Techniques Of The Body By Marcel Mauss

Joan Jacobs Brumberg’s work, The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls, examines how American societal changes are reflected on the female body. Brumberg’s work draws primarily from the diaries of young American girls, giving intimate glimpses into the inner workings of their minds about how they relate to their bodies.

Many children in various cultures had to undergo body modifications due to certain cultures and beliefs. “The feet of very young Chinese girls were bound and spliced, intentionally and irreversibly deforming them, because this was seen to guarantee the girls’ eventual amorous and matrimonial success.” (Borel,1994). In Polynesia, unless a girl was tattooed, she would not find a husband. An unornamented hand could not cook, nor dip into the communal food bowl (Borel,1994). It is as to say that “the fact that such motivations and pretexts depend on aesthetic, erotic, hygienic, or even medical considerations has no influence on the result, which is always in the direction of transforming the appearance of the body. Such a transformation is wished for, whether or not it is effective.”

body and how it was used to draw the gazes of males in visual media.

The book The Expressiveness of the Body and the Divergence of Greek and Chinese Medicine by Shigehisa Kuriyama overall felt like it was about perceptions of ancient medicine between the east and west. The author goes back and forth comparing and contrasting the different approaches of the Greek and Chinese, where even though both cultures have different approaches there actually are some similarities, which was believed due to, “the movements of people” (page 204). The book is separated into three parts: styles of touching, styles of seeing and styles of being.

The concentration of dissolved substances is less in the extracellular fluid than in the cytoplasm. Hypotonic Solution Concentration of dissolved substances (solute) Concentration of water (solvent) What happens to an animal cells? Inside the cell Greater Less Outside the cell Less Greater Membrane

The phrase “social construction” is difficult to define as it encompasses a multitude of elements, but despite that, conventionally, social construction shows ways society has conceptualised expectations and ideals which can be related to specific sociological interested areas, such as the body. Social action has been shown to have an effect on the transformation of a biological individual, although bodies appear to be simply natural - eye colour, body shape, size of feet etc - a deeper context reveals that many social situations and factors contribute to the construction of bodies. How are we to make sense of people’s bodies? Theoretical traditions which highlight socially constructed bodies have been put forward by theorists such as Elias, Foucault, Goffman and Bourdieu, however, an alternative strategy of viewing socially constructed bodies could be to link these apparently contrasting theories together. This essay will focus upon ways in which the body appears to be a social construction, paying particular detail on the length individuals endure to perform socially constructed ideals with reference to gender and class.

There are no questions to whether the media has influenced the self-consciousness people have on their body or not. Whether it is the front of a magazine cover or in a film or television show, the selection of models or actors are primarily thin or fit leading readers and viewers to worry or want to change the way their body looks. Body image is the way one sees oneself and imagine how one looks. Having a positive body image means that most of the time someone sees themselves accurately, and feels comfortable in their body; negative body image, what the media exemplifies for the majority of the time, is just the opposite. The media uses unrealistic standards of beauty and bodily perfection to drive ordinary people to be dissatisfied with their body image which can result in the search to obtain these unreachable goals.

“Enhancing Your Body Image” (2015) discusses the impact popular culture has on women strive to have Twiggy’s body and men hope to be the tough guy like Clint Eastwood (p.340). People are willing to alter their appearance physically; for example, people try to lose weight or change their personality by playing sports or instruments to find the sense of belonging. Society has a fascination of trying to belong within a social group.

In her essay “Throwing Like a Girl,” Iris Marion Young examines why women move differently than do men. She discusses the apparent observable differences in bodily comportment, physical engagement with things, ways of using the body in performing tasks, and bodily self-image of feminine existence. Young makes the argument that the differences between men and women are not caused by a mysterious “essence” or by any biological or anatomical limitation, but, rather, we are socialized into “being” in our bodily space by the situation surrounding our existence.

Habit as defined in Webster’s as a: a behavior pattern acquired by frequent repetition or physiologic exposure that shows itself in regularity or increased facility of performance b : an acquired mode of behavior that has become nearly or completely involuntary (Merriam-Webster Dictionary Online, 2011). Behavior is the manner of conducting oneself or anything that an organism does involving action and response to stimulation. In everyday life habits are formed and intertwined with ones behavior. People are often associated with the way they behave

One of the main themes in Sociology’s Missing Other is the social construction of a “normal body”, and how this affects

Positioning the body in such a way that it actively participants in the consumption and reproduction of dominance as well as subordination allows a framework through which to view the body as a text. Functioning as an agent of cultural production, possessing the power to define cultural constructions, practices, and perceptions, inevitably acting as a form of social control. Susan Bordo in her article, The Body and the Reproduction of Femininity from

People tend to views an image based on how society say it should be they tend to interpret the image on those assumption, but never their own assumptions. Susan Bordo and John Berger writes’ an argumentative essay in relation to how viewing images have an effect on the way we interpret images. Moreover, these arguments come into union to show what society plants into our minds acts itself out when viewing pictures. Both Susan Bordo and John Berger shows that based on assumptions this is what causes us to perceive an image in a certain way. Learning assumption plays into our everyday lives and both authors bring them into reality.

In a strange way, we may even come to better appreciate the value and significance of our normal bodily presence by exploring such alternatives. Not disembodiment, then, so much as a deeper understanding of why the body matters and of the space of possible bodies and perspectives. Not isolation so much as a wider and less geocentric kind of community. (Clark, 194)

Almost every night, my parents would tell me to sit up straight when we were eating at the dinner table, and they would say it would help me digest. Also, in high school when I would walk through the halls between classes, many of my friends would compliment me on my posture. I thought it was the strangest thing to compliment someone on. The title “Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are,” brought back these memories; therefore, I was interested to see what Amy Cuddy had to say. Cuddy is a social psychologist and a business professor at Princeton. In the TED Talk “Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are,” Amy Cuddy discusses the reasons to use power posing, and it could affect the mind for better success in our lives.