 Sparkes,
Andrew C.
"Reflections on the Socially Constructed Physical Self." The
Physical Self: From Motivation to Well-Being.
Ed. Fox, Kenneth R. Champaign,
IL: Human Kinetics, 1997. 83-110.
.since the 1950s a cluster of ideas
centering on body shape have been tightly interwoven as the dangers
of consumerism and sedentariness, and its links to heart disease,
have been popularized on a mass scale. In this context, body shape
has become a critical sign of success, control and personal worthiness,
while fatness has increasingly become a metaphor for ugliness,
indulgence, greed and sloth...
in consumer culture those who can get their body to approximate the idealized
images of youth, health, fitness and beauty have a higher economic exchange
value than those who cannot, or do not wish to match such idealized images
(89)
So my feelings of systemic low self-worth and
self-loathing are not pathological. They're accurate reflections
of the messages I've received from my culture. Because of my body
shape, I'm worth less than someone who more closely matches the
culture's ideal.
The rewards for ascetic body work cease
to be spiritual salvation or even improved health, but become an
enhanced appearance and a more marketable self. The pursuit of
this goal leads to a preoccupation with fat, diet and slenderness
that in turn functions as a powerful normalizing strategy
ensuring the production of "docile bodies" (Foucault 1977). These
bodies are self-monitoring and self-disciplining, sensitive to
any departure from social norms, and are constantly striving for
self-improvement and transformation in the service of these norms.
(90)
All my life I've railed against,
and been humiliated by the clear evidence of my low status. My
body has provided other people - my family,
my husband, my culture and even strangers - with an excuse to abuse,
mock and harm me.
...the rise of consumer
culture. which
approximately coincides with the emergence of the culture
of narcissism. As a result. a new conception of self has
emerged, revolving around the performing self, that places
greater emphasis on appearance, display, and the management
of impressions. (92)
My stigmatization
is based on a superficial standard. Except for two years in my
mid-40s when my weight spiked dramatically, my health has never
been endangered by my weight, but nevertheless, I've been humiliated,
not for whom I am, but for how I look. Not to display in the appropriate manner
according to the context can have drastic consequences... it can
mean the difference between being accepted into a social group
and being rejected or excluded from the group. It can mean the
difference between having our sense of self confirmed and having
it denied by significant others in our life. It can lead people
to have what Goffman (
Goffman, E. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Harmondsworth:
Penguin, 1971) called stigmatized identities.
As early as in ancient Greece the term stigma was taken to refer
to bodily signs that supposedly exposed something unusual or bad
about the moral status of a person. More than ever... the body
is one of the key sources of stigma in a contemporary society that
places so much attention on the performing body. (93)
All my life I've
experienced equal parts shame and fury because my culture has
insisted that I accomodate an arbitrary standard. Part of me
has striven desperately to conform, while the other part has
fiercely rebelled. My body has been filled with shame and righteous
anger.
From Ellie: The
shame and fury are real, but its target sort of isn't. 'Culture'
can't really insist because in a sense it doesn't exist.
People talk about 'culture' or 'society' as if they are some sort
of autonomous entities, but really there are no such things. 'Culture'
is just a lot of individual people doing similar things. 'Culture'
doesn't prefer some body shapes over others, individual people
do. 'Culture' doesn't force us to buy into majority opinion, we
do that ourselves. So from an embodiment studies point
of view, how could the question go? Current American majority
opinion needs to be disregarded, yes (on very many points). Body
as social-climbing currency is a perversion, it goes without
saying. (Ursula Le Guin talks about body profiteers.) However,
that doesn't imply that the 600-pound woman is okay as is - but
why not? Because the important question is, what do bodies themselves
want to be like, for their own enjoyment and free function? Often
overweight and unexercised is an expression of dissociation;
people eat and drink instead of feeling and knowing. If they
didn't do that they would eat what they need and not more. Thin
people who dissociate in some other less visible way blame and
scapegoat those who do it visibly, and yes that's unfair, but
the more central question is: what would body-self-loyalty want?
Sparkes: Those
who fail to live up to peoples' expectations and stereotypes
about "normal" physical
appearance and behavior tend to get disqualified from full social
acceptance. (93)
Yep...
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