Foucault, Femininity And The Modernization Of Patriarchal Power Summary

In order to understand the power structures present in her description of life as a low-wage worker in Nickel and Dimed, we need to first understand Michael Foucault’s philosophy regarding discipline and surveillance. Rather than perceive power and discipline as strictly political and authoritative, Foucault believes that society is structured in a way in which constant observation disciplines us to abide by social norms and expectations. This constant surveillance is omnipresent in the sense that observation occurs in all realms of society, from education to sexuality. To further explain this idea of disciplining through constant inspection, Foucault describes Jeremy Bentham’s panoptican, a type of prison in which

As society has progressed, Foucault explains, these practices have expanded into other institutions such as hospitals, schools, prisons and asylums. Bentham’s Panopticon embodies such disciplinary

As the world has grown throughout the centuries, females have generally been under the domination of males. This remained culturally entrenched until the late nineteenth century, when women began to appear in public more often and also began to join alongside men in the work force. In the network of employees and employers in the emerging institution of the Parisian department store, men and women depended on each other for survival in the workplace. Such interdependence is a microcosm of the bourgeois French society during that time, which Emile Zola wrote of in The Ladies’ Paradise, the eleventh book of the Rougon-Macquart series detailing middle-class life. According to Professor Brian

According to Foucault, power does not belong to the individual, but to the system, to the institution. In his essay on Discipline and Punish, Foucault presents his idea of the panopticon mechanism, a mechanism in which visibility is a trap. With little importance over the actual individual in the role of the observer or of the observed, the object of the system is total power over the observed. Due to the unique shape of the panopticon, there are no corners and thus no blind spots for the observed to hide in. The private space is replaced by the public one. Furthermore, as final evidence of total control, the observed never knows for sure if they are being watched or not, as they can’t see the observer (Foucault 200-205). Foucault further argues that this system is followed by any government institution, placing the society under permanent observation. Individuals might try to evade the system, but achieving liberation and freedom is not something that anyone could do. Dostoevsky’s famous novel, Crime and

Foucault's "Panopticism" (1979) is a careful piece that talks about how a panoptic framework would impact culture, society, the political, and individuals. Foucault describes panopticon is to “induce the inmate a state of conscious and visibility that assures the automatic function of power.” Foucault mentions, surveillance has a lasting effects, regardless of the fact that it is discontinuous in its activity; that the perfection of power ought to render its real unneeded practice. The Inmates are in a dominating circumstance that they are them-selves the bearers. Foucault (201, 202–3) also mentions that "He who is subjected to a field of visibility, and knows it, expect responsibility regardless of the constrains of power; he makes them play spontaneously upon

Gender inequality is an issue that has been recurring throughout the United States, and the problem has peaked public interest again with the inauguration of our current president. Possibly as a response, Zootopia is a US based children’s movie that is an uplifting story of an underdog female character who sets her mind to accomplish a tall task, and ends up saving the city. Michel Foucault’s “Panopticism” is a section of Foucault’s book that explains the distribution of power in a disciplined society while Deborah Tannen’s “Wears Jumpsuit. Sensible Shoes. Uses Husband’s Last Name” is an assertive article that explains the unjust judgement bestowed upon all women. Using Foucault’s and Tannen’s ideas we can uncover underlying meanings of

The article starts off by discussing how social organizations and institutions have been the driving force behind behavior in women. It was a reward and punishment system that was instilled in these places that to control women and girls’ behaviors. Unfortunately Foucault, comes up with an idea of docile bodies. “Bodies that meet social expectations without complaint or resistance—not through punishment, but by teaching individuals to accept those expectations as their own and to live as if they might be punished at any moment”(Bartky, 64). In a sense it sounds like gender roles. This was instilled in women overtime by everyday encounters with things. The major theme of the article is, “women internalize men’s social expectations regarding

While being visible, the prisoner's in the cells would be unsure if those in the guard tower were consistently watching them from the same place, and this combination of fear and confusion would cause them to become docile and complaint to the will of the wardens. French philosopher Michel Foucault argues that the Panopticon model is how power functions on all levels of society, and according to his thesis, power depends on a combination of isolation and ignorance of the nature and extent of the power's control (Foucault). Relating to this definition of power the differences between the “subject,” or the individual subject to a greater power, and the “self,” the self-determined individual free of power's constrictions and a comparison to a larger power (Nealon&Giroux). In the context of Bentham and Foucault's work, the individuals occupying the cells of the Panopticon are subject to those in the guard tower—literally in the structure and in the structure as applied as a metaphor for power in society. The principles presented here as to how power functions and protects itself can be applied to both novelist Bram Stoker's Dracula and abolitionist and suffragist Sojourner Truth's speech Ain't I a Woman?.

The author of the essay “Panopticism”, Michel Foucault gives his opinion on power and discipline in Panopticism. He describes Jeremy Bentham’s “Panopticon”, a tower in the centre of a room which has vision to every cell, generalized for prisoners. In simple words, it functioned in maintaining discipline throughout the jail. It’s most distinctive feature was that; prisoners could be seen without ever seeing. Prisoners would never really know when they are watched and when not. They are always under the impression that someone is keeping an eye on them continuously and if anything goes wrong, or they make mistake, they would be punished severely. Since, a prisoner would never know when he/she is watched, they have to be at their best. In a

“Our society is not one of spectacle, but of surveillance; under the surface of images, one invests bodies in depth; behind the great abstraction of exchange, there continues the meticulous concrete training of useful forces; the circuits of communication are the supports of an accumulation and a centralization of knowledge; the play of signs defines the anchorages of power; it is not that the beautiful totality of the individual is amputated, repressed, altered by our social order, it is rather that the individual is carefully fabricated in it, according to a whole technique of forces and bodies. (pp.333-34)”

In the Foucault reading, Foucault describes discipline as it “’makes’ individuals; it is the specific technique of a power that regards individuals both as objects and as instruments of its exercise” (Rabinow 188). Foucault also describes discourse as “mediated by history, rather than being purse knowledge of unmediated raw truth” (Parker 270). Foucault says that the discourse of gender “does not describe gender… it produces the gender that it purports to describe” because people police their behavior to societal norms. Parker gives an example of the Panopticon and how it is a model to societal norms. The model relates to gender because “[people] discourses of gender regulate, discipline, police, and surveil behavior and beliefs, producing

Ever feel as though someone is watching you? You know that you are the only one in a room, but for some reason you get an eerie feeling that you are not alone? You might not see anyone, but the eyes of a stranger could be gazing down on you. In Foucault's "Panopticism," a new paradigm of discipline is introduced, surveillance. No one dares to break the law, or do anything erroneous for that matter, in fear that they are being watched. This idea of someone watching your every move compels you to obey. This is why the idea of Panopticism is such an efficient form of discipline. A panoptic society is permeating

About 3/4 into the book, Foucault begins an interesting discussion on the "hysterization of women's

The Panopticon better known as the perfect prison offers a jarring reflection of how society has been monitoring and policing our women through several different practices within a social cycle. Feminist philosopher, Sandra Lee Bartky, displays how everyone in society is guilty of monitoring and policing of femininity in her article, “Foucault, Femininity, and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power” Bartky’s symbolic use of the Panopticon is a way to allude that systems set in place by the male patriarchy have been a tool in order to oppress and objectify women. Despite the idea of the Panopticon being used to show how women are scrutinized the rest of Bartkey’s argument seems to have flaws by not fully exploring content and making generalizations on who can and cannot be policed. Bartky’s inference to the Panopticon is poignant but despite this the argument made in her article is lacking as she does not fully develop upon her ideas.

For Foucault you cannot understand imprisonment without looking at torture first and how they both correlate to one another. Throughout this essay I will assess Foucault’s theories about torture and his views of how it has come about. I will look at how torture is a technique and the forms of disciplinary techniques that accompany torture. I will assess the power structures and how it manifests into other institutions in today’s society. Lastly how torture is needed to understand imprisonment. Torture was used as a scare tactic in the past to keep individuals under control. Society was aware of what may occur to them if they disobeyed the law. This initiated power and discipline over citizens which helps us to understand power relations today in terms of imprisonment.