Both of the readings were about how gender roles and stereotypes
relate to food or health in some way. In “Fat Is a Feminist Issue” by Susie
Orbach, she talks about more women not worrying about being fat in order to be “free
of society’s sex stereotypes.” Woman are
expected to reach society’s standards by being in shape and eating healthy. It’s
as if they have one job when they step outside their house and that is to
behave lady-like and make sure she looks pleasing just for men. She must make sure
that she adjusts every flaw of herself to look attractive. And they must
especially do this if they want to be a wife and have a family. But what do
woman need in order to fulfill the roll of a wife and a mother? A man. Which
is, again, why she must look appealing as if they were just an object. And
because women don’t want to be seen as just an object, they rebel against the
standards of being skinny and decide to be fat to give an “I don’t care what
you think” attitude towards society. In “Having It His Way: The Construction of
Masculinity in Fast-Food TV Advertising” by Carrie Packwood Freeman and Debra
Merskin, they talk about how masculinity relates to meat and how if a man wants
to eat manly, they have to eat a lot of meat and that much leafy-green food to
be tough and how this goes back thousands of years. Which is true because most
men are, and have been, a lot more bigger than women have so they need more
protein and strength. In a lot of food advertisements, they portray the men as
the focus and being the dominant ones and they always show women being quiet
which then portrays them as an object, just like meat. This is showing that meat
and women are what men need in order to be masculine and dominant. Both of
these readings again, just like all of the other readings, show flaws and
standards of each gender and their roles and how they are portrayed by society
as a whole.
I do agree on what you have to say in both readings, they both talk about a certain gender having this role in society in order to satisfy the opposite sex. The women have always been the ones that have to look or act a certain way in order to attract the men but now that they are doing the opposite they are seen to be the “rebels”. And same for men, if they do not eat the “manly” food they portrayed as weak or as strong as a man should be. If they eat a salad or any type of food like that they are seen to be different and that is where the judgmental comments come in. We only do these things to satisfy everybody else around us or also so we can feel like we fit into this society so we would not be judged by our looks or by what we do in our everyday life. I do think it is sad how we do this to ourselves, I am not going to lie I do it sometimes just so I will not feel like I am out of place or feel awkward around people. I do it just how everybody else does it, some people might do it differently but I also do think this is such a horrible thing to do. It comes to a point where people are somewhat forced to do these things in order to survive in life.
ReplyDeleteCrystal, I completely agree with what you are saying. It was interesting to recognize after reading these two essays that our appearance as women and men are such a concern nowadays. In Susie Orbach’s Fat is a Feminist Issue, she describes fat as being a “social disease”. Which when you think about it, that is an ingenious description of how women view their looks on the daily. Women in society care so much about what a man will think of them, because they want to be seen as desirable and someone who can be considered as their wife and mother of their children. Orbach, stresses that it is okay to be differently sized than someone who is paper-thin, because truthfully we are looking for a man who is willing to love all of you, no matter what size you are. In Carrie Packwood and Debra Merskin’s Having It His Way: The Construction of Masculinity in Fast-Food TV Advertising, they describes different testimonies and analyses of authors who all have something to contribute to the topic of the expectations of men to be manly and tough by eating heavily influenced meat diets, rather than plant-based diets. It is well known that men can have a hearty appetite, that is usually much larger than women’s diets, so in advertisements they pry off the fact that eat large meat-filled meals looks extremely masculine. Both Packwood and Merskin, observe that society’s idealized gender norms of being manly and acquiring commodities you want, like women and hearty food, is becoming detrimental to the expectations men should be contributing to this world.
ReplyDeleteI think this blog post does a good job of summarizing each of the essays. Unfortunately my comment needs to be 250 words long so I can’t just stop there, so I am going to tell you about why I do not agree with Susie Orbach, author of “Fat is a Feminist Issue.” I do not believe that the majority of society thinks that women need to be skinny and good looking in order to be a capable bachelorette. As a single straight male searching for a single straight woman, a woman’s appearance is indeed the very first thing I take into consideration. However, before someone takes what I just said the wrong way, I mean that I want a woman who appears to have it all together. I want a woman who seems confident, full of aspirations, and someone who knows and accepts who she is, not so much to do with whether or not she is skinny or fat. To expand on this I believe that a majority of men are actually evolving into these ideals. Men in our society are becoming much more accepting of the idea that a woman’s face and body are not her most important features. I do agree that this has been a problem in the past and it is still very much so alive, but if anything it is definitely improving. I also must mention that this essay was written in 1978, things were much different back then. So ladies, I would not let this essay worry you so much, believe it or not the population of male scumbags is decreasing. ☺
ReplyDelete