female body
OK, here goes. I am deeply troubled by this week's readings, I guess they bring up things that I don't like to think about...like anorexia, and the ridiculous cultural standards in this country for women's bodies, and the idea that men and masculinity are the "norm" the "standard", and femeninity is, by definition, what masculinity is not...I just hate all of that crap. So, I am going to try to forget about all of that, and make some kind of insightful comment anyway...sigh!
I found it difficult to disagree with much of what Bordo asserts, which makes it more distressing. I do think the idea that the anorexic girl becomes more "male" as she loses weight is a little strange. Especially since just a few pages ago it was pointed out that the male ideal of beauty right now is bulky and muscular...so, if the anorexic is becoming male, she is therefore unsucessful at acheiving male beauty (which makes it even more depressing). OK, I don't have anything more to say about that right now. Except that, I wonder, on a slightly different note,
what to think of the Pride and Prejudice director's comment about Kiera Knightley being boyish, and therefore "un" beautiful enough to play Elizabeth Bennett. In light of the whole boyish/anorexic/female power thing...hmmm...and yet, her boyishness is what made her less attractive...hmmm.
Talking in class about drag queens and drag kings made me think a bit afterwards. It is interesting that men are more difficult to parody. I really don't want to agree with the justification that men are the "norm", or the standard, or whatever, so they have no obvious physical constructs to parody. It is odd, though, that the phenomenon of "drag kings" has not been as pervasive as that of queens. why is that? I guess the first thing that comes to my mind is the fact that most women wear mens, or at least gender ambiguous clothes often, but the same is not true for men. A discussion I had over the break comes to mind. A friend of mine from high school has two little boys, about the same age as my kids. She was expressing thanks that she had two kids of the same sex, so that they could share clothes, and I told her that I do that too, even though Bree is a girl, I often dress her in Matthew's old clothes. Then we had a laugh about what if it had been the other way around, we agreed that we would never dress a boy in girls clothes. Why not, though? Why do I see no problem with cross dressing my baby girl (and I put her in things that are obviously boyish) but agree that dressing a male infant in a pink sleeper, not to mention a dress, would be obviously deviant and downright unfathomable? Why is it such a big deal? Anyway, it made me wonder...is it because the boy clothes are not just for boys, but simply "normal" clothes? it makes womanhood seem so artificial...maybe Virginia had it right, we just all need to move toward androgyny.
I found it difficult to disagree with much of what Bordo asserts, which makes it more distressing. I do think the idea that the anorexic girl becomes more "male" as she loses weight is a little strange. Especially since just a few pages ago it was pointed out that the male ideal of beauty right now is bulky and muscular...so, if the anorexic is becoming male, she is therefore unsucessful at acheiving male beauty (which makes it even more depressing). OK, I don't have anything more to say about that right now. Except that, I wonder, on a slightly different note,
what to think of the Pride and Prejudice director's comment about Kiera Knightley being boyish, and therefore "un" beautiful enough to play Elizabeth Bennett. In light of the whole boyish/anorexic/female power thing...hmmm...and yet, her boyishness is what made her less attractive...hmmm.
Talking in class about drag queens and drag kings made me think a bit afterwards. It is interesting that men are more difficult to parody. I really don't want to agree with the justification that men are the "norm", or the standard, or whatever, so they have no obvious physical constructs to parody. It is odd, though, that the phenomenon of "drag kings" has not been as pervasive as that of queens. why is that? I guess the first thing that comes to my mind is the fact that most women wear mens, or at least gender ambiguous clothes often, but the same is not true for men. A discussion I had over the break comes to mind. A friend of mine from high school has two little boys, about the same age as my kids. She was expressing thanks that she had two kids of the same sex, so that they could share clothes, and I told her that I do that too, even though Bree is a girl, I often dress her in Matthew's old clothes. Then we had a laugh about what if it had been the other way around, we agreed that we would never dress a boy in girls clothes. Why not, though? Why do I see no problem with cross dressing my baby girl (and I put her in things that are obviously boyish) but agree that dressing a male infant in a pink sleeper, not to mention a dress, would be obviously deviant and downright unfathomable? Why is it such a big deal? Anyway, it made me wonder...is it because the boy clothes are not just for boys, but simply "normal" clothes? it makes womanhood seem so artificial...maybe Virginia had it right, we just all need to move toward androgyny.
posted by Jenni Lovato at 10:37:00 PM
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