Body outlaws : young women write about body image and identity

by Ophira Edut

Paper Book, 2000

Status

Available

Call number

7.31.22 E3.9 b

Genres

Collection

Your library

Publication

Seattle : [Emeryville, CA] : Seal Press ; Distributed to the trade by Publishers Group West, c2000.

Description

Pick up a magazine, turn on the TV, and you'll find few women who haven't been fried, dyed, plucked, or tucked. In short, you'll see no body outlaws. The writers in this ground-breaking anthology reveal a world where bodies come in all their many-splendored shapes, sizes, colours, and textures. In doing so, they expand the national dialogue on body image to include race, ethnicity, sexuality, and power,issues that, while often overlooked, are intimately linked to how women feel about their bodies. Body Outlaws offers stories by those who have chosen to ignore, subvert, or redefine the dominant beauty standard in order to feel at home in their bodies.

User reviews

LibraryThing member beau.p.laurence

this is the revised edition of Adios, Barbie, the only difference being the title and cover (Mattel sued the publisher for using the Barbie name & image)

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LibraryThing member weener

A fairly interesting collection of essays, mostly by women but a few by men, about body image and other issues. Besides standards like weight and eating disorders, the esays cover unusual topics such as:
-being a pretty young middle-eastern woman and having men get obsessed with you
-being a

plus-size model
-being a female athlete before that was acceptable
-ruminiations on being a fat amputee performance artist
-being a feminist stripper
-dealing with not blossoming into a beautiful woman upon puberty like you had always expected.

I was disappointed that this book didn't have any essays about women with non-mainstream hairstyles, which would have been of particular interest to me, and more essays by men would have been nice. However, it is an interesting read as it is.

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LibraryThing member the_hag

I actually enjoyed this one quite a bit…most of the books about “body issues” or female sexuality (or some combination of the two) have, thus far, been by single authors. This one was a compilation of essays by a myriad of women (different ages, sizes, ethnicities) and was a really refreshing

change from “hearing” about a given type of woman’s “issue” or feelings on size/sexuality/cultural background/family expectations…it was good to hear it “from the horses mouth.” I most enjoyed The Chosen People by Tali Edut and Marked for Life: Tattoos and the Redefinition of Self (Talvi)…there were none that I strongly disliked and I found Veiled Intentions: Don’t Judge a Muslim Girl by her Covering (Hydar) to be quite interesting and enjoyable when I hadn’t expected to like it at all. Padding It: Why I Don’t need a Plus-Sized Maxi Pad made me laugh so hard I nearly peed my pants…overall, a great read for the genre! I’d recommend it just for the varied perspectives on body image and fat issues overall. A nice change of pace from my recent reading. I give it a solid B!

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