Transcript Reinstating Corporeality: Feminism and Body Politics by

Reinstating Corporeality:
Feminism and Body Politics
by Janet Wolff
A presentation by Sabrina Boyer
“What is being carved in human flesh is an
image of society”
-Mary Douglas
Aims of Presentation
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To establish if the body is a
sight of cultural/political
protest
to discuss the possibility of
women’s bodies becoming
the site of feminist cultural
studies
to recognize the dangers of
these body politics
to deconstruct the classical
category of “woman”
The essence of time...
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Establish article
(10min)
Video(5 min)
Class Discussion (10
min
Finish article,
establish point (5
min)
The Danger of Body Politics
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Wolff discusses 2 examples
illustrating a failure of body
politics: women protested
the sole use by men of a
bathing area by entering the
water and removing their
own suits
A documentary of the
pornography industry made
by women was presented in
a sleazy section of England,
attended by few women
Discussion Question
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Wolff’s point: There are existing problems
with using the female body for feminist ends.
The bodies preexisting meanings as sex
object and object of the male gaze always
prevails(82).
Though our culture defines women’s bodies
as passive and subordinate, can women
engage in a critical poltics of the body? If so,
how?
Wolff says...
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Yes! The body can be a site
of political intervention.
Why?
Because it is precisely the
site of repression and
possession.
It is on these issues that
feminists have argued FOR
intervention through the
body (83).
Repression and Marginalization of the
Body in Western Culture
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Mary Douglas has shown that the body operates as a
symbol of society
Who is Mary Douglas?
A self taught archaeologist and anthropologist who
speculated that symbols grounded in the human
body express social experience-the body is taught to
individuals
The “natural symbols” of the human body, such as
blood, breath, excrement, are applied to ideas,
practices, institutions, rituals and societies
Wolff says...
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These rituals concerning
bodily behavior are
understood as the
functioning of social rules
and boundaries
These “boundaries” of the
body come to represent
threats and powers, in turn,
symbolizing social
boundaries
appropriate bodily behavior
equals social order and
hierarchy
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Norbert Elias
Now, who is he?
A sociologist who wrote The
Civilizing Process-a book
which chronicled the
manners and personalities of
Western Europe
In Elias’ process, the body is
constantly patrolled, the
range of acceptable behavior
narrowly defined.
Michel Foucault
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A French historian
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examined the codes and
theories of order by societies
and the “principles of
exclusion” through which
they define themselves
For example, the sane vs the
insane, the innocent and the
criminal
The body is brought into
discourse-supervised,
observed, and controlled
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Self-surveillance
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The outcome of the
body supervised,
observed and controlled
The body has been
denied and marginalized
in Western Culture
based on the needs of
bourgeois
capitalism(85).
The Female Body in Western Culture
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Are women too
close to the body?
It is through the
body women learn
self-surveillance
In what ways do
women selfsurveillance
themselves?
Isn’t it great being a woman?
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Women diet, dress for a
certain effect, monitor their
movement and gestures,
participate in cultural norms
such as shaving of legs and
arms
It is through the body
women divulge in their own
oppression
women learn as girls to
conform to what is in their
culture, and to monitor their
appearance
Listen up girls! Cosmo says:
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If you just love being a girl (and really look like one)
this is your time! After decades of “you can never be
too rich or too thin,” the all-girl girl has reemerged to
be celebrated and adored. Curves a la Monroe (if
she’d worked out a bit more!) are what’s red-hot
now. So if you’ve been disguising all those luscious
lines under industrial-strength bras and baggy
sweaters, stop! Here are a few suggestions for really
showing off this shapely, gorgeous girl. (Cosmo,
1989) (87).
The Male Gaze
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Come on, do women really
lounge around in the nude,
or is this for the male gaze?
Can women paint women’s
bodies?
Can the body be a site of
cultural critique?
Can women’s bodies be
portrayed as something
other than through the
regimes of representation
and as an object of male
desire? (or female desire?)
Transgression and the
Female Body
The classical vs. the grotesque body
 Women are classical-going back to Mary
Douglas’ ideas of the functions of the
human body
 Women are seen as classical-never
showing the these functions of the body
 If they are shown, she is somehow
grotesque. The virgin/whore dichotomy
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The classical vs the
grotesque
Julia Kristeva: who is she?
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A literary feminist who relates the “monstrous-feminine”
the maternal body is an object of horror: why?
feeling of fear of the reincorporation in the mother and fear of
the mother’s power
the child separates from the mother and becomes a subject
As a result the maternal body becomes “abject” : an object of
horror and threat
however, this is particularly the male child
she argues that this could explain the virgin/whore dichotomy
which counterposes the “pure woman” (classic body) to the slut
(the grotesque)
Discussion Question
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Does the
“monstrousfeminine” render the
abject body a
potential site for
transgression and
feminist
intervention?
L’ecriture feminine:French Feminism
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Kristeva: contrasts
the realm and
language of …
The Symbolic: law of
the father, identified
with coming into
language
Symbolic is the
entrance into the
world
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The Semiotic: the
prelinguistic, the
bodily drives,
rhythms, and
pulsions experienced
by the child in the
fusion with the
mother which result
in repressed feelings
and pleasures
Women and the Body
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French feminism is
writing grounded in
women’s experience
of the body and
sexuality
This is not mediated
by men or
partriarchy (91).
Discourse and the Body
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The Body is a social,
historical, and ideological
construct (92).
It is seen by women as
lacking or incomplete
Do you think the body can
ever be experienced without
having been mediated
through constructs and
discourse?
Why or why not?
Wolff points out...
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There can be “no ‘direct’ experience of
the body, and we cannot talk about, or
even conceive of, the body as some
pre-given entity. What constitutes the
body, and what constitutes the female
body and its experience, is already
implicated in language and discourse.”
But….don’t abandon!
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Wolff states, “the female
body, as discursively and
socially constructed, and as
currently experienced by
women, may form the basis
of a political and cultural
critique--so long as it is one
which recognizes the body
as an effect of practices,
ideologies, and discourses.”
(94).
That means…learn from the
past!
Gender, Dance and Body Politics
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The classical ballet has
lead to the preservation
of the classical body.
Has helped reinforce
the strict limits and size
and weight
Roles created, such as
swans, fairies, peasant
girls, have lead to a
construct of a strangely
disembodied
female(95).
Modern Dance
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Modern Dance has
allowed women to
become innovators and
choreographers, not
just dancers.
Deals with stories of
strong women, and
stories told from a
woman’s point of view.
Has introduced weight
and relationship to
ground
Let’s hear it for women!
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Do you think
modern dance has
begun to truly use
the body as a
political tool?
Why or why not?
The body as politics
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Two kinds of risk:
these images can be
reworked and read
differently than their
intended meaning
may go along with
sexist thinking which
identifies the woman
with the body
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Therefore, what
should body politics
do to combat these
risks?
Speak about the
body, stressing its
social construction
and recognizing its
representation (96).
Therefore...
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Through questioning
our bodies, our
identities, our origins
and our functions,
women may work
toward a
nonpartriarchal
expression of gender
and body.
Do you agree?
Desmond, Jane C. Meaning in Motion,
“Reinstating
Corporeality: Feminism and Body Politics” Janet
Wolff. 1997. Duke University Press