The Use Of Feminine Body Comportment For Women 's Sense Of Agency And Power Essay

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.

You throw like a girl! Boys don’t play with dolls! Living in our society, I am certain that one or more of these little stereotypes have crossed your path. As we grow, who or what defines what we are to become based on our gender, and what role do we have to play in it? Using gender roles, gender identity, and stereotypes associated with these I will provide you a brief insight into what shaped me into the woman that I have become.

Major Claim: The objectification and “currency” of a women’s body is the pivotal focus for the readings presented in class. It is discussed in the readings about how women are only considered for their looks, and not their personal depth or knowledge. Additionally, intersectionality is observed and how these objectifications effect marginalized groups. Finally, the term of enlightened sexism is introduced and how this concept is dangerous to and reverses feminism.

One of the many offensive gender stereotype sayings is “You throw like a girl.” Men often do not want to have anything to do with that statement. In James Fallows report he states, “Having been trained (like most American boys) to dread the accusation of doing anything ‘like a girl,’ athletes were said to grow into the assumption that women were valueless, and natural prey” (138). This suggests how women are looked down upon by men and their own society when competing against men in athletics. To reach supporters of feminism and to appeal to pathos, the author uses offensive language toward women, such as “valueless” and “natural prey”. These insulting words may hit the emotions of women. With just the usage of

Fallow’s main idea for his article is to address the idea that boys and girls throw differently and to inform readers of various reasons why. By walking the reader through his thoughts and research of the topic, one may see that Fallows’ practical use of logos, sources, and famous references allows him to create an effective text.

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.

A sport is an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment. Sports originated in early history as males only, and was often used to see which male was more dominant. In today’s society sports have a different meaning and is played by both genders, but still holds a mentality of superiority. In this essay, I will be arguing the Social Constructs of Masculinity in Sports in the language and the actions used when performing these activities through both genders and how some actions are acceptable for one gender and not for the other. Using Laurel Richardson’s article Gender Stereotyping in the English Language, and X: A Fabulous Child’s Story by Lois Gould. The article and story will help distinguish the use of words in our society and how they are incorporated in sport and how the actions of a person that does not fit the social standard faces repercussions for their actions.

There are many companies in the world today that put an idea of this perfect female body into the heads of women. These images lead to a faulty standard men hold of women and their bodies and that women strive to become. Margaret Atwood addresses the issue of the way men view the female body by writing her essay in the viewpoints of a male so the reader can better understand how the expectation men have of the female body is unrealistic. First, she uses an allusive comparison to show the male expectation of the female body and how it is objectified as if it were a doll that comes with accessories. Next, she uses an anecdote with defamiliarization to show how the way the father views a Barbie doll and the way it portrays the female body to young girls is hypocritical. Lastly, Margaret Atwood uses insidious diction to talk about how men not only view the female body as a product but how they also use the female body as a product which can be sold amongst businessmen. In The Female Body, Margaret Atwood uses many rhetorical devices to convey how the female body is viewed through the eyes of men.

The physical body has been seen as many things both positive and negative. It can be thought of as the temple which houses the soul or can be seen as entrapping, like a cage of flesh. More often it seems that the body, especially women’s bodies, are looked at in more complicated ways than the bodies of men. As I grew up, it began to feel more and more like my body, and the bodies of other women, did not actually belong to us like we believed. Through my Women’s Studies class I have gained more knowledge on the body as a political object. In this essay I will examine six different articles with the similar theme of women’s bodies, the expression of those bodies and how by using feminism as a political standpoint they gain power and ownership of their bodies.

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”. However there is a well known, well discussed, universal definition of perfection for all women. One that is consistent throughout different areas of the world and different allotments of the human culture. This standard of the ideal woman is based off of not only physical but intellectual standards predominantly in advertising.

Over the course of time, sports have come to signify masculinity; athletics such as football and basketball easily having come to deem where one fits in terms of societal norms regarding gendered bodies. One could argue that sports, in a modern context, have come to be synonymous with the idea of athletic and/or muscular bodies, which are those that are not regarded as the bodies of ideologically feminine ones given the intense and high pressure nature. In “Sports and Male Domination: The Female Athlete as Contested Ideological Terrain” written by Michael A. Messner in 1988 sheds light on the idea that traditional images of femininity have come to solidify male privilege through the construction and naturalization of gendered characteristics regarding women such as weakness, fragility and dependency .

The way society is taught to be socialized is salient and goes unnoticed, therefore it is valid to claim that gender is socially constructed through our everyday practices, whether we are aware of the construction or not. With socialization beginning the instant a child is born, the process is continuous through out adolescence and varies dramatically across the two genders. With guidance from institutions and arenas such as education, sports, music and the mass media gender seems to be coerced, as it comes with a scripted set of behaviors and attitudes. This essay argues that gender is socially constructed on an everyday basis. To further explain this thesis the essay will draw on early childhood socialization of masculinity and femininity,

While in the Women and the Body course, I was able to dissect the images, constraints, and beliefs associated with the woman’s body. The debate over body image originated from patriarchal constraints, deeming that women have to fit into an ideal of womanhood. A woman’s body image is suppose to be a direct link to the man she is with. She should have childbearing hips, a stature that is associated in being motherly, and breasts to breast feed the children. With that it grew into using man made objects to reinforce the patriarchal power about body

In the words of pop singer and ardent feminist P!nk, “Women have fought so long and hard for our rights and equality, and now all our attention is put on being a size 0.” P!nk’s hit song “Stupid Girls”, released with her 2006 album I’m Not Dead, provides a commentary on society’s perception of a woman’s role and how women respond to that perception. She rejects the foundations of the stereotype that women exist as subordinate to men, while challenging the behavior of women who conform to these societal expectations in order to please men. Although she composed the piece to encourage women to take pride in intelligence, the song has come under critique for “slut-shaming” by stereotyping women who focus on external appearance, labeling them as “stupid”. The piece simultaneously demeans and empowers women, demonstrating just one of the many flaws in the feminist movement that exist today.

In politics, power is a crucial component, and having authority over others is critical in legitimizing that power. Women consistently lack agency and power, especially in political spheres. Fantastical worlds, like HBO’s television series Game of Thrones (GoT), portray women in roles of empowerment, but their power is contingent on men and on their own sexuality. Despite gaining positions in political power, women only attain that power or can only use that power in the realm of men and masculinity. This essay argues that women in Game of Thrones, as political and non-political actors, are only powerful to the extent to which it roots from archetypical masculine characteristics and to which it advances their storylines from a man’s standpoint. To do so, I will first contrast political power and apolitical power, namely in terms of female participation and involvement. Next, I will examine HBO’s Game of Thrones in relation to its portrayal of female empowerment and of stereotypical gender roles. This paper will then distinguish notable Game of Thrones female characters as political powerful and apolitically powerful actors. This paper will conclude with an analysis of how Game of Thrones magnifies women’s roles in political power while also generalizing women as powerful only in regards to their sexuality.