The Empire Of Images In Our World Of Bodies

Version one: In “The Empire of Images in Our World of Bodies,” Susan Bordo, professor of English and Women's Studies at the University of Kentucky, examines the problems with the media's view of body image and how people try to obtain perfection through dieting and surgical and cosmetic procedures.

Bordo supports her position first by citing her personal experience watching TV, which suggests that she should enthusiastically try to look younger and raise her daughter to be the idealistic “white girl;” second, by employing statistics from a study done in Fiji, which demonstrates the degree that body image distortion has been exported by western countries; third, by providing data that shows an increasing trend in cosmetic surgery; and forth, by offering quotes from accredited professionals to emphasize her argument.

Such confident instants, I have to accept, are fleeting. frequently, I seem horrified. I am harshly cognizant that expressing my repugnance in an open way nowadays asks for being considered of as a preachy prude, a remnant of an unfashionable feminism. At converses to juvenile assemblies, I try to brighten my feel, commemorate the affirmative, confirm that my condemnations of our heritage are not bewildered with being anti-beauty, anti-fitness, or anti-sex. But I furthermore understand that when parents and educators become completely one with the heritage, young children are forsaken to it. I don't notify them to love their bodies or turn off the TV -- useless reprimand today, and ones I will not comply myself -- but I do try to disturb, if only for the time being, their everyday fascination in the culture. For just an hour or so, I won't let it overtake itself off easily as "normalcy."

Bordo's purpose is to emphasize the impact that television, internet, and magazines have on the way ...