Body Image in African American Women Essay -- Health Weight Essays

Body Image in African American Women Body image is an important facet in understanding the phenomenon of eating disorders. Body image concerns are important in the etiology and treatment of eating disorders and obesity (Smith, Thompson, Raczynski, and Hilner, 1997; Thompson, 1997). The construct of body image reflects the level of satisfaction one feels regarding his or her body. Body image is a multidimensional construct. It involves race, socioeconomic status, age, as well as, perceptual and attitudinal components. For this reason, research has been done to dispel the myth that all women have a negative body image. Rather, as has been shown, there are definite differences in the perception of body image and self-concept, especially across racial lines. The claims of most studies suggest that African-American women generally have a greater tolerance or acceptability for higher body weight. In addition, African-American women are also thought to place less importance on body size in the scheme of their overall body imag e, and there are more likely to be satisfied if they are at a higher body weight, and still regard themselves as attractive. Research not only confirms these statements, but also draws attention to other important, culturally- relevant factors, such as age in relation to other cultural forces such as, different attitudes and behaviors that shape the body images of African-American women. Finally, since research shows that body image is an important aspect in the etiology of eating disorders and obesity, its influence and the cultural forces and components behind it should be taken into account in treatment and for future research. According to Altabe’s (1996) study, there are differences in body image th... ...en’s desire to be thin. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 17, 191-5. 7. Smith, DE, Thompson, JK, Raczynski, JM, Hilner, JE. (1999). Body image among men and women in a biracial cohort: the CARDIA study. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 25, 71-82. 8. Stevens, J., Kumanyika, SK, & Keil, JE. Attitudes toward body size and dieting: Differences between elderly black and white women. American Journal of Public Health, 84, 1322-5. 9. Striegel-Moore, RH., Schreiber, GB., Pike, KM., Wilfley, DE.,& Rodin J. (1995). Drive for thinness in black and white preadolescent girls. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 18, 59-69. 10. Williamson, L. (1998). Eating disorders and the cultural forces behind the drive for thinness: Are African-American women really protected. Social Work in Health Care, 28, 61-73. Body Image in African American Women Essay -- Health Weight Essays Body Image in African American Women Body image is an important facet in understanding the phenomenon of eating disorders. Body image concerns are important in the etiology and treatment of eating disorders and obesity (Smith, Thompson, Raczynski, and Hilner, 1997; Thompson, 1997). The construct of body image reflects the level of satisfaction one feels regarding his or her body. Body image is a multidimensional construct. It involves race, socioeconomic status, age, as well as, perceptual and attitudinal components. For this reason, research has been done to dispel the myth that all women have a negative body image. Rather, as has been shown, there are definite differences in the perception of body image and self-concept, especially across racial lines. The claims of most studies suggest that African-American women generally have a greater tolerance or acceptability for higher body weight. In addition, African-American women are also thought to place less importance on body size in the scheme of their overall body imag e, and there are more likely to be satisfied if they are at a higher body weight, and still regard themselves as attractive. Research not only confirms these statements, but also draws attention to other important, culturally- relevant factors, such as age in relation to other cultural forces such as, different attitudes and behaviors that shape the body images of African-American women. Finally, since research shows that body image is an important aspect in the etiology of eating disorders and obesity, its influence and the cultural forces and components behind it should be taken into account in treatment and for future research. According to Altabe’s (1996) study, there are differences in body image th... ...en’s desire to be thin. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 17, 191-5. 7. Smith, DE, Thompson, JK, Raczynski, JM, Hilner, JE. (1999). Body image among men and women in a biracial cohort: the CARDIA study. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 25, 71-82. 8. Stevens, J., Kumanyika, SK, & Keil, JE. Attitudes toward body size and dieting: Differences between elderly black and white women. American Journal of Public Health, 84, 1322-5. 9. Striegel-Moore, RH., Schreiber, GB., Pike, KM., Wilfley, DE.,& Rodin J. (1995). Drive for thinness in black and white preadolescent girls. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 18, 59-69. 10. Williamson, L. (1998). Eating disorders and the cultural forces behind the drive for thinness: Are African-American women really protected. Social Work in Health Care, 28, 61-73.

Character Analysis of Aminata: Book of Negroes Essay

The Book of Negroes by Lawerence Hill started as a story of the capture of a West African girl and her journey to become a slave. Her traumatizing experience was written with a desperate tone that was achieved through the use of literary devices such as metaphors and alliteration. Emphasis was put on the conflict between Aminata and society which helped to develop her as a hopeful character. â€Å"We walked for many suns, growing slowly in members, lumbering forward until we were an entire town. Each time, people swarmed out to stare at us. Initially, I believed that the villagers were coming to save us. Surely they would oppose this outrage. But they only watched and sometimes brought out captors roasted meat in exchange for cowrie shells and chunks of salt. Some night when they had us lie down in fields, our captors paid village women to cook for us-yams, millet cakes, corn cakes, sometimes with a bubbling peppered sauce. We ate in small groups, crouching around a big calabash, spooning out the hot food with the curved fingers of our right hand. While we ate, our captors negotiated with local chiefs. Ever chief demanded payment for passage through his land. Every night, our captors bartered and bickered well into the evening. I tried to understand, in the hope of leaning something about where we were going and why† (p. 34, Hill). In this quotation, Aminata’s journey is described with a bleak and demoralizing tone. The journey of Aminata and her hostages lasted â€Å"for many suns† and wore down their hope for freedom and their faith in humanity. The hostages continued â€Å"lumbering forward† as â€Å"an entire town of kidnapped peoples,† with no hope of being saved. When â€Å"people swarmed out to stare at us †¦Ã‚  we initially believed that the villagers were coming to save us. † Eventually the captives realize that the people are only interested in making exchanges with their captors. This leaves the hostages with the forlorn realization that no one would make an attempt to liberate them. The captives were demoralized further when they â€Å"crouched around a big calabash, spooning out hot food with the curved fingers of our right hands. † As captives, the native West Africans were treated as less than human. Like animals, they were forced to gather around a bucket of food and eat without tools. The lack of respect and dignity given to the captives corrupted their sense of self-worth until there was little left but the instinct to survive. Literary devices are a key element in setting the tone of this novel. As the captives were continuing they were â€Å"slowly growing in number†¦ until we were an entire town of kidnapped people. † This metaphor emphasizes the number of prisoners the captors have taken hostage and that the group goes far beyond Aminata. It also emphasizes the amount of power the captors have other the captives. Even though the captives outnumber the captors, the captors are still capable of preventing any rebellion and power within the hostages. Another literary device that highlights the hopeless situation of the captives is parallel structure. On their journey they â€Å"passed village after village, and town after town. † The us of parallel structure creates a sense that the journey of the slaves is perpetual and induces the feeling that the slaves are stuck on a ceaseless journey. This also contributes to the hopeless mood of the novel; with no end in sight the slaves find little to look forward to. Although the captives lose hope in their future, Aminata manages to keep a part of herself hopeful and this is essential to her characterization. Aminata knows that there is a very small chance of escaping, but she also knows that if she has more knowledge of the captor’s plans, she has a better chance at freedom: â€Å"Every night I heard the captors barter and bicker well into the evening. I tried to understand, in the hope of learning something about where they were going, and why. † This also demonstrates her thirst for knowledge. Growing up Aminata strived to learn reading and writing and any other skills she could. She does not let go of this part of herself even in her futile situation. As well as being hopeful and clever, Aminata proves to be innocent and naive. While travelling through villages she believes â€Å"the villagers were coming to save us. Surely they would oppose this outrage. † But Aminata eventually realises that the villagers are not interested in freeing the captives. The only concern the villagers have is to make deals with the captors. Her ideals, that the people of her country would band together to bring a stop to their exploitation, are crushed and strips her of her innocence on her journey to slavery. Aminata finds herself in many conflicts with many different elements. One example is the conflict between her and society. Society viewed Aminata and her fellow prisoners as less than human and with little value. The slaves were treated like animals, â€Å"people swarmed out to stare at us†. They are seen as another species and not as people with intelligence and skills. But contrary to the beliefs of the society, Aminata is an intelligent and skillful girl whose thirst for knowledge is never put to rest. She continues to try â€Å"to understand the chiefs, in the hope of learning something. † She also knows how to read and write which is considered extremely valuable in her culture. But because society views slaves as non humans who are not capable of being intellectual, Aminata’s capabilities are not seen by others and she is continual seen as an inferior. The Book of Negroes tells a story about the degrading experience many had to go through because they were seen as inferior. This degradation is apparent through the demoralizing and bleak tone. But Aminata manages to keep hope and a clear head and provide a beacon for herself and others around her. She continues to expand her horizon of knowledge and aspire to better herself. Although she is faced against the power or society, Aminata holds strong to herself and carries on. Her story is told with the use of literary devices such as parallel structure and metaphors to emphasize the desperation and inadequacy of her journey. She manages to look past all the horrors that surround her and hope for a better future, and perhaps with her strong will and knowledge she will achieve this someday.

Argumentative Essay on The Handmaids Tale - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 6 Words: 1651 Downloads: 1 Date added: 2018/12/26 Category Literature Essay Type Book review Level High school Tags: Role of Women Essay Did you like this example? The handmaids tale is an imaginary novel written by Margaret Atwood a Canadian author. The novel was published in the year 1985 and was set in the New England where the Christian supremacist overthrows the United States government. The novel is a two faced or a double narrative reflecting on the night and other events, where a woman called Offred tells the story in the first person speech. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Argumentative Essay on The Handmaids Tale" essay for you Create order The first narrative is about the Offreds tale that emphasizes that the female should adopt the possessive form of Fred and forbidden to use their birth names. And the handmaids tale that focuses on the lives of women and role in society. The book depicts many themes, but the most common ones are the gender, politics and religion. Gender is quite evident as women are seen to be treated discriminatively, with no rights and as immoral sex objects. Religion is depicted as a source of the government power that is theocratic. Another theme that is touched on in the novel is politics that has close ties with religion and power that is manipulated to control people. In the novel Offred describes the society she is in and how women are grouped into classes that are kept for reproduction purposes. The novel consists of three major characters Offred who is the narrator of the novel and one of the women kept purposely for reproduction (Atwood 515). Serena joy a former evangelist and the wife of a commander who is described as infertile. The commander, a powerful member of the government believed to be behind the Offred narrative and very immoral. The novel setting divides women into classes. The handmaids are the fertile women who are only tasked to bear children for the wives of the commanders. The aunts are the ones that monitor and train the handmaids, the only class of women that are allowed to read and write in society. The Marthas are rather the older women in society and infertile holding high domestic skills. Another class of women is the Econowives that are women believed to have are married to low ranked men inn society and are thought to possess all domestic functions of a woman. The book has received discontent over the years due to its adult themes and explicit cont ent, its depiction of a negative view of religion. This paper will discuss the themes of politics, religion and gender to analyze their role in presenting the tale as feminism. The novel is based on theocracy meaning the state and the church are combined to form a government. Additionally, religious languages and the Old Testament that is also the source of justification for the characters in Gilead govern the society. Women have been used in the text to display the roles likened to the biblical ones, for example, Offreds role as the handmaid is a biblical reflection of Rachael and Leah. The story showed how servants would carry on with adultery and allow the infertile women like Serena joy to have a family. Another scene of feminism displayed in religion when the commander is seen to recite some bible verses every morning to justify his immorality with other women to get children because of his wifes infertility. The theme of religion has been dominated by feminism, because even the bible verses have been twisted to fit the theocracy of the state that is seen to be so rigid. An example where it puts the aunts to pray words that are not in the bible just because they are not allowed to read, so they are not in a position to confirm. There are scenes of women linked to religion clearly displaying that the text brings out feminism. The issues of women not allowed to work or participate in any social or political activities in the pretext of protecting them from sexual exploitation as supported by religion is a lame excuse to deny women their freedom of speech and expression. There is another issue in the novel where religion and feminist meet, and this is childbirth and the claim that it did not require any anesthetics (Atwood 515). From these scenes, it is clear that the novel uses religion to portray conservative feminist practices. The novel is a feminist one where women have been involved in political, religious and in gender issues like sexuality and gender roles. In the political sector, women bodies have been used as political instruments. To b begin with the government which was formed by the name Gilead as for the purpose of responding to the low birth rates. The United States government which was overthrown had a structure which was characterized by the religious trappings and the rigidity in its political hierarchy. The government as operating on the goal of controlling the reproduction through the use of the women. The goal of the states government was to control their birth rates in the country. The birth control was enhanced by their states government through an assumption of the complete control of the women bodies by use of political subjugation. The women in the states government were treated in a way that they remained dependent and submissive to their husbands and the state. Women could not vote , could not own property and they could not get jobs or education. Lacking such enablers of the life, women would react in accordance to their husband and will of the state (Blackford 261). Therefore they were treated as the bodies to achieve political desires of the politicians. The Gilead pro-women rhetoric argued that subjugation led to the creation of the society where women were being treated as a subhuman. Despite that, women were reduced to their fertility where they were treated in no other was other than a set of the womb and ovaries. This can be evidently in one of the scenes in the novel, where off red lied on the bath and reflected that, before the formation of the Gilead government, she considered her body as an instrument of her desires where she was made of the flesh surrounding a womb where it had to be filled so as to be in a position to be useful. Gilead government was formed so as for deriving women out of the individuality so as to make women to be able to reproduce for the future generation (Blackford 261). This indicates that the women in the story were used by the politicians for the achievement of their political ideologies. The novel comprised of the feminist movements, where in chapter 28, off red remembers her mother who was a passionate feminist. The off red mother was involved in the matching for the for the abortion rights, pornography banning, and other women issuers during the regime of the Gilead government. Offred was embarrassed by her mothers feminist activity when she was young. Her mother used to lecture her for an act of being not grateful for her rights (Atwood 515). Where Offred was not aware that her right of owning property would have taken away if it were not for her mother. Offred in the novel represents the feminism where she represents all women before the formation of the Gilead government. Before the Gilead government, she was not able to consider herself as a feminist. She had a fear that feminist will alienate her from the men in the society. She not accepting the feminism after witnessing her mother quarreling with Luke where her mother argued that she was involved in cooking due to feminism. Offred recognizes that women movement leads to forcing women to diagnose their natural isolation from men. The womanly leads to the creation of the alienation. This witnessed in the case where Offred losses her job and she is unable to request Luke whether she required a new order (Blackford 261). Again, Atwood is recognized as a feminist writer. According to Atwood, she argued that that the thrilling that was perceived in the nature of the Gilead interviews was due to traditionalist and the feminist standpoint which is being practiced at the time when she wrote the novel. According to the Moira one of the novels mouthpiece, he argued that living with only men will be helping in solving problems that women were facing. In the society, most of the activities of Gilead regime was to provide for the women. Women can support each other at times of illness, delivery, and demise depicting their participation in helping each other. Women were involved in teaching each other during the Gilead government (Blackford 261). Women in the families worked together in fulfilling the femininity roles in the society. To conclude, the novel has used the themes of religion, politics and gender to display feminism. Women characters play a major role in the religious forum and acting on the same to display their feminist abilities, there is a blend of religion and immorality where women are used to act biblically to bring out the immoral sides of humanity. Other scenes include women being used to perform sexual act perceived to be carried out for cleansing. In the political sector, feminism is played where women serve a role of sex objects of the powerful leaders and are used to give birth for the leaders. From the text, gender has been used to show feminist side of the novel, women have been classified in different categories depending on their abilities to give birth, work and their age. The novel is carefully constructed to tackle the feminist issue by blending in the three major themes of politics, gender and religion. And from the general view the novel is purely based on the feminists point of view. Works Cited Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaids Tale And Oryx And Crake In Context.? PMLA? 119.3 (2004): 515. Print. Neuman, Shirley. Just A Backlash: Margaret Atwood, Feminism, Handmaids Tale.? University of Toronto Quarterly? 75.3 (2006): 863. Print. Blackford, Holly Virginia. The Psychology Of The Handmaid: Margaret AtwoodS Novel Parables Of The Possessed Canadian Character.? AmeriQuests? 3.1 (2006): 261. Print.