Inscribing Gender on the Body
- According to the article, how and in what ways is gender inscribed on the body?
- According to the article, gender is inscribed on the body through being and looking either masculine or feminine
- The binary aspect of bodies as “either this or that” is so thoroughly taken for granted that we rarely question these binary aspects
- Gender performances are not only what we ‘do’, they are also what we ‘become’.
- This implies that we are what we do, and what we do is shaped by cultural ideas, social practices, and structured institutions that give those everyday actions meaning
- Example: A Drag Show – These performances accentuate traditional gendered bodies through the clothes people wear and the ways they walk and talk. They help illustrate how gender is normalized and usually experienced as “natural”
- How is gender performativity constrained by gender norms?
- Power and control over women through practices associated with the body
- Young girls are sexualized and objectified by contemporary media, they also learn that their body is a project that must be altered before they can attract others
- weight bias have a significant impact on health, quality of life, and socioeconomic outcomes
- physical appearance is more important in terms of the way women are perceived and treated
- How are bodies read as normal/abnormal in relation to gender?
- Gendering of bodies is objectification (seeing the body as an object and separate from its context) as supported by media and entertainment industries as well as by fashion
- As our lives become more complex and we have less power over the way we live them, we are encouraged to focus more on the body as something we can control and as something we can use to express our identity
- In what way is the body socially constructed?
- In the US, beauty standards are very much connected to the production and consumption of various products, and beauty product and fashion industries are multi-billion-dollar enterprises. Industries in the United States helped sexualize women’s breasts through their development of the bra
- Many bodily practices of contemporary femininity encourage women to stay small, not take up space, and stay young. Maturity in the form of body hair is unacceptable; we are encouraged to keep our bodies sleek, soft, and hairless – traits that some scholars identify with youth and powerlessness
- How does the media contribute to the objectification of the body?
- Reality TV – encourages young girls to change the way they look. It makes people consider cosmetic surgery; the advertising of products and body management technologies, and the social elations of power in society
- The underlying message for all of us, however is that we are not good enough the way we are but need certain products to improve our looks and relationships. We are bombarded with such messages to buy products to fix these kind of “flaws”
- Do ‘body projects’ allow us to have freedom of our bodies?
- Through self expression
- to support one another; to hear real stories
- To gain control over ones own life
- How do ideals of beauty and health shape constructions of the body?
- Does not help the development of positive self-esteem, self-confidence, creates anxiety and depression
- Creating body insecurities
- Development of eating disorders
- These “ideals” of beauty are unattainable and unnatural, they are all socially constructed
- Is ‘fat’ a feminist issue?
- Yes it is
- How do particular types of bodies relate to social, economic, and political power?
- These disorders are culturally mediated in that they are related to environmental conditions associated with the politics of gender and sexuality
- Dieting seems to trigger the onset of an eating disorder in vulnerable individuals
- While disorders occur in all populations in the United States, white women and those with higher socioeconomic status are somewhat more likely to suffer these problems
- Many students who live in dorms and sororities report a high incidence of eating disorders
