‘One is not born, but rather becomes, a Korean woman’: Gender politics of female bodies in Korean weight-loss reality TV shows

2018 ◽  
Vol 54 (8) ◽  
pp. 1005-1019
Author(s):  
Yoonso Choi
Keyword(s):  
Weight Loss ◽  
Female Body ◽  
Reality Television ◽  
Gender Politics ◽  
The Body ◽  
Television Shows ◽  
Tv Shows ◽  
Female Bodies ◽  
Good Habit ◽  
Body Care

This study examines gender politics from a feminist perspective by analysing significant discourses on body care, which are regenerated through female-targeted Korean weight-loss reality television shows. Three key discourses have implicitly reinforced gender politics within Korean culture. First, weight-loss reality television shows tend to expand the abnormal category of the Korean female body by only focusing on ordinary females, regardless of body size. Second, Korean female body care has been affected by the idea of ‘saving face’, which is regarded as a unique historical national characteristic. Lastly, these diet television shows create a significant discourse called ‘diet pornography’ by emphasizing ‘after’ diet results, such as toned and idealized body shapes, while minimizing the ‘before’ diet, such as the harsh processes and desperate efforts of the ordinary participants. The body-care discourses represented in Korean weight-loss reality television shows play a significant role in defining the gender politics that reinforce the idea that Korean females must modify their bodies as a duty and good habit.

‘Are You a Good Female Citizen?’: Media Discourses on Self-Governing Represented in Popular Korean Weight-Loss Reality TV Shows

2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 154-166
Author(s):  
Yoonso Choi
Keyword(s):  
Weight Loss ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Cultural Influences ◽  
Reality Tv ◽  
Cultural Medium ◽  
Dominant Female ◽  
Tv Shows ◽  
Female Bodies ◽  
Media Discourses ◽  
Body Care

Based on Foucault’s work on governmentality, the purpose of this study is to examine the socio-cultural influences of media discourses that have been reproduced and spread in Korea’s neo-liberal society through weight-loss reality TV shows. After neo-liberalism was established as a political ideology in Korea, weight-loss reality programs, which contain significant neo-liberal characteristics, have risen in popularity among ordinary Korean women. The popularity of female-oriented pop media culture has generated the idea of self-body care that now plays a powerful role in efficiently reproducing good female citizens who are able to be governed at a distance. This study particularly focuses on analyzing significant media discourse that tends to prompt ordinary girls and women into donning the role of a neo-liberal subject by taking care of their bodies. The major points include (1) producing a feminized, skinny body, rather than a healthy body; (2) defining clear boundaries between the normal and abnormal body by clothing size; (3) re-generating dominant female body discourse by a group of lifestyle designers; and (4) labeling female bodies that have failed in body-care. In conclusion, the study emphasizes significant cultural influences of the diet reality shows that operate as a cultural medium to efficiently produce a neo-liberal body.

BODY PRACTICES OF WOMEN IN THE LIGHT OF FEMINIST DEBATES

2018 ◽  
pp. 129-156 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Female Body ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
The Body ◽  
Social Regulation ◽  
Critical Study ◽  
Phenomenological Tradition ◽  
Academic Feminism ◽  
Female Bodies ◽  
Body Practices

The paper provides an analysis of the structuralist and phenomenological traditions in interpretation of female body practices. The structuralist intellectual tradition bases its methodology on concepts from social anthropology and philosophy that see the body as ‘ordered’ by social institutions. Structuralist approaches within academic feminism are focused on critical study of the social regulation of female bodies with respect to reproduction and sexualisation (health and beauty practices). The author focuses on the dominant physical ideal of femininity and the means for body pedagogics that have been constructed by patriarchal authority. In contrast to theories of the ordered body, the phenomenological tradition is focused on the “lived” body, embodied experience, and the personal motivation and values attached to body practices. This tradition has been influenced by a variety of schools of thought including philosophical anthropology, phenomenology and action theories in sociology. Within academic feminism, there are at least three phenomenologically oriented strategies of interpretation of female body practices. The first one is centred around women’s individual situation and bodily socialization; the second one studies interrelation between body practices and the sense of the self; and the third one postulates the potential of body practices to destabilize the dominant ideals of femininity and thus provides a theoretical basis for feminist activism. The phenomenological tradition primarily analyses the motivational, symbolic and value-based components of body practices as they interact with women’s corporeality and sense of self. In general, both structuralist and phenomenological traditions complement each other by focusing on different levels of analysis of female embodiment.

scholarly journals What Not To Wear Policing The Body Through Fashion Criticism

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kate Rothschild
Keyword(s):  
Reality Television ◽  
Critical Distance ◽  
The Body ◽  
Popular Media ◽  
Television Programs ◽  
Disciplinary Power ◽  
Television Shows ◽  
Model Project ◽  
Study Participants ◽  
Clothing Choices

Earlier studies investigating reality fashion television revealed that while participants and audiences are aware of mechanisms of surveillance and shame; scholarship also documented that critical distance from the program’s methods are not necessarily ideologically liberating for participants or audience. Indeed, as I argue and document in this current study, participants in reality fashion television shows remain caught in a pernicious power dynamic that is part and parcel of these shows. Specifically, by exploring examples from three popular fashion reality television programs—America’s Next Top Model, Project Runway, and Fashion Police—and by considering theories of fashion, gender, and power, I question the problematic ways in which popular media talk about fashion and clothing choices. Further, by drawing on Michel Foucault’s concepts of disciplinary power, I critically examine the judgments and assumptions that fashion critics impose on participants whose sartorial appearance they may find wanting. More generally, my study investigates the limitations of the widely accepted belief that fashion is a form of self- expression while I end with some more positive examples of fashion advocacy.

scholarly journals Human-Friendly Design of Virtual System “female Body-dress”

2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mengna Guo ◽  
Victor E. Kuzmichev ◽  
Dominique C. Adolphe
Keyword(s):  
Evaluation System ◽  
Female Body ◽  
The Body ◽  
Virtual Technology ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Mechanical Approach ◽  
Virtual System ◽  
Female Bodies ◽  
3D Shapes ◽  
Selection Of

Abstract Recently, the development efforts focused on the computer simulation of garments, which depend on the material's physico-mechanical properties. It intends to achieve the best possible and realistic simulations of garments, which are available for pressure prediction. In this manner, 3D garment virtual technology improvements allow the visualization of pressure areas with values where the fabric might be too tight against the body. Although the purposes of simulation graphics were acceptable, the accuracy for apparel shaping is not enough to meet the needs of Virtual Prototyping and CAD utilization especially while the fabric properties system design was inadequate. Moreover, the existing pressure simulation is intended to simply predict the pressure index or how the textile deformation extend, which are deficient in real human's perception. In this research, the 3D shapes belonging to typical female bodies and dresses made of different fabrics were obtained by 3D body scanners (ScanWorX and TELMAT). Through reconstruction for the 3D torso shapes, the volumetric eases between body and dress were calculated by means of a software Rhinoceros. A new approach for the selection of textile properties based on the Kawabata Evaluation System (KES) was proposed to investigate its relations with dress shaping and pressure comfort. Finally, fabric properties tested by the KES-F system were compared with volumetric eases, objective pressure indexes and subjective comfort scores to reveal the relations how the fabric properties have impacts on dress outside shaping and inside pressure comfort of a female body. In this manner, the human-friendly CAD instead of mechanical approach existing before has been presented as a new approach to promote the construction of a realistic system for the 3D simulation optimization.

scholarly journals Weight Loss As a Sociocultural Practice of Creating a Demanded Body in the Students' Community

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ludmila Russkikh ◽  
Elena Grun
Keyword(s):  
Weight Loss ◽  
Social Constructivism ◽  
Female Body ◽  
Research University ◽  
Strong Dependence ◽  
Strong Relationship ◽  
The Body ◽  
Model Parameters ◽  
Male Body ◽  
Body Design

This article discusses the sociocultural practice of weight loss as a mean of a demanded body design in the student’s community. The study was conducted in 2019 at the South-Ural State University (National Research University) in Chelyabinsk, in Russia. The research methodology uses quantitative approach. 350 students were questioned. The objectives of the research were to study students’ perceptions of the body in demand and methods of weight loss for the construction of the body in demand. The study was based on sociological theories: such as body theory, theory of social / sociocultural practice and the social constructivism theory. The survey has revealed a strong dependence of students’ desire to lose weight on the common opinion. 79% of those who have been told about his / her stoutness want to lose weight, and only 24% of those who have not been told about his / her stoutness has the desire to lose weight. A strong relationship was also found between the students’ attempt and the desire to lose weight, depending on the presence of excess pounds. The authors draw conclusions about the students’ gender difference in ideas about the demanded female and male body. For girls, the harmony of the female body is more important than such a characteristic for men (despite the fact that this is their only requirement), as well as the relief, which for the boys in the perception of the female body was not important. But the requirements for the lack of undesirable body characteristics are the same. The study has shown that the majority of respondents (72.0%) do not consider model parameters of the figure to be the standard. However, girls still relate to such ideals somewhat more favorably than boys. Perhaps this is due to the greater exposure of girls to the influence of the media, public opinion and advertising. The dependence of the attempt and desire to lose weight on the adoption of model parameters for the standard was not found. The study has determined that for the majority of students the sociocultural practice of weight loss is an important means of constructing their physicality. However, for only one third of the respondents, it turned out to be effective. At the same time, students are not ready for more radical measures to change their physicality. Keywords: demanded body, students’ community, sociocultural practice of losing weight, a demanded body design

scholarly journals Analysing Media Reactions to Male/Male Dance Partnerships On British Reality TV Shows: Inclusive Masculinity in Strictly Come Dancing and Dancing On Ice

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yen Nee Wong ◽  
Vicki Harman ◽  
Craig Owen
Keyword(s):  
Reality Television ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Critical Examination ◽  
Male Couples ◽  
Television Shows ◽  
Tv Shows ◽  
Media Reports ◽  
The One ◽  
The Uk ◽  
First Time

AbstractStrictly Come Dancing and Dancing on Ice are primetime reality television shows that promote partner dancing as a form of leisure in the UK. Both shows have consistently represented partner dancing as a partnership between a man and a woman. However, in 2019 and 2020male/male partnerships were introduced into both shows for the first time. Drawing on media reports that discuss these male/male partnerships, this paper explores how the partnerships were represented and made sense of by mainstream and LGBT + media. Employing thematic discourse analysis, we demonstrate how the male/male dance partnerships were framed by a complex and contradictory inclusive masculinity discourse. On the one hand, this discourse celebrated the male/male couples as evidence that Britain is a progressive society in which homophobia is in decline. At the same time, the representations largely centred on the male dance couples’ bromances while ignoring or silencing discourses of gay love or sex. We show that although the representations can be viewed as a positive step forward, there were also some limitations to the representations which necessitate more critical examination in future research

Not so hysterical now? Psychotherapy, menopause, and hysterectomy

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 236-252
Author(s):  
Sarah Benamer
Keyword(s):  
Female Body ◽  
Psychoanalytic Theory ◽  
The Body ◽  
First Century ◽  
Body Parts ◽  
Gynaecological Surgery ◽  
Bodily Experience ◽  
Menstrual Cycles ◽  
Female Bodies ◽  
The Mind

In the context of the body, the essentially female; wombs, menstrual cycles, and concurrent hormones, have seen women ascribed madness, insatiability, untrustworthiness, and danger. Female bodies have been identified in selective parts, considered in abstract, or envisaged as having overwhelming power over the mind. “Hysteria”, the problematic neurosis of uterine origin was at the heart of early psychoanalysis. This diagnosis enshrines a slippage from the physical to the fantastical, and ultimately to the denial of the lived reality of women’s and girl’s bodies. In apparent collusion with patriarchy the neglect of some female bodily experience is perpetuated in contemporary psychoanalytic theory. Nowhere is this more evident than around menopause and hysterectomy (as experienced by either client or therapist). There has been little or no exploration of how practitioners might best support clients for whom menopause is significant, or how we might facilitate women before or after gynaecological surgery. It is as if removal and psychological loss of the same female body parts that our forebears used to so neatly differentiate, diagnose, and pathologise women are now not of note. I am interested as to how we as psychotherapists reclaim female body narratives from this outdated theoretical paradigm to best serve clients experiencing menopause, gynaecological surgery, and mid life in the twenty-first century.

scholarly journals Development and initial psychometric evaluation of the Body Image Matrix of Thinness and Muscularity – Female Bodies

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Beate Steinfeld ◽  
Andrea S. Hartmann ◽  
Manuel Waldorf ◽  
Silja Vocks
Keyword(s):  
Body Image ◽  
Convergent Validity ◽  
Female Body ◽  
Rating Scale ◽  
The Body ◽  
Retest Reliability ◽  
Figure Rating Scale ◽  
Body Ideal ◽  
Female Bodies ◽  
Test Retest Reliability

Abstract Background Despite evidence that thinness and muscularity are part of the female body ideal, there is not yet a reliable figure rating scale measuring the body image of women which includes both of these dimensions. To overcome this shortcoming, the Body Image Matrix of Thinness and Muscularity - Female Bodies (BIMTM-FB) was developed. Methods The objective of this study is to analyze the psychometric properties of this measure. N = 607 non-clinical women and N = 32 women with eating disorders answered the BIMTM-FB as well as instruments assessing eating disorder symptoms and body image disturbance in order to test the convergent validity of the BIMTM-FB. To assess test-retest reliability, a two-week interval was determined. Results The results indicated that the body-fat dimension of the BIMTM-FB correlates significantly with the Contour Drawing Rating-Scale, the Drive for Leanness Scale (DLS) and the Body Appreciation Scale, while the muscularity dimension of the BIMTM-FB was significantly associated with the DLS and the Drive for Muscularity Scale, proving the convergent validity of the BIMTM-FB. High coefficients of test-retest reliability were found. Moreover, the BIMTM-FB differentiated between the clinical sample and the non-clinical controls. Conclusions The BIMTM-FB is a figure rating scale assessing both thinness and muscularity as part of the female body ideal. Due to its high reliability and validity, the BIMTM-FB can be recommended in research and practice.

scholarly journals What Not To Wear Policing The Body Through Fashion Criticism

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kate Rothschild
Keyword(s):  
Reality Television ◽  
Critical Distance ◽  
The Body ◽  
Popular Media ◽  
Television Programs ◽  
Disciplinary Power ◽  
Television Shows ◽  
Model Project ◽  
Study Participants ◽  
Clothing Choices

Earlier studies investigating reality fashion television revealed that while participants and audiences are aware of mechanisms of surveillance and shame; scholarship also documented that critical distance from the program’s methods are not necessarily ideologically liberating for participants or audience. Indeed, as I argue and document in this current study, participants in reality fashion television shows remain caught in a pernicious power dynamic that is part and parcel of these shows. Specifically, by exploring examples from three popular fashion reality television programs—America’s Next Top Model, Project Runway, and Fashion Police—and by considering theories of fashion, gender, and power, I question the problematic ways in which popular media talk about fashion and clothing choices. Further, by drawing on Michel Foucault’s concepts of disciplinary power, I critically examine the judgments and assumptions that fashion critics impose on participants whose sartorial appearance they may find wanting. More generally, my study investigates the limitations of the widely accepted belief that fashion is a form of self- expression while I end with some more positive examples of fashion advocacy.

scholarly journals Shaping Girls: Analyzing Animated Female Body Shapes

Animation ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-36
Author(s):  
Rebecca Rowe
Keyword(s):  
Body Image ◽  
Female Body ◽  
The Body ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Young Girls ◽  
Film And Television ◽  
Inverted Triangle ◽  
Female Bodies ◽  
Nuanced Understanding ◽  
Body Shapes

The debate over whether television and film affect girls’ body image has been contentious. Researchers argue that film and television negatively affect, only partially affect, or do not affect girls’ body image. These studies have one common limitation: they approach animated female bodies as if they are the same because they are, mostly, thin. In this project, the author seeks to extend and complicate this existing scholarship by analyzing bodies in 67 films produced by several American animation studios from 1989 through 2016. In this study, she classifies 239 female characters as one of four body types: Hourglass, Pear, Rectangle, or Inverted Triangle. Her argument is two-fold: (1) over the last 30 years, there has been a shift from a singular dominant shape (Hourglass) to the dominance of several body shapes (especially Pear and Rectangle); and (2) young girls may be affected by characters their own age who have been largely ignored in studies thus far. The author argues that young girls see diverse images of bodies rather than the singular image that scholars study. Girls’ body image may be affected by animation, but animated images are so diverse that this effect may be difficult to determine. A more nuanced understanding of the body shapes animation utilizes may allow researchers to study the more complex messages that girls do or do not internalize.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document