Forty years since her acclaimed manifesto was published, feminist writer Susie Orbach says it's still as relevant as ever.
One name you cannot overlook when it comes to seminal books on female body image is Susie Orbach. The feminist and psychotherapist wrote the acclaimed book Fat is a Feminist Issue in 1978, and it has remained in print ever since, underscoring the point she makes in a new, updated version: fat is STILL a feminist issue.
LISTEN: Susie Orbach in conversation with RNZ's Kathryn Ryan
"All over the world," says Orbach, "English is becoming the standard language, or American-ese is becoming the standard language, and I feel we're losing bodies at the same rate at which we're losing local languages.
"We might have brown skin and we might have curly hair but we're all supposed to kind of look exactly the same way, and that's a very disturbing event. It's like we've become kind of commodities for ourselves rather than bodies that we live from."
Susan Orbach is attending the Auckland Writers Festival in May.
