Bodies
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
'A smart and rich compendium of what is going on within and without our bodies today ... in this brave and significant book, Orbach does battle with a full quiver of her own fire-tipped arrows, her blazing firebrand levelled at self-hatred in all its forms.' the Times
In the past decades, the pressure to perfect and design our bodies has been unprecedented. Men are encouraged to surgically pump up their pecs, breast enhancement is a sweet sixteen birthday present in the suburbs of America, and eating problems - from bulimia to obesity - are growing daily, affecting children as young as six. In China, women are having their legs broken and extended by 5cms. In Iran there are 35,000 cosmetic nose reconstructions a year. The body is no longer a given and to possess a flawless one has become the ambition of millions.
In her years of practice as a psychoanalyst, Susie Orbach has come to realise that the way we view our bodies is the mirror of how we view ourselves: our body becomes the measure of our worth. In this updated edition of Bodies, she addresses the modern challenges to body-image, exposing how social media has exacerbated existing issues and creates new ways we relate to our bodies. In the past decade, despite campaigns promoting body positivity, often unproven and unregulated dietary products have proliferated throughout the world. Meanwhile, movements such as #MeToo have revealed what has changed in our attitudes to bodies and what has, unfortunately, remained the same.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Noted psychoanalyst and feminist thinker Orbach, author of The Impossibility of Sex, Fat is a Feminist Issue and once-counselor to Princess Diana, takes a critical look at the modern notion that "biology need no longer be destiny." Rather than liberating individuals, Orbach contends that this has only made the body another competitive realm for personal achievement: "The individual is now deemed accountable for his or her body and judged by it." This "obsessive cultural focus" leads to a host of psychological problems, making "body anxiety" as fundamental a threat to the modern psyche as emotional anxiety (leading to self harm, obesity, anorexia, etc.). Body anxiety has also driven the beauty industry to become a $160 billion, fully-globalized industry with customers from the U.S., U.K. and other advanced sector economies traveling abroad for discount reconstruction (Nose jobs in Tehran, eye surgery in Asia). Orbach provides a rich, nuanced context for the present moment, looking through time and across cultures at (among other topics) child rearing regimes, body-shaping techniques (tattoos, bound feet) and standard mechanical activities like walking. Orbach makes a powerful case that, because people today have been seduced by a one-size-fits all Western (celebrity) body image, we deprive ourselves-body, mind and soul-of the body's most simple pleasures and rewards, up to and including sexual intimacy.
