Women's bodies throughout advertising.

Each of us is born male or female, but not masculine or feminine. Our bodies are transformed into recognizably masculine or feminine bodies through various cultural disciplines and practices. If both women and men are culturally disciplined, how does patriarchal domination incorporate itself into our cultural practices to create the docile bodies of women? In American society, there is currently an emphasis on excessive thinness of women and girls. This obsession with the slenderness of …

…the case at all times or in all cultures is the beginning of a new definition of our bodies. For centuries, women have shaped their bodies in accordance with men's needs and desires. Our lives have been immobilized in the process. In order to combat the pervasive effects of advertising on women's body images in our male-centered culture, our self-definition is essential. We must reinvent our bodies in a way that does not limit them.