Today young women are greatly influenced by the pressures to have In “The Flesh and the Devil” Kim Chernin discusseshow American cultural values and the concept of the ideal body typeinfluence women. Chernin’s attitude towards this is negative, shebelieves the thin body types shown in advertising and media leadwomen to see themselves as not good enough. She tells how womenstrive for the ideal body so much that it has a terrible impact on theirlives (366-373). This is true in many aspects of young women’s livestoday and can be seen in everyday society. In high school is was easy seeing the huge impact our cultural valueshave on young women. In the locker room while changing for gym you can hear a lot about how the girls feel about themselves. Chernin talksabout an experience in a locker room, “The woman in the locker roomwho swings out at her image in the mirror, the little girls who are afraidof the coming of adolescence to their bodies, the woman who admires theslenderness of the anorexic girl” (368). In the locker room I would hearconversations where they would say how they thought they were so fatand ugly and how they were so unhappy about their bodies. Some girlsdidn’t even want to change in front of the others because they were soembarrassed of their bodies. Also, they would talk about how theywanted so desperately to have a body like a certain actress or model. Another place at school where I saw young women sufferingthemselves all because of the need to be thin was at lunch. At lunchthere were girls who would hardly eat a thing and others that didn’t eatat all. When asked why they weren’t eating they would say it’s becausethey aren’t hungry and some just told the truth and told us they weretrying to lose weight. There were poor girls who starved themselveseveryday just because they felt the need to look the “right” way. The...
