An explanation of few keywords relevant to Bordo's article.

Subject. A subject is someone who exists within a culture, the people that comprise a culture. Who by simply being a part of the culture/society both produce and are a product of it. Essentially the subject is like an object, but a person or possibly a grouping of people. In Susan Bordos on bodies and femininity in Western Culture, the subjects are individuals who suffer from the disorders of, angora phobia, anorexia, and bulimia. Although, in this case I suppose it would be true to say the subjects are objects as well, since the body itself is being red is a text, and has signs and signifiers that speak about the culture in which it resides. Personally I think the practical difference between subject, and object as they are typically used in this discipline seem somewhat semantic. But I digress.

Body practices. Body practices are behaviors and values involving the body, which oftentimes revolve around its appearance/the way it's perceived, and are influenced by cultural values. Examples include dieting, exercising, cosmetics/grooming, and fashion choices. The disorders discussed by Bordo angora phobia, anorexia, and bulimia are all themselves body practices.

Social construction. Social construction or social construct is a concept, belief, or practice that is the product of a particular culture/group, one which exists as it does, because it is in part defined and created by that culture.

Susan Bordo, is presenting the argument that the psychological disorders of angora phobia, anorexia, and bulimia (disorders that are centered on body practice and behavior in a very physical way) are in part socially constructed. And are not entirely the result of physiology, but are products of cultural values. Essentially saying, that the social construction of the ideal woman itself does not necessarily create mental illness, but may influence the form in which it manifests in many subjects.

During the 50s when the ideal woman was depicted in magazines, movies, television and various media, as a homebody, there were dramatic rises in cases of angora phobia, the furthest possible extreme of a stay at home wife/mother. The female agoraphobiac through her extreme behavior, is trying to gain a degree of control over her environment, while still in some way remaining within the bounds of the prevailing cultural ideal.

Similarly, Bordo draws a correlation between the rise in cases of eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia, and the feminine ideal becoming increasingly depicted as ultra thin in virtually all mediums. The sufferers of these eating disorders feel that the body practice of depriving themselves of nourishment is empowering, as they try to obtain an unachievable culturally dictated bodily image.