Paper Summary:

This paper examines how women experience the world in ways that are inextricably connected with the perceptions of body image. Not only do American women experience a number of physiological phenomenon that are uniquely female, they are also subjected to a wide range of powerful cultural forces that affect their perceptions of their body and how they relate to their own sense of self-worth. It provides an overview of the social issue of body image from a feminist perspective to determine how meaning and identity are constructed in this social issue. A summary of the research is provided in the conclusion.

From the Paper:

"Pregnancy in particular is a potentially life-threatening and world-shifting condition that women uniquely experience, and it is little wonder that so much focus has been devoted to it in the feminist literature. Merleau-Ponty points out that the integrity of female body is diminished during pregnancy by the fact that the boundaries of the female body are themselves in a state of flux. "In pregnancy", she says, "I literally do not have a firm sense of where my body ends and the world beings. My automatic body habits become dislodged; the continuity between my customary body and my body at this moment is broken" (p. 410)."

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