Dear mom,

It is my duty to demystify and explain in layman's terms Susan Bordo's ideas surrounding femininity and bodies, which she has so kindly shrouded in the elusive jargon of academia. Bordo reads the female figure as a sign, one that reflects greater meaning and significance within the context of the cultural attitudes and normalcy of the particular era. Women, or rather, their bodies, serve as canvases on which social and cultural expectation can manifest; they are docile bodies, objects completely subjugated to the whim and governance of a disciplinary institution (in this case the power structure of society). To provide an example of this mechanism at work, Bordo writes about three particularly prevalent disorders throughout history that have afflicted women and how they in turn exemplify the ideal of a docile body, as well as in some cases subconscious acts of protest and politic: Hysteria, Agoraphobia, and most recently Anorexia Nervosa. Each is in its own convoluted way is a sign, a disease that signifies underlying social underpinnings that beg to be read from the woodwork.
Hysteria, prevalent throughout the 19th century, fulfilled the cultural identity of femininity established at the time, one of frailty, delicacy, and "emotional capriciousness".
Agoraphobia, prevalent throughout the 60's and 70's, did the same in an era where the feminine identity shifted back from the professional world to domesticity.
Anorexia Nervosa, the most recent condition that Bordo chronicles, reflects a culture obsessed with a slender, self depriving, pseudo-nurturing image (among other arguments which border on trans-gender assumption).
Susan Bordo argues her reader into a position of sympathy for women (and their bodies), they are objects subjected to the bondage of culture
and the physical imposition of its reach.