. I

Body modifications, with the focus of tattoos, have existed in our society for centuries and the way in which it is perceived has changed somewhat over the years, yet certain dishonors still remain our modern day. Like most body modifications, tattoos are an often misunderstood form of body modification. Despite the stigmas, tattoos have become a unique object of desire to endless diverse groups of people. But are the popular assumptions of tattoos out of sync with the true meaning behind them? Further explanation and exploration of the history will reveal the social and cultural practices of tattooing and the causal connection between the mind and the tattooed body, in addition to providing answers as to why tattoos stimulate uneasiness