Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body (Paperback)

~ (Author) "By the 1983 meetings of the New York Center for the Study of Anorexia and Bulimia, palpable dissatisfaction was evident-largely among female clinicians-over the absence..." (more)
Key Phrases: forced medical treatment, female hunger, gender skepticism, African American, Supreme Court, Open Your Heart (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Bordo explores women's obsessions with appearance, their struggles to control food and hunger, and the pressures brought on by a society that worships the ideal female figure.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

In dense, challenging, subtly argued philosophical essays, Bordo (Philosophy/LeMoyne College; The Flight to Objectivity, 1987- -not reviewed) offers a postmodern, poststructuralist feminist interpretation of the female body as a cultural construction in Western society, emphasizing eating disorders, reproductive issues, and the philosophical background. Many of the problems and ideas of contemporary Western society, says Bordo, derive from the ineluctable mind/body dualism of Plato, restated by Descartes. From the viewpoint of feminist theory (of which the author offers a useful history and critique), women have been identified with the body, which itself has been characterized as an alien, instinctual, threatening, passive, and false self in which the true self--the active and manly mind/soul- -is confined. In occasionally repetitive pieces--some a decade old, some revised from lectures--carrying titles like ``Are Mothers Persons?,'' ``Reading the Slender Body,'' and ``Material Girl,'' Bordo demonstrates how this identification is deployed in law, medicine, literature, art, popular culture, and, especially, advertising, which she perceptively decodes by showing how the most trivial detail (men eating hearty meals, women consuming bite-size candies) reveal cultural values and even pathologies. Following Foucault's archaeological technique, Bordo shows how the female body has migrated from nature to culture, where it can be controlled through dieting and altered through surgery--and where women are perpetually at war with it. A cerebral introduction to liberal feminist thinking that's humanized by the author's anecdotes of her own experience as a female body (e.g., confessing to the delights of making stuffed cabbage) and that demonstrates what it advocates: ``What the body does is immaterial, so long as the imagination is free.'' (Fifty- five b&w illustrations) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 362 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press (March 15, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520088832
• ISBN-13: 978-0520088832
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #183,803 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

45 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic, June 18, 2000

By	Shawna Lanne "Shawna" (San Jose, CA) - See all my reviews

Unbearable Weight is a scholarly yet accessible look at the historical and current representation of women in history and in popular culture. It is an excellent look at society's objectification of the female body and the problems that can arise for women because of this objectification.

This book shines not so much as a linear collection of essays but as a reference for people who wish to study the marriage between feminism, western society, and its concentration on the female body. It has helped me to understand the media's role in my relationship with my body and in the amount of control that I have over it. "Unbearable Weight" has also been a great help in my research on this subject.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to better understand Western Cultures objectification of women's bodies through a feminist filter.

30 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Susan Bordo is a Genius and this is a great book, April 9, 1999

By	Indienne - See all my reviews

Unbearable Weight is brilliant. From an immensely knowledgeable feminist perspective, in engaging, jargonless (!) prose, Bordo analyzes a whole range of issues connected to the body -- weight and weight loss, exercise, media images, movies, advertising, anorexia and bulimia and much more -- in a way that makes our current social landscape make sense -- finally! This is a great book not just for academics but for anyone who wonders why women's magazines are always describing delicious food as "sinful" and why there is a cake called Death by Chocolate. Loved it!

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome- Highly Recommended, December 1, 1999

By	Jennie P. Finn (Durham, New Hampshire) - See all my reviews

Susan Bordo doesn't miss a beat in this work. Every sentence has a purpose and every paragraph is filled with valuable insight into the world of contemporary female bodies. This is a practical book for the curious consumer and the student of feminism alike. Her ideas about post-modernism are challenging and abstract, but reading Bordo will most likely open up a new world for you. It did for me and this masterpiece has become one of my all-time favorites. Best Wishes...