Bordo on Hunger

When reading this chapter's view on advertising and its correlation to women and their perceptions of their bodies, I couldn't help but think of a guest speaker in my communication class, Seth Matlins. In addition to being an entrepreneur, he is also a father concerned about his daughter's perception of her body and femininity. Therefore, he strongly advocates the "Truth in Advertising" law, which simply states that if an image is altered (i.e. photoshopped), then the advertising companies must state the alterations made. In theory, this should help younger women accept their bodies, realizing that even celebrities' bodies aren't perfect and perky. However, I thought that this might have an adverse effect in that it might spark a chain reaction to even further perpetuate the "thin standard". For example, I would think that because companies want to not use photoshopping (because they do not want to publicize it), so they would search for the even more impossibly skinny, perfect looking people. Therefore, when a woman sees this embodiment of perfection (and not photoshopped!), she will be even more inclined to achieve this body.

Another interesting point in Bordo's chapter is the ideal of how women think about food. I found this interesting because although women constantly think about and eat food and also strive to be the perfect amount of thin and toned, they are supposed to appear unaffected or not consumed with the thoughts about food. This is even more impossible than achieving the perfect thinness because it suppresses feelings and thoughts, which are supposed to be vocalized and expressed in order to not have any negative psychological effects.