Frigid Women

In "The body and the reproduction of femininity" by Susan Bordo, she talks about some interesting facts that I had never really thought of before, one having to deal with social construction. She uses different diseases that are mainly associated with women and says that they had these diseases because they wanted to be seen as the perfect woman. When woman had anorexia nervosa, they would be giving the food that should have been for them to their children or husband, they would stop talking, and eventually they would lose so much weight they seemed to just whither away. They thought that this was a perfect solution seeing as if they weighed less, then they would be out of the way for everyone else in the house which in turn would make them happy. Also if being able to not talk would mean that they would have no reason to be yelled at for doing something wrong. The obvious subject is the women during this time that shaped what a woman should be as in this time in history. The type of woman to come out of this certain culture were those who seemed “impressionable, suggestible, and narcissistic…their moods changing suddenly, dramatically, and for seemingly inconsequential reasons….essentially asexual and not uncommonly frigid”. This unfortunately become the way a lot of the women behaved at this point in time. Who knows why this seemed like the way to attracted members of the opposite sex, but apparently it worked for the male species. One thing for sure is that I am glad today women can be who they want to be and there is no “correct” way women have to be.