酷我-北美枫

[ericcoliu]

The Beauty Myth: Female Body Politics

The female body-sculpturing issue has been a bone of contention in the long-standing debate about female body politics. The power of advertising to change, shape, and to mold the public’s opinion has had a major impact on the lives of women. Women are the target of many advertisements, and they are exploited in many forms of advertising. The media has historically used propaganda to narrowly define who women are and what they should be. In particular, the beauty myth that the advertising industry created and has promoted and that later Naomi Wolf in The Beauty Myth has tried to de-mystify has succeeded in effecting women’s internal sense of themselves, and it has created a standard of femininity that is impossible to attain. Worse, more and more young girls, including many of my female relatives, get lured into this myth and the consumer culture by such an abomination as the Barbie doll.

In December 2000, a body-sculpturing advertisement featuring a 14-year-old girl as its protagonist to promote a new beauty-salon service named "Rejuvenation" gave rise to furious criticisms circulated in newspaper columns, internet news group, and academic communities in Taiwan. In this advertisement, the shooting angle and editing mechanism were stereotypical ways of objectifying female bodies. Yet unexpectedly, the object the advertising industry exploited, this time, was a junior high school student. In addition to intense disputes over the legitimacy of the choice of a juvenile girl as an object in the body-sculpturing advertisement, the academic debates in Taiwan mainly focused on the issues of the patriarchal and commercial appropriation and exploitation of female bodies.

As well-known feminist Jin-hua Chung pointed out, this Rejuvenation-ad reflected the hideous side of interest-oriented capitalist society as well as men’s institutionalized sexual intimidation of women’ bodies. The beauty-myth in this ad, he stressed, was both a suppressive and dominant power. In his opinion, while the standard of sexiness and beauty was being unified by body-sculpturing advertisements as a specific size and body-figure, there would be, by then, more and more women not daring to confront nor to liberate their bodies. The critique of Chung about patriarchal power relations and the media-constructed female image in the Rejuvenation advertisement, a typical opinion among mainstream feminists in Taiwan, is very similar to that of his American counterpart.

In the divergent studies of women’s body politics, Michel Foucault’s notions on power/knowledge have been greatly appropriated to decipher the microphysics of power which operate and/or are operated on female bodies. However, Foucault’s power/knowledge framework in terms of body politics is usually misread as a certain kind of testimony of the patriarchal power’s maneuver and women’s unconscious incarnation of it. As such, we usually see mainstream feminists conclude that, on the one hand, the body/beauty industry is commercially vested and patriarchally motivated, and on the other hand, the female consumers are the cultural dupes beguiled by media hypes.

In contrast to the mainstream feminists’ one-sided reading of female body politics, Santra Bartky in her essay entitled Foucault, Femininity, and the modernization of Patriarchal Power, shows how the female body is ordered and controlled within what she calls a "disciplinary regime of femininity" by analyzing various practices and discourses which aim specifically at women and the different aspects of the "feminine" body image. She is not making a competing claim that the body/beauty industry and consumption are all good or all bad. Rather, she is probing into a more sophisticated yet a more realistic situation: how are the female “body/beauty-builders” able to develop their personal body politics so as to construct their own subjectivity and self-identity in the modern body/beauty market? How do these women as consumers select, negotiate or interact in complex structural and power relations so as to benefit and empower themselves? In short, the question regarding the beauty myth is not only concerned about what body/beauty systems do to women, but more about what women as consumers and subjects do to the systems.

In the abovementioned article, Bartky extends Michel Foucault’s analysis of power in disciplinary practices to the formation of feminine docile bodies in all areas of everyday life. She argues that femininity is created through the disciplining of the female body to make it the proper shape and to display the proper gestures and movements. She begins by cataloguing various ways in which women are induced to systematically discipline their bodies through dieting, constriction of gestures, limited movement, make-up, and skin-care (pp. 93-100). A key part of her argument is that this disciplining of the female body is an essential part of the creation and maintenance of women as subordinate to men and objects for the pleasure of the male – a mark of inferiority. Women feel deficient and ashamed if they fail to measure up to the ideals of feminine beauty.

Bartky also addresses the topic of resistance and how difficult this discipline of the female body makes it for women to resist their subordinate position. Because there is no identifiable institution in charge of imposing this discipline and punishing violators, it is very difficult to have a focus for rebellion. Also since women have “internalized this discipline and embraced its conception of femininity, their adherence to it seems voluntary and natural” (pp. 101-106). She concludes that compliance with the regime of the female body is incompatible with achieving women’s liberation, and calls for a radical transformation of the female body (p. 109).

Although drawing heavily on the work of Michel Foucault, Bartky criticizes Foucault for ignoring the fact that the discipline imposed on men’s and women’s bodies is quite different, and his blindness to those practices that produce a modality of embodiment that is peculiarly feminine. Her article can be conceived of as an attempt to fill in a major gap in Foucault’s theory.

Work Cited
Bartky, Sandra Lee, “Foucault, Femininity, and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power” in Meyer, Diana Tiegjens (ed.), Feminist Social Thought, New York:Routledge, 1997. pp. 93-111.
_________________
Time is nothing but a disquiet of the soul

[[ericcoliu]]

The Beauty Myth: Female Body Politics

The female body-sculpturing issue has been a bone of contention in the long-standing debate about female body politics. The power of advertising to change, shape, and to mold the public’s opinion has had a major impact on the lives of women. Women are the target of many advertisements, and they are exploited in many forms of advertising. The media has historically used propaganda to narrowly define who women are and what they should be. In particular, the beauty myth that the advertising industry created and has promoted and that later Naomi Wolf in The Beauty Myth has tried to de-mystify has succeeded in effecting women’s internal sense of themselves, and it has created a standard of femininity that is impossible to attain. Worse, more and more young girls, including many of my female relatives, get lured into this myth and the consumer culture by such an abomination as the Barbie doll.

In December 2000, a body-sculpturing advertisement featuring a 14-year-old girl as its protagonist to promote a new beauty-salon service named "Rejuvenation" gave rise to furious criticisms circulated in newspaper columns, internet news group, and academic communities in Taiwan. In this advertisement, the shooting angle and editing mechanism were stereotypical ways of objectifying female bodies. Yet unexpectedly, the object the advertising industry exploited, this time, was a junior high school student. In addition to intense disputes over the legitimacy of the choice of a juvenile girl as an object in the body-sculpturing advertisement, the academic debates in Taiwan mainly focused on the issues of the patriarchal and commercial appropriation and exploitation of female bodies.

As well-known feminist Jin-hua Chung pointed out, this Rejuvenation-ad reflected the hideous side of interest-oriented capitalist society as well as men’s institutionalized sexual intimidation of women’ bodies. The beauty-myth in this ad, he stressed, was both a suppressive and dominant power. In his opinion, while the standard of sexiness and beauty was being unified by body-sculpturing advertisements as a specific size and body-figure, there would be, by then, more and more women not daring to confront nor to liberate their bodies. The critique of Chung about patriarchal power relations and the media-constructed female image in the Rejuvenation advertisement, a typical opinion among mainstream feminists in Taiwan, is very similar to that of his American counterpart.

In the divergent studies of women’s body politics, Michel Foucault’s notions on power/knowledge have been greatly appropriated to decipher the microphysics of power which operate and/or are operated on female bodies. However, Foucault’s power/knowledge framework in terms of body politics is usually misread as a certain kind of testimony of the patriarchal power’s maneuver and women’s unconscious incarnation of it. As such, we usually see mainstream feminists conclude that, on the one hand, the body/beauty industry is commercially vested and patriarchally motivated, and on the other hand, the female consumers are the cultural dupes beguiled by media hypes.

In contrast to the mainstream feminists’ one-sided reading of female body politics, Santra Bartky in her essay entitled Foucault, Femininity, and the modernization of Patriarchal Power, shows how the female body is ordered and controlled within what she calls a "disciplinary regime of femininity" by analyzing various practices and discourses which aim specifically at women and the different aspects of the "feminine" body image. She is not making a competing claim that the body/beauty industry and consumption are all good or all bad. Rather, she is probing into a more sophisticated yet a more realistic situation: how are the female “body/beauty-builders” able to develop their personal body politics so as to construct their own subjectivity and self-identity in the modern body/beauty market? How do these women as consumers select, negotiate or interact in complex structural and power relations so as to benefit and empower themselves? In short, the question regarding the beauty myth is not only concerned about what body/beauty systems do to women, but more about what women as consumers and subjects do to the systems.

In the abovementioned article, Bartky extends Michel Foucault’s analysis of power in disciplinary practices to the formation of feminine docile bodies in all areas of everyday life. She argues that femininity is created through the disciplining of the female body to make it the proper shape and to display the proper gestures and movements. She begins by cataloguing various ways in which women are induced to systematically discipline their bodies through dieting, constriction of gestures, limited movement, make-up, and skin-care (pp. 93-100). A key part of her argument is that this disciplining of the female body is an essential part of the creation and maintenance of women as subordinate to men and objects for the pleasure of the male – a mark of inferiority. Women feel deficient and ashamed if they fail to measure up to the ideals of feminine beauty.

Bartky also addresses the topic of resistance and how difficult this discipline of the female body makes it for women to resist their subordinate position. Because there is no identifiable institution in charge of imposing this discipline and punishing violators, it is very difficult to have a focus for rebellion. Also since women have “internalized this discipline and embraced its conception of femininity, their adherence to it seems voluntary and natural” (pp. 101-106). She concludes that compliance with the regime of the female body is incompatible with achieving women’s liberation, and calls for a radical transformation of the female body (p. 109).

Although drawing heavily on the work of Michel Foucault, Bartky criticizes Foucault for ignoring the fact that the discipline imposed on men’s and women’s bodies is quite different, and his blindness to those practices that produce a modality of embodiment that is peculiarly feminine. Her article can be conceived of as an attempt to fill in a major gap in Foucault’s theory.

Work Cited
Bartky, Sandra Lee, “Foucault, Femininity, and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power” in Meyer, Diana Tiegjens (ed.), Feminist Social Thought, New York:Routledge, 1997. pp. 93-111.
_________________
Time is nothing but a disquiet of the soul

[Champagne]

[[Champagne]]

[anna]

还没有时间细读
_________________
---------------------

Anna Yin

《爱的灯塔-星子安娜双语诗选》
<Nightlights> <Seven Nights with the Chinese Zodiac> ...

http://annapoetry.com

[[星子安娜]]

还没有时间细读
_________________
---------------------

Anna Yin

《爱的灯塔-星子安娜双语诗选》
<Nightlights> <Seven Nights with the Chinese Zodiac> ...

http://annapoetry.com