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Anorexia Nervosa Summary

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Bordo’s main points in “Anorexia Nervosa” center around the three axes of continuity. The three axes are “the dualist axis, the control axis and the gender/power axis”(4). These axes are ways in which Bordo examines the cultural understandings of anorexia. The first axis, the dualist axis, focuses on the history western cultures have had with believing in two realms of human existence. These two realms are the bodily and physical on one side and the mental and spiritual on the other side. This connects to anorexia because a person with anorexia sees their body as alien, as a limitation, and as their enemy. Bordo connects this back to Plato, Descartes, and Augustine, who all also saw their bodies in this light. These famous philosophers were …show more content…
Controlling the body has been a common trend in Western society due to the tremendous influence of Christianity. Bordo discusses how young people with anorexia are perfectionists who view their lives as out of control. The parents of this person with anorexia also expect a lot out of their child both in individual achievements and in their physical appearance. Bordo emphasizes that people with anorexia want to be the masters of their body. Therefore seeing their weight drop proves to themselves that they have control. Although a person with anorexia experiences a lot of physical pain from not eating enough food the pain does not trouble them since they see it as proof that they are masters of their bodies. Bordo draws the connection between bodybuilders and people with anorexia stating that they have similar mindsets about their …show more content…
The power dynamic comes from the fact that men are not nearly as obsessed with their bodies as women are. Women are not innately more obsessed with their bodies, but rather women have faced, and still do face, more societal pressures about their body. One outcome of the extra societal pressures women face is that 90% of people with anorexia are women. Bordo goes on to discuss how many people with anorexia feel as though they have a dictator inside of them. This dictator is always male and is associated with “greater spirituality, higher intelligence, [and] strength of will”(13). Bordo explains that this gender association comes from the person’s disdain for traditional female roles and their fear of female sexual insatiability. Young women with anorexia fear “growing up to be mature, sexually developed, and potentially reproductive women”(13). Bordo argues that women with anorexia have anorexia as a way of unconscious feminist protest against traditional female roles. However, this protest is counterproductive since the time spent on trying to be thin could be spent on developing intellectual and social achievements. Bordo then continues on to discuss the history of men forcing women to keep submissive roles. Men such as Freud prescribed women to stay at home and not bother their pretty heads when they had depression or hysteria. This is power

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