The Feeding Desire Book by Rebecca Popenoe

Table of Contents

Introduction
Summary
Personal Response
Strengths and Weaknesses
Conclusion
Works Cited

Introduction

Beauty standards, particularly, in relation to women, have been incredibly fluid, changing from era to era and from culture to culture. Though often clashing in their perceptions of an image of an ideal woman, the specified interpretations of the female beauty lead to the detriment of female health, as the 2003 book by Rebecca Popenoe, Feeding Desire, demonstrates. By disclosing the underlying combination of sexualization and objectification of female appearance in determining beauty standards, specifically, in the Moor culture, Popenoe demonstrates the absurdity of appearance standards and insists on the importance of cultivating the concept of healthy bodies and minds in women, specifically, those of the Moor descent.

Summary

The book establishes from the very start that the Moors perception of female beauty is significantly different from those of Western cultures. While the latter encourage women to become slimmer, which often leads to increased social pressure and mental health issues such as anorexia, the Moors promote the opposite: Beauty in Moors consists of enormous embonpoint (Popelou 35). In this regard, a notable overlap between Moor cultural values and the Western world can be observed. As a result, obesity affects a significant number of Moor women. Thus, the current standards of beauty within the specified cultural context need to be challenged toward a healthier outlook on womens bodies.

Personal Response

The issue of the male gaze, as well as male objectification and dehumanization of women resonates with me on multiple levels. Therefore, I strongly believe that the problem with the Moors representation of women s depicted by Popenoe shares a range of characteristics with the Western perception of female appearance. Namely, the fixation on the overly sexualized portrayal of the specified population as the means of catering to the male gaze represents the core of the problem: They had learned to employ a plant for fattening animals (Popelou 36). In turn, by introducing balanced approach to the concept of womens appearance and focusing on how it represents their health status rather than how it complies with mens sexual demands, one will be able to resolve the issue.

Strengths and Weaknesses

The attempt at revisiting and challenging both Western and Moor ideas of womens appearance clearly is the core strength and the main distinguishing feature of Popelous book. The author focuses on the experiences of specific women representing the Moro community. Popelou makes a reasonable and valid statement regarding the absurdity of the Western beauty standards, which also originate from mens fetishization of womens bodies and the current obsession with excessive thinness (Popelou 21). Therefore, the balanced perspective and the effort to communicate the adverse influence that the described trends have on women in both culture, as well as worldwide, should be regarded as the main advantages of the book.

At the same time, some of the more obvious weaknesses observed in Popelous narration are not to be discounted, either. For instance, one should not ignore the fact that the scope of the book is quite narrow, embracing only two cultures, namely, those of the moors ad the Western world. Furthermore, the fact that the narrator examines Western culture as a monolith as opposed to an amalgamation of multiple cultural influences also represents a certain problem. Although the multiple influences that contribute to the current perception do eventually lead to the same hypersexualization of women bodies and the resulting failure to construct a healthy image of a female body, the multitude of cultures interwoven into the Western one should have been acknowledged.

Conclusion

With its perspective incorporating the notions of sexualization and objectification of Moor women, as well as women in general, Popenoes book introduces its female readers, as well as the world at large, to the concept of a health-based perspective on womens appearance. The described approach resonates with its readers, especially female ones, who have been facing the constraints of beauty standards and gender expectations imposed onto them due to their sexed bodies. Therefore, Popenoes book has encouraged a range of peculiar ideas regarding the much needed change in the perception of beauty standards and womens appearance, in general.