A person's body image is usually a sensitive subject, particularly for women. When discussing a woman's body image, chances are she will get defensive. Society, in fact, is what dictates how a woman should look. Whether that image is tall and slender, or voluptuous, woman should adhere to society's standards. In America, in the 1980's, there were two different body images being stressed through the media. Using literature as an example, one can look to both "Anorexic" by Eavan Boland and "A Strange Beautiful Woman" by Marilyn Johnson to find examples of each body image. By examining when the poems were written, and the diction, tone, and overall meaning, of each poem, the reader can determine the kind of pressures society may have been placing on women in the 1980's.
Written around the same time, these poems can provide the reader with a sense of what body images women were "supposed" to have in the 1980's. "Anorexic", the first of the two poems, could have been influenced by societal standards for a woman's appearance from the end of the previous decade. According to Dr. Barbara A. Cohen, who wrote "A Psychology of Ideal Body Image as an Oppressive Force in the Lives of Women," discusses how in the 1970's "Twiggy and other fashion models replaced the more "female figure". The ideal image was slim again." These skinny fashion models were considered to be beautiful; therefore, if women did not look like them, they weren't considered to be beautiful. Such pressure can damage a woman's psyche, and convince some of them that unless they were skinny, they would be ugly. As time progressed, it is possible to assume that the conventional image - being as skinny as possible - began to fade into a healthier body image for women. The second poem, "A Strange Beautiful Woman," was written five years after "Anorexic." Given the time the second poem was written, it seems as though the celebration of a woman's curves began in the middle of the decade.
