The first article I have chosen is Normalisation and Resistance in the Era of the Image by Susan Bordo. The reason why I chose this article is because one, among the other articles I have read, this was the easiest one. I was drawn to this article because I found myself relating to a lot of the issues the author raised. I was also interested in this article because the author raised a very important issue that almost and probably all women are going through today. I chose this article because I find that it is different from the other articles I have read. I like the article because it is not just fighting the patriarchal world we live in, and stating everything the author wants to change about the world, just like the other articles I have read; rather, this article is stating women’s insecurity and not finding a solution, but rather leaving it up to the readers. On a more honest note, I chose this article because it addresses an issue I personally have. I have considered plastic surgery to fix my big thighs, my hair, and my stomach and so on. The list can go on and not stop. It all depends on how I feel on that day, what I do not like that day and the most disturbing but honest truth, the list get longer after I have seen skinny looking girls around campus. This leads me straight into the article because one of the author main concerns is not the fact that women are choosing to change their image, but it is the fact that, are they being pressured.
In this article, one of the arguments the author talked about is the social norms of the western society when it comes to women’s images. She raised the issues that companies are making millions off women in terms of changing the way they look. It might be because these women choose to change their looks for personal reasons, or because they are in a society with strong norms that are hard to resist. She asked the question “does the USA have a multi-million-dollar business in corrective cosmetic surgery because women are asserting their racial and ethnic identities in resistance to prevailing norms, or because they are so vulnerable to the normalising power of these norms” (Page 451). Meaning, the society expects a certain image from women and most women do not have a choice but to fit into this image.
To explain her arguments further, the author use plastic surgery as an example. She stated that today in our society, it is more common for women who have passed the age of twenty-five, to have plastic surgery done. She talked about how the physical image is very important to us today, and it does not matter what a person used to look like, it is always about what they look like right now, today. She mentioned that “it is the present image that has the hold on our most vibrant sense of what is, what matters. In so far as the history of Cher’s body has meaning at all, it has meaning not as the ‘original’ over which a false copy has been laid, but as a defect which has been corrected” (Page 452). That is, as a society, we are not looking at the real issue here. We are not considering every plastic surgery individuals do, as an error to one’s body, but rather we see it as a fix. The main reason why we choose not to condemn the plastic surgeries is because, after it has been done, we consider the individual as fitting into the norm; looking exactly just the way he or she is supposed to look like. Bordo also listed the types of surgeries most women choose to do and the ridiculous amount plastic surgery industries are making from it. She stated that the most asked for surgery is ‘liposuction’, and breast enlargement, and most shockingly, since the introduction of breast implant, more than two million women have gotten them done.
Bordo also questions the reasons women choose to go under the knife. That is, is it their personal choice to do so, or are they largely influenced by the products and commercials put out there telling women what they should look like. She said advocates of surgery argue that surgery is “about self-determination and choice, about taking one’s life into one’s hands” Then she said “do we really choose the appearances that we reconstruct for ourselves? (Page 452) Okay, fine, the people who do the surgery say it is their choice to get it done, but the moment they walk into a clinic, and request for an image, is the image their choice or is it an already-made image by the society? She also argues that these already made images are racially, ethnically, and heterosexually controlled. She said “consumer capitalism depends on the continual production of novelty, or fresh images to stimulate desire, and it frequently drops into marginalized neighbourhoods in order to find them” (Page 452-453). That is, it is such a pity that industries are very smart to have brainwashed women into thinking plastic surgery is their choice. The only thing the industries do is to deliver a new image and they know most of the time the audiences to target it to.
Next, she questions the image our society has called the norm. She stated that it is the “White” look most people tend to go for. “The system is reflected in the sorts of surgery people request; does anyone in this culture have her nose re-shaped to look more ‘African’ or ‘Jewish’”? (Page 453) As a result, the image people are choosing to change to, is neither African nor Jewish, but the superior race, the White race. She asks if we can find anyone who will like to have a surgery for bigger noses, bigger hips, bigger thighs, and so on. A great example she used to show how people avoid their own cultural ethnic look and choose to go for the ‘Caucasian’ look is Cher. “Cher’s public relations image emphasizes her individuality, honesty and defiance against norms. In the minds of many people, she (like Madonna) stands for female power, for rebellion against convention” (Page 453). Meaning, because Cher has chosen to go under the knife and change almost all her body parts, she is seen as an idol that many women now look up to. Not only do women look up to Cher now, Cher has joined the image of the perfect looking women. The woman other women including girls are supposed to look like. The image every woman is compared to, not matter how hard they try to resist and show their own individuality.
Furthermore, Bordo talks about normalization and how “it is continually mystified and effaced in our culture by the rhetoric of ‘choice’ and ‘self-determination’ which plays such a key role in commercial representations of diet, exercise, hair and eye-colouring and so forth. You get better or worse everyday” (Page 453). That is, people are constantly faced with what to look like, and what appearances are expected of them. She used a Nike commercial as an example, to demonstrate the pressure women are going through when it comes to their physical appearance. She wrote “the body you have is the body you inherited, but you must decide what to do with it, instructs Nike, offering glamorous shots of lean, muscled athletes to help us ‘decide’” (Page 453). Bordo used another commercial that not only make women see themselves as defective, but it also makes them feel insecure. “If you look at yourself and see what is right instead of what is wrong, that is the true mark of a healthy individual” (Page 454). Not only is this commercial stating that viewers have to look like the lady being shown in the advertisement, but also that for women to love themselves, they have to be healthy. Lastly, Bordo states that “to resist this normalising directive is truly to ‘go against the grain’ of our culture, not merely in texture ‘play’, but at great personal risk – as the many women who have been sexually rejected for being ‘too fat’ and fired from their jobs for looking ‘too old’ know all too well” (Page 454). That is to say, women can resist the norm and not look skinny; they can have a middle breast, long square nose, pretty much, not look like Cher, but they would have to face the consequences.
In all, Bordo makes valid points in this article, but fail to discuss the ways women can resist the norm. She failed to give her own suggestions on some of the steps women who choose to resists can take. She failed to realize that there are some women out them who have successfully gone against the norm and are pretty happy. As well, she did not mention that we have other commercials representing fat women, non-white races, and non-Cher individuals. Bordo also failed to mention the results women would do go through changes such as, plastic surgeries, face. For instance, we have television shows on women regretting their decision to go under the knife. Another show is the “Ugly Betty” which disrupts the male gaze. Bordo did not mention that although the Cher look might be a Western look, it is not the norm for every society. For instance, some men might have the female gaze, and dislike the Cher look. Rather, they would love their women chubby, round nose, no breast, or big breast and so on.

The next article I chose is Fetal Fascinations: New Dimensions to the Medical-Scientific Construction of Fetal Personhood by Sarah Franklin. I chose this article because it is another article that talks about more problems women are facing. My first article was about women’s physical looks, and like that is not chanlledging enough for women; they now have to worry about their unborn child or children. I was drawn to these article because although it is not a social fact I have to worry about everyday, or anytime soon, unlike my first article; it is still pertaining to women and it would probably affect me in the near future when I plan on having children. Another reason why I was drawn to this article is because, they is a whole issue (mostly around celebrities) regarding how much weight one gains when pregnant, and how fast they loose it after their babies are born. The fact that this article talked about reasons for not getting abortion also caught my attention. I was really fascinated at first that reasons are still been made for why women should not commit abortions.
The first thing Franklin did in this article was the mentioning of fetal personhood and how “the issue of fetal personhood or fetal rights has become increasingly significant within contemporary public debates over reproduction, and correspondingly within feminist analyses of these” (Page 487). That is, people are coming up with reasons and more reasons explaining that things (called fetal) are already humans. She also listed Rosalind Petchesky and Janet Gallagher who were among the first feminists to argue about the implications the rights of fetal would have on women. Franklin stated that the fetus has being constructed through science and visual imagery.
Next, Franklin defined Ontology which is “the philosophical study of being or existence. It is a necessary concept to describe that aspect of the cultural construction of personhood which concerns the essence and origins of a human being” (Page 487). She explained that biology has become a very important aspect of our society. The things the biological facts are linked with are powerfully symbolic. We do take biology very seriously in our society, which is why “it is not at all surprising that they should become such powerful sources of meaning in contemporary debates around abortion” (Page 488).
The idea of pregnancy as taken a completely turn over, that now we consider fetal in charge of the female body, rather than the other way. Franklin stated that “the fetus is thought of nowadays not as an inert passenger in pregnancy but, rather, as in command of it” (Page 488) That is to say, not only has the fetus taken charge, it has turn women into ovens. Women’s job now is only to contain the fetus (which is now seen as an individual) and let the fetus carry out its duty. Franklin listed the four tasks of the fetus in a woman: “ensures the endocrine success of pregnancy, induces changes in maternal physiology which make her a suitable host, is responsible for solving the immunological problems raised by its intimate contact with its mother, and it determines the duration of the pregnancy” (Page 488). Meaning, the fetus is now responsible for its own health and growth, and has more power than the woman. These main duties of the fetus are the main arguments of the people against abortion. Therefore, the fetus is viewed as a person with his own agent – the technology. This also explains that “not only is the fetus now the active partner, taking ‘command’ of pregnancy, but in fact it is the dominant partner, with a determining role in pregnancy” (Page 488). Thus, the fetus has taken power into its own hands to determine what is good for it, and stated the responsibility of its mother.
Many of the reasons why the fetus gained as much power as it has all started with a Swedish photojournalist Lennart Nilsson. As a result “Nilsson’s close-up colour photograph of fetuses, many of which were recovered from late abortions, first became the subject of international acclaim in early human development, and now, since then, it has featured centrally in the imagery of anti-campaigns” (Page 488). Nilsson’s photographs also identified some points to the fetus. It is mainly talking about the incredible miracle a fetus can produce in other to survive in a woman’s body. It stated that “the fetus is physically very sensitive, as continually under threat of something going wrong with its development, and an agent responsible for its own miraculous transformation from a kidney bean-sized encephalic into a baby at twenty-eight weeks” (Page 489). These are the main arguments of the fetus brought up by the anti-abortion feminists. On the other hand, the other feminists are saying we should hold on a second, and look at the construct of the natural facts of pregnancy. Franklin is saying the only two reasons these fetus debates keeps coming up is the fact that “One, is that there is extensive reliance upon high technology to construct this definition of fetal being, and the second is the processes of separation involved in the construction: of the fetus from the mother, and of the social from the biological” (Page 489). It is important to note that fetus is seen as natural facts and anti-abortions feminist are using biology to back it up; but they need to realize that it is socially constructed. It is technically determined, and the people in charge of technology are men.
The fetus has now become a citizen, an individual that owns almost as much power as men, although it is in a female’s body. It is now a ‘patriarchal individualism’ as defined by Franklin. She defines patriarchal individualism as something that “holds together the construction of fetal personhood in a number of respects, including how it is constructed through power/knowledge or discourse, how it is described through language and metaphor , and how it is positioned as a masculine subject” (Page 490). So it does not matter that it is women that have the fetus in them, or that they are the real reason why the fetus even exist in the first place, men, are the ones in charge of it. They are the ones creating the laws around the fetus. Regardless of whether women are willingly to go through the changes the fetus brings to their body and lives. The fetus has now become a fight between men and women and an individual who wants its own rights. The fetus as become a patriarchal individual because it now has rights protected by the states; there are scientific experts defending the experts; and last but not least, the fetus is masculinalize. The fetus has being managed to be separated from the mothers. The experts are saying it is the fetus that produces the hormones, and therefore should be in charge of the mother’s body. Franklin explains that the reasons why the fetus has become a patriarchal citizen is because “it excludes women on the basis of both their reproduction capacity and their sexuality, it contradicts the citizenship of women, it contradicts their individuality, and it poses a threat to women’s reproductive control” (Page 490-491). That is to say, women are not even in charge of what goes on in their body. Men do not only own the world, but they also own and control everything in it, including women and their bodies. Lastly, Franklin mentions that the fetus as an individual is a male because “it as bounded object of patriarchal science, through which the body of the woman in whom the fetus exists is rendered invisible, bears a strong, and not unremarked upon, resemblance to the bounded masculine self formed through a similar psychic process of disavowal of maternal dependence” (Page 490).
In all, the two criticisms in Franklin’s articles are that one, how does one make pregnancy social? When having control over our body is an individual’s right and why should it change when we get pregnant? The second criticism is that her article does not deal with diversity differences. That is, not everyone reads the ultra sound the same way. That means, until the baby comes out, it is not considered a person. Franklin did not bring up feminist that are in support of abortions. Although she contradicted some of the points anti-abortion feminists raised, she did not state her own views and opinions. She also did not mention places where men have not taken over women’s body and are allowing abortions. For instance, Canada has no laws against abortion.
To conclude, the two articles Normalisation and Resistance in the Era of the Image and Fetal Fascinations: New Dimensions to the Medical-Scientific Construction of Fetal Personhood I have chosen, show that everything about a woman is socially constructed, and it starts even before one is born. After that, we have my second article, which shows how men tries to control the fetus, an unborn baby, in a female’s body; and subsequently my first article shows how women are pressured to look like the perfect plastic women guys have created through magazines and advertisements. It is sad to see the effect society has on women. The patriarchal society dictates how women look, and then it dictates how their unborn babies should be taken care of and treated. Women do not even have the choice to look fat, have flat noses, have big hips, have huge bellies, or even get ride of a fetus in them when they are not ready to have a baby.