So, who is Susie Orbch? You know, the woman who done the Dove advert, the one with real women….Oh yeah! ‘That Dove advert’ was one of the first to use real women. This advert was of paramount importance for women as at last real women of all shapes and sizes were used to “celebrate the natural physical variation embodied by all women and inspire them to have the confidence to be comfortable with themselves.” Even today, the term Dove Beauties is used to describe an attractive woman who represents the majority of women.
But still, who is Susie? Orbach was born in London, daughter of British MP Maurice Orbach. In 1976 with Luise Eichenbaum, she created The Women’s Therapy Centre, in 1976 and in 1981 The Women’s Therapy Centre Institute, a training institute in New York. She has written several books, including ‘FAT is a feminist issue’ and her latest book is called Bodies, published in paperback by Profile Books.
In her first book ‘FAT is a feminist issue’, Susie Orbach found that women do not become fat because of excess but because they find it safer as they get older. They feel that if they were skinny they would receive the wrong attention from both men and women.
However, for women who want to be thin, why? Orbach believes “We have a constructed aesthetic which we’re all inside of now,” she says. “It’s a visual aesthetic. Thinness is the desired object now.”
At the present time, Orbach, who is a visiting professor in sociology at the London School of Economics, is working on a paper for an academic journal about how parents transmit their body shapes to their kids. Hmm, I for one would be interested in what she finds out.
Given that Susis Orbach is known for writing about women and the size of their bodies, you would be forgiven for thinking this book was the same; it is not! In the first chapter, Susie talk about a man who dreams of having both his legs amputated because he thinks it will make him look and feel better. In the new book she tells us what has happened to our bodies in the three decades since she wrote about fat being a feminist issue. “The problems I sought to describe have mushroomed,” she writes. The contemporary body is a battleground. In fact, people have never felt worse about their bodies than they do now. Makers of face cream are telling us we are too wrinkly; owners of gyms are telling us we’re too flabby; plastic surgeons are telling us our faces are all wrong. We are constantly being told that we look unattractive – and the terrible thing is that we believe it.” In essence, if we are anxious about our body, we are easy targets and will believe anything.
India Knight, Sunday Times calls the book`A rousing polemic on the western obsession with physical perfection’.
To have a sneak preview or order the book: Bodies
Recent Comments