Style, Makeup and Dieting

Almost all of us in one way or another have fallen victims of conforming to the latest trends of dress, style, makeup and dieting that we see in the media regardless of what gender we are. Stereotypically, males are to be strong and muscular while women are to be small and petite. What I found interesting when reading the excerpt from Garland-Thompson's article was when it stated that there is a 'postural arrangement of bodies' in that height relations express a hierarchy that make the "normal" gender pairing of having a man made to be taller by a shorter woman (Garland-Thomson, 2009). But who is it who made this the "normal" view? How did this come to be what we expect and anything other than that to be strange or abnormal?

The 19th century "lady" was idealized in terms of slenderness and dreaminess, sexual passivity and a charming personality, which the media now has made a culturally standardized image of femininity (Bordo, 2011). I think this was a major starting point to when women constantly began spending more time on managing and disciplining their bodies to achieve what is prevalent in our culture of having the perfect body. In doing so these women are losing sight of what is normal and realistic. Until reading Chapter 10 I had never thought about anorexia as an unconscious form of feminist protesting, but after reading the chapter it makes perfect sense to me. Although these girls, in their strive to achieve the perfect body, are lead down a terrifying path of slow suicide by starving themselves to death, they are a walking example of what the media has done to these women with the pressure to be thin. As soon as women start to become brainwashed by the media of what they need to look like in order to be beautiful or sexually attractive, is where trouble begins.

Garland- Thompson's article talked a lot about staring. We stare at what visually leaps toward us and expectations about the way in which bodies should look like, affect how we see each other (Garland- Thompson, 2009). The sight of an unexpected body (i.e. someone who is overweight) is compelling to us because it disorders our perceptions and attracts our interest. Sometimes people try to escape a stare. The excerpt gave a great example of how overweight people may try and flee the stare when eating because they already see how people look at them in disgust for being overweight. I know myself have subconsciously let this ideal image of femininity into my mind and when at fast food restaurants such as McDonalds, and I see larger people ordering Big Macs or upgrading their fry order, I think to myself that maybe they should not be getting that or how do they not understand that eating this food is maybe why they are the way they are? This is where I fall guilt-ridden because this is not the way our society should be. I myself know that I am not perfect, no one is, and so it does not make it okay for anyone to criticise