Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body - Softcover

Bordo, Susan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0520240545 ISBN 13: 9780520240544

Publisher: University of California Press, 2003

Synopsis

"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 sense of our current social landscape—finally! This is a great book 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!"—Katha Pollitt, Nation columnist and author of Subject to Debate: Sense and Dissents on Women, Politics, and Culture (2001)

About this title

Review:

"This excellent study links the fear of women's fat with a fear of women's power and shows that as opportunities for women increase, their bodies dwindle."--"New York Times Book Review"

Synopsis:

In this Tenth Anniversary Edition, Susan Bordo examines how women's fantasies of transcending their material existence have led to narcissistic efforts to reinvent themselves. Infatuated with youth, surrounded by homogenous representations of beauty, they surrender themselves to plastic surgeons in ever greater numbers for larger breasts, smaller noses, collagen-plumped lips and wrinkle-free faces. The author's preface brings the book up to date in 2004 and Leslie Heywood's foreword places Susan Bordo's work in the front ranks of the research on women and their bodies.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0520240545
• ISBN 13: 9780520240544
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 370