Short Response for 10/20 readings

These readings gave a lot of insight on how these different retail markets and companies reinforce the body project and why women feel as though they are never good enough. The first reading "Body Projects" by Joan Brumberg documents the change in girls and women's body image from the 1920's until today and how that has changed. The industry she most talked about was the bra and "junior figure control" ones. These boomed once undergarments weren't made by hand anymore and were mass produced so that women had to go shopping and also became more self conscious of their chests. The change in the underwear industry gave a rise in the sexualization of the female body and more the young girl body. The conversation went from what books girls were reading to what cup size you were. This increasing sexualization of the young female body caused girls to become a lot more insecure and associated external shortcomings with internal image. This caused women to want to lose weight and count calories to lose weight which then progressed into young women now going to the gym five times a week to lose weight now. This bring me to the next reading about the fitness industry. Alisa Valdez in her story "Ruminations of a Feminist Fitness Instructor" spoke about how she could be a fitness instructor and still be a feminist. In the end she realized she could not participate in this industry because what it promotes is the insecurity of women with their bodies and even though she didn't believe that was right she couldn't separate it from the classes she did at the gyms. It is impossible to use this fitness industry that perpetuates that women bodies need to be improved to empower them. It is counteractive and problematic. She realized that she must use another route. The last article "Sex,Lies, and Advertising" by Gloria Steinem showed how the advertising companies worked against women magazines and if you wanted to have quality content within these magazines you had to sellout to companies that actually were harmful to women. This look into how women magazines work gave some insight into why Cosmo and Seventeen are how they are now and why there are few feminist publications now. The sad part is the magazine industry made for us essentially by us is causing more and more women to have lower self-esteem and distorted self images.