How to organise your body 101: postfeminism and the (re)construction of the female body through How to Look Good Naked

2016 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christiana Tsaousi
Keyword(s):  
Female Body ◽  
The Body ◽  
Television Show ◽  
Cultural Discourses ◽  
Gendered Identities ◽  
Feminine Beauty ◽  
The Feminine ◽  
Consumption Practices ◽  
Gender Constructions ◽  
The Impact

The aim of this article is to highlight the attention given by recent makeover shows, and specifically How to Look Good Naked, to the ‘underneath’ as a way of (re)organising the female body. I examine whether this ‘turn’ or change in media’s direction is an appreciation of the real female body (an unmodified body) or whether this is a mere (re-)organisation of the body into a controllable base of overall appearance and a further embedding of Western conceptions of beauty and of the notion that the manipulation of appearance is essential to the construction of the feminine identity and to the measure of women’s social worth. Informed by postfeminist discourse and critique, I analyse the British reality makeover television show How to Look Good Naked, discuss the extent to which it actually provides an alternative to prevailing cultural discourses around feminine beauty and scrutinise the impact that it seems to have on the identities of the women who participate. I analyse how the show, as the ultimate postfeminist show, inscribes gendered identities and practices, and I examine how postfeminism has created spaces for such shows to exist and affirm hegemonic gender constructions based on consumption practices.

Youth and Consumption

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paolo Capuzzo
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Consumer Behaviour ◽  
Social Representation ◽  
The Body ◽  
Social Deviance ◽  
Symbolic Space ◽  
Conduct Of Life ◽  
The Social ◽  
Consumption Practices ◽  
The Impact

The kaleidoscope of social identity is defined by multiple forces of signification. Gender, ethnicity, and class trace porous borders of the social and symbolic space within which consumption practices unfold, changing, forcing, and sometimes even subverting the apparent fixity of those spaces. The transition from childhood to adulthood is marked by clear biological changes that affect the conduct of life and the ways in which to confront a series of phases in the form of the transformation and maturation of the body. The analysis of consumption practices can be useful in showing how young people define themselves. As part of a discussion on youth and consumption, this article focuses on cultures of consumption among young workers. It also discusses the social deviance and consumer behaviour of young people, the impact of advertising on the social representation of the youth body, films and fantasies, and the emergence of a youth mass market.

Cosmetic Surgery in a Different Voice: The Case of Madame Noël

2007 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 53-65
Author(s):  
Kathy Davis
Keyword(s):  
Cosmetic Surgery ◽  
Medical Specialty ◽  
The Body ◽  
Medical Examiner ◽  
Women's Bodies ◽  
Feminine Beauty ◽  
The Feminine ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Professional Ethos ◽  
Chicago Medical

Cosmetic surgery emerged at the end of the 19th century in the U.S. and Europe. Like most branches of surgery, it is a ‘masculine’ medical specialty, both numerically and in terms of professional ‘ethos’. Given the role cosmetic surgery – and, more generally, the feminine beauty system – play in the disciplining and inferiorization of women's bodies, a feminist cosmetic surgeon would seem to be a contradiction in terms. It is hard to imagine how cosmetic surgery might be practiced in a way which is not, by definition, disempowering or demeaning to women. In this paper, I explore the unlikely combination of feminist cosmetic surgeon, using one of the pioneers of cosmetic surgery, Dr. Suzanne Noël, as an example. She was the first and most famous woman to practice cosmetic surgery, working in France at the beginning of this century. She was also an active feminist. Based on an analysis of the handbook she wrote in 1926, La Chirurgie Esthétique, Son Rôle Social in which she describes her views about her profession, her techniques and procedures, and the results of her operations, I tackle the question of whether Noël's approach might be regarded as a ‘feminine’ or even feminist way of doing cosmetic surgery – in short, an instance of surgery in ‘a different voice’. “The primary requisite for a good surgeon is to be a man – a man of courage.” Edmund Andrews. (1861). The Surgeon. Chicago Medical Examiner “Surgery involves bodies – those of surgeons as well as of patients … What does it mean when the body of the surgeon – the intrusive gazer, the violator, the recipient of sensory assaults – is that of a woman?” Joan Cassell. (1998). The Surgeon in the Woman's Body

scholarly journals Adjusting Swedish gymnastics to the female nature: Discrepancies in the gendering of girls’ physical education in the mid-nineteenth century

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 261
Author(s):  
Johannes Westberg
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Gender Differences ◽  
Physical Education ◽  
Young Women ◽  
Female Body ◽  
The Body ◽  
Western World ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Feminine ◽  
The Relationship

During the nineteenth century, Swedish gymnastics became one of the main models of physical education in the Western world. The purpose of this article is to explore how Swedish gymnastics was adjusted to the female body and mind in the mid-nineteenth century. Using handbooks published by the Swedish educationalist Anton Santesson as an empirical starting point, this article shows how the relationship between gender and gymnastics was complicated and exhibited significant discrepancies. In part, Swedish gymnastics was marked by a one-sex model of gender differences, which meant that gymnastics was perceived as a method for catering to the deficiencies and weaknesses of the feminine nature, in an attempt to make girls and young women more similar to boys. Swedish gymnastics had, nevertheless, vital elements of a two-sex model, according to which gymnastics was supposed to realise the true feminine nature of girls. Following this line of thought, Santesson claimed that, since gymnastics merely followed the laws of the body, it could not make girls more like boys. Santesson’s vision of gymnastics also included disciplinary mechanisms, such as the partitioning of space, which were gender neutral. Apart from presenting insights into the ambiguous and contradictory notions of gender in Swedish girls’ gymnastics, this article thus also raises questions regarding whether other models of physical education were marked by similar discrepancies during the nineteenth century. 

On the question of the pharmacodynamics of spermine in the treatment of pregnancy toxicosis

1936 ◽  
Vol 32 (7) ◽  
pp. 867-869
Author(s):  
М. А. Sinderikhin
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Data ◽  
Female Body ◽  
The Body ◽  
Protein Breakdown ◽  
Present Level ◽  
World War ◽  
Foreign Agent ◽  
Root Cause ◽  
The World ◽  
The Impact

Currently, clinical and experimental data provide an installation for the search for the root cause of toxicosis in the egg (placenta), and even closer in a foreign agent that has invaded the female body and disturbed its metabolism. In this focus, the statements of the overwhelming majority of authors converge, and this is an absolutely reliable position at the present level of our knowledge. We can only talk about the nature of the impact of the agent itself. Poisoning of the body with the products of interstitial protein breakdown, flowing under the sign of an anaphylactic state, is the construction made shortly before the World War by Ponston, Wold-Eisner, Wertes and Franz. In 1929, regardless of the conclusions of Western European researchers unknown to us, we set about developing the anaphylactic nature of toxicosis and came close to developing a method of anti-anaphylaxis.

Indigenous Eroticism and Colonial Morality in Mexico: the Confession Manuals of New Spain

Numen ◽  
1992 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sylvia Marcos
Keyword(s):  
New Spain ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
The Body ◽  
16Th Century ◽  
Complete Eradication ◽  
Time Space ◽  
The Feminine ◽  
Indigenous Society ◽  
Symbolic Universe ◽  
The Impact

AbstractThis article explores the impact of the Conquest on eroticism and the place of the feminine in 16th century indigenous society in Mexico. It shows how this most intimate area of human experience became the battleground of a war that amounted in part to a cultural annihilation. The article analyses one aspect of the missionaries' well-intentioned "battle to save people's souls". Like in previous, internal forms of violent subjugation of one culture by another, the Spaniards destroyed local gods and temples. However, unlike previous "conquerors" who superimposed their beliefs upon local customs, the newcomers demanded a complete eradication of those customs, as if they only could save the Indians by destroying their identity, their culture's relation to reality and their very concept of time, space and of the person. By condemning indigenous erotic practices and imposing unprecedented restraints on them, the missionaries altered the roots of ancient Mexican perceptions of the body and the cosmos. Particuliar attention is paid to the confession manuals, written as an answer to the Spaniards' discovery "that lust was the Indian's most frequent sin". These manuals are considered here as instruments of the alteration of indigenous perceptions. In these manuals the repetition of the same excruciating questions tended to graft guilt onto the Mesoamerican conscience and thus eradicate the Indians perception of eroticism in its sacred and vitalizing dimension. Commentaries of the old song of the women of Chalco attempt to recapture, through the playful voices of women speaking openly, some of the flavor of a very different symbolic universe.

scholarly journals THE QUESTION OF FEMALE BODY IN ARCHITECTURAL THEORY IN THE LATE 20TH CENTURY

Articult ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 91-96
Author(s):  
Svetlana V. Petrushikhina ◽  
◽  
Keyword(s):  
Perceptual Experience ◽  
Female Body ◽  
The Body ◽  
Architectural Theory ◽  
Architectural Discourse ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
The Feminine ◽  
Phenomenological Perspective ◽  
Female Corporeality ◽  
Semantic Dimension

This article is devoted to the phenomenon of female body in the foreign theory of architecture in the 1980‑s–90‑s. The works of D. Agrest, E. Grosz, D. Bloomer and D. Fausch are examined in the present paper. There are two perspectives on the problem of female corporeality: poststructuralist and phenomenological. Jennifer Bloomer and Diane Agrest adopt a poststructuralist critical strategy in which the notion of the feminine is considered as the “Other” of the logocentric architectural discourse. Elisabeth Gross notes that women have always been displaced from the realm of architecture. This is indicated not only by the absence of female architects, but also by the fact that the inherent attributes of female corporeality have been completely disregarded. Diane Agrest suggests that these attributes were appropriated by male architects. The phenomenological perspective on the female corporeality is reflected in Deborah Fausch's concept of “feminist architecture”. “Feminist architecture” brings back the value of concrete, sensual bodily experience in the perception of architecture. The subject's perceptual experience through the body allows the semantic dimension to unfold in the building.

scholarly journals OUT OF SIGHT, STILL IN MIND: visually impaired women's embodied accounts of ideal femininity

2016 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tara A. Fannon
Keyword(s):  
Visually Impaired ◽  
Female Body ◽  
Common Knowledge ◽  
The Body ◽  
Font Size ◽  
Visual Disability ◽  
Sociology Of The Body ◽  
Physical Form ◽  
The Feminine ◽  
Body Self

<!-- P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; direction: ltr; color: rgb(0, 0, 10); }P.western { font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; }P.cjk { font-family: "Arial Unicode MS",sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; }P.ctl { font-family: "Arial Unicode MS",sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; }A:link { } --><p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 0.14in;">With its emphasis on physical form, the diffusion of the feminine ideal relies heavily on the use of visual imagery but there is a common knowledge about  the feminine ideal that penetrates language and discourse. The relationship between mainstream representations of the feminine ideal and non-disabled female body/self dissatisfaction has been well-documented over the years but less attention has been given to understanding how such visual representations affect women with disabilities, specifically women with visual disabilities. Drawing on qualitative data taken from the personal diaries and in-depth interviews with seven blind and visually impaired Irish women, and using a feminist disability model reinforced by sociology of the body, gender theory and visual studies, I examine what it means to be a young woman with a visual disability living in a visually-reliant, appearance-oriented culture. I explore interpretations and expressions of femininity and beauty, the complicated, often fraught, relationship with female body and self and the rituals and practices used to manage appearance while having a disability.</p>

scholarly journals A FEMININE OF NO ONE’S OWN IN CHARLOTTE TÁBUA RASA

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 0137-0147
Author(s):  
Eider Madeiros ◽  
Letícia Simões Velloso Schuler ◽  
Mariana Pinheiro Ramalho ◽  
Hermano de França Rodrigues
Keyword(s):  
Female Body ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Lacanian Psychoanalysis ◽  
Inductive Approach ◽  
Constructive Dialogue ◽  
The Feminine ◽  
Brazilian Politics

This paper aims to essay an open and constructive dialogue between the very rupture that the trans female body evokes and the recent concept of “feminine of no one”, through an inductive approach that the latter could make it possible to be kept in a state of infiniteness, of openness, of incompleteness, of non-wholeness, the aspect that characterizes the surrounding and expressive territories of each one of the specific bodies that allow themselves to be situated more leaned onto the feminine. Based on the contributions of Bento (2008), Jorge and Travassos (2018), from the brief precepts of Lacanian psychoanalysis, and on an interview with Leonardo Valente, the author of Charlotte Tábua Rasa (2016), we intend to discuss insofar how the body of a trans woman in a Brazilian politics fictional scenario would be able to draw the difficult boundaries on the discourses, possessions and the domains of language between the self and the other towards the trans-sexualities which dedicate their efforts to reinscriptions and the fissures that are celebrated through the transgressive resilience of the feminine.

scholarly journals On The Issue Of Women's Sports Problems

2021 ◽  
Vol 03 (05) ◽  
pp. 160-163
Author(s):  
Otabek Raximjonovich Shanazarov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Physical Activity ◽  
Female Body ◽  
Female Athletes ◽  
The Body ◽  
Women's Sports ◽  
Training Requirements ◽  
Balanced Approach ◽  
Women’S Sports ◽  
The Impact

The paper describes in detail the problem of increased training requirements and excessive competitive loads imposed on the body of female athletes. In this regard, the author recommends paying quite a lot of attention to the problems of women's sports, in particular, the impact of increasing physical activity on the female body and, accordingly, the issues of a comprehensive, balanced approach to the recovery and rehabilitation of female athletes.

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