Thanks to the COM352 students for contributing a bunch of new pages! I'll be moving these pages into the main area of the wiki soon.

From UMassWiki

This article is about the eating habits of men and women. The author says that women seem afraid to eat unhealthily in public, and that men are the opposite and brag about how much they eat. The writer seems to have something against some other women that obsess over the need to seek perfection in looks, and she tries to make these women look bad and attempts to persuade the female audience to not turn into "these" types of women. Susan Bordo writes this article because she is concerned about the future generations of women. She doesn’t want the women of tomorrow to be obsessed with how they look. She tells her readers that many women have eating disorders and it is horrible how women have to change their lifestyles and eat rarely in order to fulfill their needs to be thin and have the "perfect" body. In today’s society, she also states that many men eat voraciously and brag about how much they eat, while women are ashamed of eating unhealthily or in large amounts. “Men, of course, are supposed to have hearty, even voracious, appetites…even when men advertise diet products, they brag about their appetites.” (page 195) This quote from the article suggests that men are expected to eat in large amounts and that they brag about doing so. Bordo shows how it’s considered normal for men to eat in huge amounts. This quote is pathos because she believes that society defines the character of a man as being big and eating a lot. “When women are positively depicted as sensuously voracious about food, their hunger for food is employed solely as a metaphor for their sexual appetite.” (page 195) Bordo says that women rarely appear to be voracious, so when they do seem voracious, in general they may be very hungry or they are just acting that way as a sexual metaphor. Meaning that women believe in eating in small, light quantities and rarely will you see a voraciously hungry woman. Susan Bordo seems to be against shallow women who only care about looks. Perhaps she feels as if they make women look bad, and give off the impression as if women are only useful for looks and sexual purposes, only to please males. “To eat it (Haagen-Dazs ice cream, for a woman) in a business suit is like having “quickie” sex in the office, irregular and naughty.” (page 204) This quote from her article is pathos because it shows how women believe that it is naughty to eat fattening ice cream, and they are guilty for doing so. They are ashamed to be eating it, and do it very quickly and when no one can see them because they are also insecure about it. “She (Kate Moss) assures us in interviews that she eats anytime and anything she wants…for they know that the only way to eat whatever you like and look like Kate is either to remain in perpetual motion, or not to want to eat much of anything at all. And that, above all, is the state they aspire to—a state beyond appetite, beyond desire.” (page 193) This quote is logos because once you reach the point where you have no desire to eat, you logically just don’t eat. The author seems as if she is “attacking” Kate Moss by indirectly saying that she is anorexic. Moss talks about how she likes to eat whenever she wants, but Bordo counters this reasoning by saying that Kate must never want to eat. The author makes her look anorexic and as if she only cares about being thin. The audience that Susan Bordo is writing towards seems to be primarily young women. These readers include a bunch of young women that are in a society that judges based upon looks, therefore they may just be starting to develop eating disorders inorder to have the “perfect” look. She tells them how many other women obsess over looks and that they feel ashamed when they eat since they want to look perfectly thin. Bordo doesn’t want other women, the readers, to obsess over looks so she warns them by making the women who do obsess, to look bad in her article. The author quotes from a TV commercial, “‘your mother, she is so slim, so beautiful! Does she eat?’…’Silly, just not so much.’….’Aren’t you jealous?’ the friend asks…the daughter answers, ‘Not if I know her secrets.’” (page 193) This quote is pathos because the little girl believes that what her mom is doing is right. She thinks since her mom eats rarely in order to stay trim, she should do so as well. The author’s message to the audience is that this is a growing trend, and she doesn’t want the women of tomorrow to follow this path. “As a little girl, I loved watching her roll each piece, enclosing just the right amount of filling…I never felt so safe and secure at those moments.” (page 199) This quote is pathos because the writer as a little girl felt safe when her mother would make her food. She felt loved from her mothers cooking. She also says how good her mother felt when she let her know she was interested in cooking as well. This message encourages the audience that young girls should learn to cook from their mothers, and promotes that idea. This was an interesting article because the author seemed to have several strong thoughts. She believes that today's society puts too much emphasis on looks, and I agree with her. She is right, people care too much about looks and will do anything to look a certain way. It is ridiculous and even deadly how far people will go to have “the look,” whether it be from developing eating disorders to using steroids or weight loss pills. I think the author has proved how shallow society has become, yet she tries to contain it from getting worse by spreading the message to her readers.

--ndias 16:01 27 November 2006 (EDT)