thing, it was confinement and immobility. Yet the Mappers free- dom as Mary McCarthy's and Dorothy Parker short stores br ively cultivated Boren Susan, Ur sentasce wall tute, 4 THE Forimsan, westocy Catiaee, € TH Boo}, 993. Brealey: & Cal é 2003 C8 flaw etsey ehbun) Su Sp Botvo ‘The Body and the Reproduction of Femininity [RECONSTRUCTING FEMGNST DISCOURSE ON THE BODY ‘The body what we eat, how we dress, the dilysituals through ‘which we attend othe body-—isa medium of cltue. The body, as [anthropologist Mary Douglas has argued, is a powerful symbole form, a surlace on which the central ules, hierarchies, and even ‘metaphysial commitments ofa culture are inscribed and thus re- inforeed through the concrete language ofthe body. The body may tlso operate asa metaphor fr culture. From quarters as diverse a8 Plato and Hobbes to French feminist Luce Irigaray, an imagination ‘of body morphology has provided a blueprint for diagnosis and/or ‘ison of socal and politcal ite. “The body isnot only atx of culture. Its also, a anthropologist Pere Bourdieu and philosopher Michel Foucault (among others) hhave argued, a paca, direct locus of social contol. Banally, ‘through fable manners and toilet habis, through seemingly trivial routines, rules, and practices, cultures "made body,” as Bourdiew pulsit~convered into automatic, habitual activity. As suchiis put eeyond the grasp of consciousness... untouchable] by volun- tary, deliberate transformations"? Our conscious pois, socal ‘commitments, striving for change may be undermined and be- trayed by the life of our bodies—not the caving, instinctual body imagined by Plato, Augustine, and Freud, but what Foucault calls the "docile body,” regulated by the norms of cultural life.” “Throughout hislater “genealogical” works (Discipline and Punish, ‘The History of Sexuality), Foucault constantly reminds us ofthe pr Imacy of practice over belief. Not chiefly through ideology, but through the organization and regulation of the time, space, and ‘movements of our daily lives, our bodies are tained, shaped, and hs186 The Sener Boy and iter Clara Forms Impressed with the stamp of prevalling historical forms of elfhood, desire, masculinity, femininity. Such an emphasis casts «dark and disquieting shadow across the contemporary scene. For women, as study after study shows, are spending more ime on the manage- ‘ment and discipline of our bodies than we havein along, long ime, Ina decade marked by a reopening ofthe pubic arena to women, the intensification of such regimens appeats diversionary and sub- vertng. Through the pursuit of an ever-changing, homogenizing, sive ideal of femininity pursuit without a terminus, requiring that women constantly attend to minute and often whimsical changes in fashion—female bodies become docile bodies bodies whose forces and energies are habituated to external regulation, subjection, transformation, “improvement.” Through the exacting and normalizing discipines of dict, makeup, and dress—central ‘organizing, principles of time and space in the day of many ‘women—we are rendered less socially oriented and more centrip- tally focused on self: modification. Through these disciplines, we continue to memorize on our bodies the fee and conviction of lack, of insufficiency, of never being good enough. At the farthest ex treme, the practices of femininity may lead ws to utter demorl- ization, debilitation, and death Viewed historically, the discipline and normalization ofthe fe male body—pethaps the only gender oppression that exercises it salt, although to diferent degrees and in different forms, across age, race, clas, and sexual onntaton—has tbe acknowledged as an amazingly durable and lexble strategy of socal control. In our ‘own era, its dificult to avoid the recognition thatthe contemporary preoccupation with appearance which ail affects women ft more powerfully than men, even in our narcissistic and visually oriented ‘culture, may function asa backlash phenomenon, easserting & isting gender configurations against any atempts to shift or trane- form power relations Surely we ae in the throes of this backlash today. In newspapers and magazines we daily encounter stores that promote traditional gender relations and prey on anxieties about change: stories about latc-key children, abuse in day-care ‘centers, the “new woman's troubles with men, her lack of mar- ‘ageabiity, and so on. A dominant visual theme in teenage mag, azines involves women hiding in the shadows of men, seeking solace in thelr arms, willingly contracting the space they occupy. he Boy andthe Reproduction o Femininity 367 ‘Thelast, ofcourse, seo describes our contemporary aesthetic ideal forwomn,anideal whose obsessive pursuithas become the central torment of many women’slives. In sich an era we desperately need, an effective poltcal discourse about the female body, a discourse adequate to an analysis ofthe insidious, and often paradoxical, pathways of modern social contol ‘Developing sucha discourse requires reconstructing the feminist paradigm of the late 19608 and early 16708, with ts politcal cate- {orles of oppressors and oppressed, villains and victims. Here I believe that a feminist appropriation of some of Foucsul’ Inter concepts can prove useful Following Foucault, we must fist aban- ‘don the idea of power as something possessed by one group and leveled against another; we mas instead think ofthe network of practices, institutions, and technologies that sustain positions of dominance and subordination in a particular domain. Second, we need an analytics adequate to deserbe a power whose central mechanisms are not repressive, but constitute: "a power bent on generating forces, making them grovt, and ordering ‘hem, eather than one dedicated to impeding them, making them submit, or destroying them.” Particularly inthe realm of femininity, ‘where so much depends on the seemingly willing acceptance of ‘various norms and practices, we need an analysis of power "from below,” as Foucault pus it; for ample, ofthe mechanisms that shape and proliferate rather than repress—desire, generate and focus our energies, construct our conceptions of normalcy and deviance.® ‘And, third, we needa discourse that will enable us to account for the subversion of potential rebelion, a discourse that, while insist ing on the necesty of objective analysis of power relations, socal Inerarchy, political backlash, and soforth, will nonetheless allow us to confront the mechanisms by which the subject at times becomes ‘meshed in collusion with forces tha sustain her own oppression. “This essay wil not attempt to produce a general theory along ‘these lines. Rather, my focus wil be the analysis of one particular arena where the interplay ofthese dynamics is striking and perhaps ‘cxemplay. Iti a limited and unusual arena, that of a group of fenderrelated and historically localized disorders: hysteria, ag0- ‘phobia, and anoreda nervosa. recognize that these disorders have aleo historically been claes- and race-biased, largely although168 The Sener Body al ter Calta Forms not exclusively) occurring among white middle- and upper-middle- ‘dass women, Nonetheless, anorexia, hysteria, and agoraphobia ‘may provide a paradigm of one way in which potential resistance {snot merely undereut but ule in the maintenance and repro- Auction of existing power relations.” ‘The central mechanism Iwill describe involves a transformation (cr ifyouwish, duality of meaning, through which conditions that are objectively (and, on one level, experientilly) constraining, enslaving, and even murderous, come tobe experienced as ber ating, transforming, and le-giving, I offer this analysts, although limited to a specific domain, as an example of how various con temporary eritial discourses may be joined to yield an understand ing ofthe subtle and often unwitting role played by our bodies in the symbolzation and reproduction of gender. ‘The continuum between female disorder and “normal” feminine practic is sharply revealed through a close reading of those dis- ‘orders to which women have been particularly vulnerable, These, ‘ofcourse, have varied historically: neurathenia nd hysteria in the second half of the nineteenth century; agoraphobia and, most dra- matically, anorexia nervosa and bulimia i the second half of the ‘twentieth century. This snot to sy that anorectce didnot exist in the nineteenth cenfury-—many cass were deseribed, usually in the context of diagnoses of hysteria? or that women no longer suffer from classical hysterical symptoms inthe twentieth century. But the taking up of eating disorders on a mass scale eas unique to the culture ofthe 1s asthe epidemic of hysteria was tothe Victorian ‘Thesymptomatology ofthese disorders evealsitselfastextulity Loss of mobility, lss of voice, inability to leave the home, feeding others while starving onesel, taking up space, and whiting down the space one's body takes upall have symbolic meaning, alhave politcal meaning under the varying rules governing the historical ‘onstruction of gender. Working within this amewoek, we se that whether we look at hysteria, agoraphobia, or anores, we ind the body ofthe sufferer deeply insrbed with an ideological construc: tion of femininity emblematic ofthe period in question. The can- ‘he Boy andthe Reproduction of Femininity 16) struction, ofcourse, islways homogenizing and normalizing, eras- {ng racial class, and other diferences and insisting that all women aspietoa coercive, standardized del. Strikingly, in these disorders ‘the construction of femininity Is written in disturbingly concrete, hyperbolic terms: exaggerated, extremely literal at times virtually carcatured presentations ofthe ruling feminine mystique. The bod- Jes of disordered women in this way offer themselves as an ag {gressively graphictext forthe interpreteratextthat insists, actualy ‘demands, that it be read asa cultural statement, a statement about ender, Both nineteenth-entury male physicians and twentieth-century feminist critics have seen, inthe symptoms of neurasthenla and hysteria (eyndromes that became increasingly less differentiated a5 the century wore on), an exaggeration of stereotypically feminine traits, The nineteenth-century “lady” was idealized in terms of ‘The literature on both anorexia and hysteria i strewn with battles of wil between the sufferer and those tying to “cure” her, the latter, as Orbach points out, ver rarely understand thal the paychic values she i fighting for are often more important tothe women than life tel ‘TEXTUALITy, PRAMS, AND THE BODY ‘The “solutions” offered by anorexia, hysteria, and agoraphobia, I have suggested, develop out ofthe practice of femininity itself, the pursuit of which is sill presented asthe chief route to acceptance land succes for women in our culture. Too aggressively pursued, that practiceleads tots own undoing none sense, For feiniity| is, a8 Susan Brownmillerhas said tits cor "tradition ofimposed. Limitations then an unwilingness to limit oneself, even inthe Pursuit of femininity, breaks the rules. But, ofcourse, in another Sense the rules remain fully in place. The suferer becomes wedded ‘oan obsessive practice, unable to make any effective change inher life. She remains, a5 Torl Moi has putt, “gagged and chained to [the feminine oe,” areproducer of the docile body of femininity.” ‘The Bay nd the Repraduction of Femininity 8, ‘This tension between the psychological meaning ofa disorder, hich may enact fantasies of rebelon and embody a language of protest, and the practical lie of the disordered body, which may lately defeat rebelion nd subvert protest, may be obscured by too teclusive a foeus on the symbolic dimension and insufficient a fention to praxis. As we have seen in the case of some Lacanian feminist readings of hysteria, the result ofthis can be a one-sided _ interpretation that romantcizes the hysterics symbolic subversion ‘of the phallocentrc order while confined to her bed. This isnot to say that confinement in bed has a transparent, univocal mean- ‘ng—in powerlessness, debiltation, dependency, and 0 forth. The practical” body is no brte biological or material entity. t,t, is culturally mediated formy its actives are subject to interpretation land description. The shift othe practical dimension is nota turn _tobiology or nature, but to another “repster,” as Foucault puts it, ‘of the cultural body, the register ofthe “useful body” rather than ‘the “intligibie body." The distinction can prove useful, believe, to feminist discourse, ‘The intelligible body inchudes our scientific, philosophic, and _acstheticrepresentations ofthe body-—ourcultural conceptions ofthe _ body, norms ofbesuty, models of health, and so forth. But the same ‘representations may also be seen as forming ast of practical rules and regulations through which the living body is "tained, shaped, ‘obeys, responds,” becoming in short, a socially adapted and "use "ful body.” Consider this particularly clear and appropriate exam ple: the nineteenth-century hourglass figure, emphasizing breasts and hips against a wasp waist, was an inteligible emf form, representing a domestic, sexuaized ideal of femininity. The sharp cultural contrast between the female and the male form, made _ possible by the use of corsets and bustes, reflected, in symbolic terms, the dualistic division of socal and economic life into clearly defined male and female spheres. At the same time, to achieve the spectied look, a particular feminine praxis was required trails: sng, minimal esting, reduced mobility rendering the female body ‘unfit to perform activities outside its designated sphere. This, in Foucauldian terms, would be the "useful body” corresponding to the aesthetic norm ‘The ineligible body and the useful body are two arenas ofthe same discourse: they often mirror and support each other, as in the82 The Slender Bay and ter Clara Forms ‘he Bay ad th Reproduction f Femininity 18, analyses ofthe female body as locus of practical cultural conte "Among feminist theorists in thie country, the study of ealtal above illustration. Another example can be found in the severe teenth-century philosophic conception ofthe body as a machine, mirroring an increasingly more automated productive machinery of labor. But the two bodies may also contradict and mock each other A range of contemporary representations and images, a8 noted eater, have coded the transcendence of female appetite and its pubic display in the slenderness ideal in terms of power, wil, ‘mastery, the possibilities of success in the professional arena, These ‘associations are caried visually by the slender superwomen of prime-time television and popular movies and promoted explicit ‘nadvertsements and artes appearing routinely in womens fas on magazines, diet books, and weighttraning publications. Yet the thousands of slender gils and women who stive to embody ‘these images and who in that service suffer from eating disorders, ‘exercise compulsions, and continual self scrutiny and slf-castiga: tion are anything but the “masters” of thei ives, Exposure and productive cultural analysis of such contradictory ‘and mystifying relations between image and practice are posable ‘only if the analysis includes attention to and interpretation ofthe “useful” of as | prefer to calli, the practical body. Such attention, although often in inchoate and theoretically unsophisticated form, was cera tothe beginnings of the contemporary feminist move: ‘ment. In the late 1960s and early 19708 the abjctifation of the {female body was a serious political issue, All the cultural patapher- naa of femininity, of learning to please visually and sexually through the practices ofthe body—media imagery, beauty pag ‘ants, high heels, girdles, makeup, simulated orgasm—were seen as crucial in maintaining gender domination Disquietingly, forthe feminists ofthe present decade, such focus ‘on the politics of feminine praxis although stil maintained in the ‘work of individual feminist, is no longer a centerpiece of feminist cultural erique:® On the popula front, we find Ms. magazine resenting issues on fitness and “style,” the shetorcreconstrcted for the 1980s to pitch "seltexpression” and “power” Although feminist theory surely has the tools it has not provided e eral discourse to dismantle and demystify this chetorc. The work of French feminists has provided a powerful framework for under: standing the inscription of phllocentric, dualistic culture on gem ny version ofthis xy, ender aout, were delved tthe ‘Phlesphydepermentf the State Univer New York st Stony rok ‘Be Unery of Mancusi conference on Hits f Senay, ond {he twenty snl conference fo fe Sac of Pheomenoiogy snd ‘EEAcnua Pusophy. 1 thank al how who commented a proved ‘seooragement on those oc, The ey war eve and gia {bl in Alan Jog and Sioa Bde, ConeBagomne Femina Retraction of Bang and Reong (ew Brana Rages ney Fre 959). "Wary Dovgln Nate! Symi (New Yok: Pantheon, sf) and tty and anger Landon oatege and Kagan Pl 980) 2 Flere Boule, Otine of Try of Pras (Cambro edge Univers Pres 197 P94 (phasing). “On doaiy sce cha Four icin snd Pash New Yrs Vinings 579) ng 4, ForsFowemdbm aaa eine pra, ‘er Sinn Bay, “owen Femininity an he Moderna of Fe ‘SacalPower"in her Fein and Doman New York: Rowe, ‘spores Suan Brownie, eminity New YO Baste, 98). Notes to Pages 166-48 329 4. Daring the late g7es and ps, male concern over appearance undtialy increased. Study aller sty confirm, however, tat here ie ‘lla large gender gap inthis ars. Research conduc a the University ‘of Penneyivanaa ns found mento be generaly sated with thet "sppentance often, in fat, “distorting their perception (of themselves) in poste, slragvandiing way” (Dalike of Own Boies Found Com: ‘mon Among Women,” New Yor Tims, Match 19985, . C3). Women, however, were found to exh extreme negative asesnmen and distor tons of body perception. Other studies have sugested Ut women are judge more harshly than men when they deviate from dominant scl Standards of atactveness. Thomas Cash etal, in "The Great Ameen ‘Shape Up,” Pyhaogy Today (Apa 986), p. 3, report that although the Sshston fr men ha "he stuaon for women has me than proportionally worsened. iting result frm yoo responses Wo 41985 orvey of perxpton of body image and comparing smile responses ‘gy questonrae, they report Ua the spy respondents were consi. ‘rab more dist with their bodies than the 973 respondents, and they note marked inenalfcaton ofconcern among en, Among te 198 [roup, the group mos dianasied of al with their appearance, Rowe, ‘ere teenage women. Women today constit by far the largest number of consumer of diet product, atender of spur and diet center, and Sujets of itstial by-pass and other fat zeducton operations 5 Michel Fours, Peston Seca. Va Ax braaction New York: Vintage, 1980), pp. 196,94 ‘6, Onthe gendered and Nistor natre of these disorders: the nm ‘ber of female to male hysterics has been estimated at anywhere fom 210 {gs anda many as percent of al agoraphobic re female (Annet Brody and Rachel Hare Mastin, Women ant Paychtherapy (New Yor: Gallord Press, 198], pp. 116 132). Although more ese of mae eating ‘Gsordere hve been rpored inthe ate ight and ely nets, # ‘timated that cose ogo percent ofall anorectic are feral Paul Gael {nd David Garner, Ano News: A Maltsiersonal Perspctoe (New York: Brunner Masel, 8a, pp.ss233). Fora sopbiotated account of female psychopathology, with particular atenton to nineteen ary ‘Geerders bt, unfrtrately, lie mention of egarphobia or xing da ‘orders, ce Baie Showalter, The Femi Malay ome, Mads and Ex {lst Calne, 2830-1 (New York: Pantheon, 1983) Fora dscesuon of Social and gender ssues in agoraphobia, se Robert Seidenberg and Karen [DeCeowe, Women Who ary Howes: Pan nd Pret in Agorphlt (New ‘York’ McGraw-Hill, 183). On the history of anorexia nervosa, se Joon [cobs Brumberg, acting Gils The Earp of Arve Nero er Disase (Cambridge: Harvard University Pes, 1988). 2. Inconsruting sucha paradign dono preted todo justice to any ofthese disorders individual complenity-MYaimistcharseme pints ‘of intersecton, to dese some sous patens, as they emerge though ‘arta reading of the phenomenon pottial reading # ou wl.S90 Note Paps 168-7 8, Showalter, The Feale Malady, pp 28-29 ne 9. On the epee of hyteria nd neutateni, se Showaler, Fone Maly Carell Seth Rosenber, "The Hysterical Wome Sex Roles and Roe Cone in Nineteenth Centary Ameri,” in her Disrdery inc: Visions of Gonder in Viera Ameria (Oxon: Oxford University Pros, 3983). "o. Matha Vicinus,“Itoducion: The Perfect Victorian Lady," Mae- ‘ha Vina, Sufer and Be Sil Women inthe Vitara Age (Blomingn Tndana Universty Press, 573), pp. 9-8, 1 Se Caol Nielson aed Malkah Notman, The Female Petit (New ‘York: Plenum, 2383), p. "EM. Sigpworth and T.). Wye, “A Shady of Vitra Prosttion and Veneeal Disease,” in Vina, fran til, ps Former general discussions ce Peter Gay, The Bourges Experi iar Fred Vol 3 Eden the Srey New York Ovond Urveray Press 1984), ep. pp. 109-88 Showalter, The Fon Malady, ep. pp 131- “u. The debs ly, an Heal that had ery song das conorations (as ‘tes slendernes today) tthe only conception of fein fo be found in Vetoran cltures, But # was arpasly the single most power ‘eoloial representation of femininity in that a, affecting women of all lasses including those without the material means relic the ideal {uly See Helene Mite, The Fk Made Word (New York: Ono, 58), for dicusions of th contol female appetite and Vicorsn constuction’ 12, Seu Rosenberg, Disrdy Conde, p23. 13 Showalter, The Fone Malay, p35, Teenage” 16, See G- Foor, "The Phabic Syndrome in Women nV. Franks and Bue Women Therapy (New Yor: rannerMael 97). tng see ao Kathleen Brehoy, "Women and Agoraphobaa "in Viet Franks and Esther Roth, es, The Seeyping of omen (New Yor Speinge 158. 17m Jonathan Cue, Rao arte (New York: Ord Univeiy Pree 1989 B74 “8, For other intrpreve perspectives onthe senderes ies, see “Reading the Stender Body” this volume; Kim Chemin, Te Olsen: ‘Refectory of Slr Nee Yo Harper td Row, 18 ‘Ste Orbach Hanger Sate The Aer’ Sgge ae tap or Our Ae {New York W. W! Norn, 19). 1. See “Hunger a delogy, inthis volume, fra discussion of hoe ‘hs arcon oer Weprodncrdincontenpory comers and avertsements concerning food ein. ahd cooking Noten Paps 17276 338 2. Aimee La Saltire (Nowe York Harper and Row, 7) p13. 2. Seung comecion with this Ene Since Alas ly sy ahighachoal women which evaisa rama escaenbtwees Problems with fad nd body image td emon of ie ol Pe ‘onal “together” and gorgeous sopenvoman: On the bas of sees intervtws the high stole wer stil tro grup: ene ‘sed step over the superman Kes, the oe rough redtot tnterscmisunson of Sprott vee tt sppeper {be prosupenvoman ou lin tne eng dander neg oe Seale: Othe er goup, i percent flint he nonering dace ‘Sree. Meda images niiftanding Young women flapper ‘er, her oneoualy or tug ha be heise of ‘ultaneoush meting demand ol trospheres whose valet have been stray died eter opposion cach oer "2 See “Ato Nero inthe hee 25, Diane Hater, "Ht, Psychos ad ei,” Shi ley Carer, Chie Kahane nd Maen Sprenger, ee The OMe? Timge thas Cornel Univers Pres, 189) Pec. 1 Catherine Cement and one Cs Te aly Bre onan, ‘en ety Wing Minneapolis Pres RP 25. Clement and Coy The Neal ar Momus 95. 2%, Sedenberg tnd DeCiow, men Wo Mary Howe. 2 Srv Rostborg Desde Crt poh 2. Ouch Hanger Sire, 1 When we okt the many ato ographes and cases of hiyatercy sre and apraphoia, ne find that theese nerd the ao woman oe might {rata bythe conta oa pied eae le Sigma ond Joseph reer, San fre New ee Avon). a ed Sn the ter DA Aas of Caso Hysra (New York Moca, 1963, contanly rma on the atone independence, ceca ‘Sit, and erie tang ther pte WeLoow, moreover at ‘man amen who ater bce nines act othe ‘tent etary were among thre who ell wit itera snd see {then than ome «vl che ta the fy ane er ieesoni, vento cue in allaa of here. Though ess romney, $i dheme ruts deoupost he Mestre on ageapheti, ‘One mst hep m mid that in dang on ea ne ying on th pocepns of oer acted ids, One sapere Re ‘Lampe that he pop port ofthe aor et een ver “cever maybe etd bythe ingetog or perapeesurgent Viera ‘sm of our Cau’ ats tons sous nn One dost ‘Supe ths hermeneate probly trang t stopp Ben Setebiogrphy nei oat dein with ssl conten {des tht anit the moby owe pay synths seed he {stobiogapica temtue on anor dawn ons vatey of Paces {is volumes gy flo ant south domes wed saga Noe to ages 76-85 ter themes that suggest deep rebellon aginst tadional notions of ‘erin ‘3. Kim Chemin, The Hungry Sa: Women, Eling, and tity (New Yosh Harper and Row 1983), cp. pp. 41-99. 0. Mark Poster, Fowl Mera, ant History (Cambridge: Polity Press 198) a8 St Ls Slit, p99. 5. Breit Svertein, “Possible Cases ofthe Thin Standard of Bolly acne for Women,” International oun of Eating Des 5 985 76. 3. Showalter, The Fenle Malay. 48. 34. Sar Rowenben, Dery Coat, p. 207. 235, Orbach, Hunger Sri, p. 2. 58 Brownie, Fein, P14 37, Tol Mei, “Representations of Patriarchy Sex and pistemaogy in ‘eeu Dora," n Chae Bernbelner and Clare Kahane, eds Tn Cos (ise: Feud HteraFeminion (New York Columbia Univerty Pres, 1989) P193 \ Note to Paps 1-89 339 ers (New York Harpe and Row, 198), 15 See Thomas Cash, Babul Winstead, and Lous} ‘American Shapeup” Pacey Tay (Apr 986 ‘sing Game,” Time (Jan. 20, 198), among numerous ors r ee a nd aan ope ol ee ee sma do yee ee “ay ofan, he ice fa nea a Sess Sa etias Aree Facemandos'y grr cele ae ees ieaaieegeee eres ‘Cawiord, “A Cultural Account of Hesih > Se Con trl Releae and the Socal Body in John McKinlay, owes Pcl Eze of Hate Care (Nev Yack Methuen, 1963), pp. 0-108, 9: ea Sach and Mare Zimmer, Dying Thin New York Wane