In society today, the female body is something tough to compete with. Writer Susan Bordo, focuses on the relationship between femininity, notions of control and illnesses such as anorexia and agoraphobia in her written work “The Body and the Reproduction of Femininity”. Similarities are touched upon in the documentary “Codes of Gender”. This is a film surrounding commercial realism, and how both men and women are looked at in advertisements (Sully 2012).
Bordo’s perspective of femininity and its relationship with illnesses such as eating disorders, is that women are often the ones who fall into the cycle of anorexia or agoraphobia with the desire to stay ‘on trend’ with society or gain a sense of strength compared to male counterparts (Bordo 2017). Anorexia is an obsessive disorder by refusing to eat in order to lose weight, and
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Looking at a feminist perspective, it is women that suffer from illnesses to insert themselves into the body they wish to achieve. Bordo connects the ideas that the female body, cannot feel accepted in society or have power unless the ideal body is achieved (Bordo 2017: 84). Bordo believes how we dress, eat and attend to our bodies is a part of culture (Bordo 2017: 80). This is because of many factors that contribute to the idea of a perfect body or how society perceives men and women’s bodies. Such includes how the masculine society publicizes the concept of femininity, and how a woman is not suppose to have power or independence, but expected to nurture (McGarry 2017). In adverts, men are often viewed as strong dominant types, while women are objectified and seen as small and weak, depending on their male counterpart for support (Sully 2012). This view supports Bordo’s thought and how a woman and her relationship with her body is a reflection of how culture is moulding gender performance (Sully