How to view and not to view one’s body
The two texts “Fun Home” and “Mama” both make points about body image and do center a lot of their energy thinking of their form compared to a “true women’s form”. It should be made clear that neither one has body dysmorphia, but they could have easily taken that path, like anyone else who feels self-conscious about their appearance. Body dysmorphia is defined as a disorder which is linked to chronic mental illness. People who suffer from this are constantly obsessed by their appearance; often they are delusional on how they see themselves. One might feel disgusted and or ashamed of the way their body looks and constantly comparing their body with others. If the condition is at its worst, an individual may practice self mutilation and or try to alter the way their body appears or looks. (Mayo Staff Clinic, 2013)
The main theme for “Fun Home” was the comparison between Alison and her father. Both had seemingly doubting perspectives of how one should act and look. Her father acquired antique furniture and décor for their house to hide away shame of being gay. He had covered himself and his family in a façade as to look normal, yet it had a very opposite effect. Alison talks of how it might have been different if he had just been himself; she remarks of how they were inverts of each other. She wishing to be more masculine and him embracing a more feminine embrace, leaving both, tired and weary of whom they strived to be compared to their true nature; “Not only were we inverts, we were inversions of one another. While I was trying to compensate for something unmanly in him…he was attempting to express something feminine through me.” (Bechdel, 2006)
Not only did she gravitate towards men’s clothing and a masculine air, for a slight moment I believe she was ashamed or embarrassed of being a girl. There is a very brief incident which she shares with the readers, but I think this had a big impact of her psyche. Her father, Alison and her two brothers had gone camping up at the Bullpen which her family had owned. While her uncle gave her father the keys he also handed him a poster. She is told not to look at it, but does anyway. It is a picture of a naked woman. This sent her into a state of what she described as embarrassment, “I felt as if I’d been stripped naked myself, inexplicably ashamed, like Adam and Eve.” (Bechdel, 2006) Later within the trip she saw the same naked woman hanging up on their tour through the mine. Shocked yet again, Alison tried to persuade her brother into addressing her as Albert. I am not quite sure why she was insistent on being called Albert after seeing the naked woman, but I can speculate that the picture symbolized less of a person, exploited, and the female sex not taken seriously. These were qualities Alison did not wish for herself; as such she tried to get away from her own sex as much as possible, to the point of hoping to come across as a boy. There is also a scene or two where she is growing breasts, she expresses how much it hurts and wishing she did not have to deal with them; her period, another annoyance in which she hoped would just go away. Both cases she was hesitant to tell her mother and father for she thought they had better things to do as well as being embarrassed on the transformation she did not want. Everything centering the house was an illusion, one of which to keep a cap on mental illness and other unpleasantries such as a loveless marriage etc. Most of the mental illnesses were exhibited by her father, having manic depression as well as O.C.D. she, herself, having compulsion disorder and both having body image problems. College though, seemed promising and it was. She was able to feel, act and dress they way she felt fit. Having no restraints or boundaries, Alison was able to find her true self. To have gone any longer, there might have been a problem of body dysmorphia, showing the same types of symptoms as her father.
“Mama” directs the conversation to the other end of the spectrum. One in which a person longingly thinks of how insufficient their body looks compared to the ideal body of their own sex. This is stemmed from societies expectations of how and what a woman or a man should look and act. This is most common amongst girls, who are ambushed by media’s resistless comparison of magazines, photos, make-up ads, and shows of women who look nothing in resemblance to the young consumer. Sandra Steingraber discusses this in full detail by sharing her own experience of inadequacy.
Her passage sends the reader into the journey of motherhood. As such, she writes her thoughts and experiences with breast feeding and how she is in an endless cycle of self-loathing, for she has small breasts. Understanding that the cup size does not weigh how much a woman can produce, she is still hopelessly holding on to the idea that if her breasts were larger, she would be able to feed her child. The first sentence into the reading she mentions a pair of bosoms on an Alpine goat and how wonderful and full they looked. She then compares the lush of the goat’s nipples to those of her own. She is very in fact about the matter when she states that she has very small breasts, to the point that they are buds not breasts. “My chest most closely resembles that of a sixth-grader whose nipples have just begun to show through.” (Steingraber) Her adolescent years are spent yearning for larger breasts but she soon discovers in her twenties that she is a commodity. It isn’t till later in life when she gives birth that she once again feels inadequate within her sex. She feels forsaken that she is not able to care for her daughter, so distraught she spirals in depression obsessing over her body, and in a sense damning it for not being sufficient. Although she is not wishing to have bigger boobs for the looks but rather to provide milk for her child, it still strikes a chord that there were underlining body image problems more specifically body dysmorphia. By the end of that long week and a half she finally is able to produce abundance in milk, therefore leaving thoughts of self-loathing behind.
Both of these authors present an in depth dialog of how they view their bodies, how they wish to be viewed, and how there are expectations from themselves as well as the pressure of society’s mold of what a woman should be. They find though, that they are powerful and beautiful the way they are, and are able to break free of societies mold as well as change the way women should view themselves.
Works Cited
Bechdel, A. (2006). In A. Bechdel, Fun Home (pp. 98–200).
Mayo Staff Clinic. (2013, May 9). Diseases and Conditions, Body Dysmorphic disorder. Retrieved from Mayo Clinic: http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/body-dysmorphic-disorder/basics/definition/con-20029953
Steingraber, S. (n.d.). Having Faith, Mama. In S. Steingrabber, Mama.
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