Preview

Steatopygous

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
306 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Steatopygous
The piece discusses science, history, religion and consumer culture through the appropriation of a controversial pseudo scientific term (steatopagy) that was earlier used to define, victimize and opress ”fat black” women. The author sports an ironic tone which shows frustration over the reduction and of her body to physical traits. The pace and vocabulary used by the author expresses a frustration over racial marginalization, while at the same time using ironically exaggerated allegories to degrade the oppression experienced through consumer culture, history, theology and science.

Steatopygia, in the form ”steatopygous”, is used in the poem in a mocking way as the genetic trait of having a big bottom has been medicinialized and exotified

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    In “Fear of Fatness” by Peggy Orenstein, she claims that the beauty standards set by society are degrading women’s appearances causing them to constantly stress over how they are perceived. She explains this through the use of satire and the personal experience of a friend, Holly, whose five-year-old daughter, Ava, is overweight. Holly is so concerned about Ava’s weight that she contacts her daughter’s pediatrician to help control Ava’s portion sizes.…

    • 826 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In “Reaching the Slender Body” Susan Bordo deeply analyzes the cultural, psychological, and gender factors that influence body image in the modern era, including the underlying manifestation of power over the self and changing cultural attitudes. There is no denying that humans prefer ascetic beauty just as bees are attracted to vibrant flowers which is why some people believe a warped version of the good life is to achieve societal standards of beauty which in turn is subliminally achieving virtues. The cost is often times one’s physical and mental health as well as an obsessive condemnation of everything that is “imperfect” of a person. In reality, gender norms and societal perceptions change what is “the idea body type” therefore achieving it is like chasing the wind. In today’s culture “slimness” is translated by some as being the tangible…

    • 633 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In her essay, "Too Close to the Bone: The Historical Context for Women's Obsession with Slenderness", Roberta Seid explores the ever-changing standards Americans hold for women's bodies. She compares our obsession with thinness to a religion. If we follow the rules of the religion, even if those rules resemble a sickness, we will live long, happy, healthy lives. If we do not, we are certainly destined to failure.…

    • 641 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Johnson uses examples like Marilyn Monroe and Western female Samoa to show that in some cultures, women were admired for their natural form. In today’s society, women are expected to be skinny, and not be who they are biologically built as. He also emphasizes that women are vital…

    • 215 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Pathos & Logos- The research I am using to establish ethos will influence the reader’s emotional appeal as they read studies displaying the correlation between obesity and the intentional placement of fast food chains and the addictive foods in convenient stores. Obesity, overlooked if it is not a personal issue, is a major issue in America and rates are rising steadily. Therefore, I will personalize the issue by showing how medications, food additives, and biology tend to victimize the obese. I also aim to convey the value placed on being this in America, and the stigma placed on being overweight or obese, although the medical issue is hard to avoid in most cases.…

    • 338 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Horace Miner writes this article to captivate his audience. Miner takes a full on anthropological approach in an attempt to expose his own American culture to their egocentrism, vanity, and narcissistic views that are presented throughout his article. He makes this apparent when saying; “There are ritual fasts to make fat people thin and ceremonial feasts to make thin people fat. Still other rites are used to make women's breasts larger if they are small and smaller if they are large.” Most every task is portrayed individualistically as to show how self-engaged the Nacirema are. Miner is very cleaver in the way in which he presents his findings. The idea of spelling American backwards so that it reads Nacirema helps the reader to maintain less of a bias as they begin on a journey into the lives of the American culture. I really enjoyed the way in which he conveys his position as an outsider looking in and how very descriptive he is in depicting the rituals of the American way of life of the 1950’s.…

    • 316 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Opp Religious Healing

    • 1359 Words
    • 6 Pages

    For the women in Opp’s essay, this meant working with medical physicians in addition to maintaining that strong religious beliefs were the cause of all healing. This gave these women the best of both, as they felt healthy and strong- both physically and spiritually, in both body and soul. This also applies to the fasting experts mentioned in Griffith’s essay. One can be both a respectable businessman, with strong Christian values, as well as a body builder- with a fit, manly body. Showing self-control in one’s intake of food shows restraint from sin, such as greed and gluttony, as well as a more appealing (at the time) physical, healthy body. Both articles explore human intervention into the divine body, in the form of medicines or fasting, as creating the optimal body at the time. Despite societal ideals, coming from many on both the religious and scientific sides, that medicine and religion are two separate entities, the coexistence of the two in the ideal human body at this era prove…

    • 1359 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the essay of “There Is No Unmarked Woman”, Deborah Tannen explains it best through the statement that “There is no unmarked woman” (Tannen 412). No matter what hairstyle, clothes, shoes, or style a woman may choose to wear, every one of her decisions will convey a meaning to the public. “If a woman’s clothing is tight or revealing…it sends a message…If her clothes are not sexy, that too sends a message…” (Tannen 412). There are even instances where the clothes are not the cause of criticism, for a woman may be criticized upon her genetic features. As written in the poem “Barbie Doll” by Marge Piercg, a little girl grows up healthy and intelligent, but because other people deemed her as physically inadequate by having “a great big nose and fat legs”, the girl is coerced into change, and not anything like a difference in wardrobe, but permanent change with cosmetic surgery (Piercg 378). Such an occurrence is not far from reality for there are women who will do whatever it takes to be deemed as conventionally…

    • 667 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    3. Additionally, with oppression racialized bodies are challenged by dominant notions of beauty and desirability. This takes place by reprimanding Brown, Black, Hispanic, and Asian’s for their features, when western culture rejects minority features it normalizes White features marking lighter skin, thinner noses, and finer hair as most appealing. When culture standards are unfavorable of one social group it creates insecurities in that social groups, and creates a problem like colorism which is favoriting a minority group with fairer skin. Society implements this by mostly casting on television young, tall, and robust white men who saves the also white, blonde-haired, petite, innocent women. Implanting these standards on movies, games, television, and dolls.…

    • 259 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    In the novel The Edible Woman, author Margaret Atwood tackles the difficult subject of anorexia nervosa. Although this subject is often handled with kid gloves by many writers, Atwood’s novel candidly addresses how different food related stigmas affect the main character’s day to day existence. In the late 1960's, young women faced a society that expected them to conform to certain qualities in both appearance and demeanor. The portrayal of young women in popular movies, television and music of the time period led to internal conflicts among women who struggled to achieve the norm put forth by society. Young women everywhere were convinced they needed to look and act like Marcia Brady and turn into Carol Brady even if meant sacrificing their…

    • 1051 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Fat is a Feminist Issue

    • 501 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Instead of pointing fingers at the food industry as Zinczenko does within his essay, Orbach turns her eyes to the American people. She uncovers and discusses the pressures America places on women. Pressures like size, clothes and sexuality all play a role in American women’s lives. Orbach claims that if you are a true feminist, being overweight symbolizes your disproval of society’s opinion on how women should be. Thus, she describes it as being “a definite and purposeful act” (Orbach 449). It is purposeful because it serves as a physical way to silently protest against conformity.…

    • 501 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Because I admire stories of humans triumphing above the obstacles in their lives, I expected Roxane Gay’s “Hunger: A Memoir of (my) Body” to be another story on eating disorders and an almost miraculous change within a person. But I was surprised by the idea of “an unruly body”, as Gay calls her body, who is oppressed by society, to be free without having to lose the weight nor having the approval of society. Gay is an accomplished Haitian American female author, which in “Hunger” talks about the struggles of her body, her trauma and how she has triumphed above the harsh glares of societal eyes.…

    • 1118 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Obesity in Americans

    • 702 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Yet this obsession with obese Americans is about more than body fat. Certainly there is a debate to be had about the extent to which obesity is a problem in America - a discussion best left to medical experts. But a close examination of the popular genre on obesity reveals it is about more than consumption in the most literal sense of eating food. Obesity has become a metaphor for 'over-consumption' more generally. Affluence is blamed not just for bloated bodies, but for a society which is seen as more generally too big for its own good.…

    • 702 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Thesis: In this paper, I will argue that racially marked females are stereotypically represented in print advertisements and demonstrate that African American women are considered subservient to white females and depicted as exotic. I will draw on the theories of Janell Hobson, Audrey Kerr, Scott Plous, and Dominique Neptune and look at how issues of class, power and beauty are constructed. I will conclude that mainstream media reflect a racialized sense of beauty that portray blackness as abnormal and whiteness as an attribute of beauty and that this increases the dissatisfaction of black women with their ethnicity.…

    • 894 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Best Essays

    Embodiment

    • 3084 Words
    • 13 Pages

    Bordo, Susan. Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture and the Body. Berkely, California: University of California Press, 1993.…

    • 3084 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Best Essays