Inhabiting My Flesh : Exploring Body Work and Gender through Frameworks of Embodiment and Becoming

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Cornelius Eaton
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1 Inhabiting My Flesh : Exploring Body Work and Gender through Frameworks of Embodiment and Becoming Julia Coffey PhD Candidate School of Social and Political Sciences University of Melbourne Abstract In sociology and in contemporary Australian society, the body is central to feminist critiques of sex and gender divisions, since the body is the site of these divisions. It is through the body that these divisions are experienced and lived. While Giddens has been important in terms of bringing body projects (back) into sociology, the limitations to his approach highlight that bodies and body work must be understood as embodied processes which move beyond binarised analyses of the body in society. In this regard, 'embodiment theory' and Spinozan and Deleuzian frameworks which focus on the becomings that may be possible provide important analytic insights. Considering body work using embodiment theory and understanding the body as an event of becoming, along with an interrogation of the contexts and conditions in which body work is gendered and the ways that power is implicated in these processes can further contribute to contemporary understandings of the ways that bodies and gender are lived. Keywords: body work, gender, embodiment, becoming, binaries. In sociology and in contemporary Australian society, the body is central to feminist critiques of sex and gender divisions, since the body is the site of these divisions. It is through the body that these divisions are experienced and lived. Giddens (1991) has argued that the body is worked on reflexively as a project, part of the project of the self 1

2 in late modernity. The sorts of techniques involved in body work, undertaken to modify or maintain the body in some way, are highly gendered and intersect with a multitude of images and discourses which suggest how to live well and be a good citizen. Theorists utilising conceptualisations of embodiment and Spinozan influenced frameworks of becoming have criticised Giddens for reinstating Cartesian binaries such as subject/object and mind/body and instead seek to move beyond dualistic conceptions of the body s connections and relationship with the social. This paper asks, how may theories of embodiment and becoming be useful when conceptualising the interactions between the body, body work and the social conditions in which the body is experienced, and in which body work is undertaken? Drawing on 14 qualitative in-depth semi structured interviews conducted in 2010 with even numbers of young men and women aged in Melbourne, I explore the ways that body work is experienced, gendered and embodied. Body work as defined in the present study is closely aligned with Giddens s (1991) body projects and Crossley s (2006) reflexive body techniques, since all three terms describe the ways that individuals, in the current neoliberal context, reflexively monitor, maintain and modify their bodies and selves. It is important, however, to distinguish body work from Giddens s body project, since the problems associated with viewing the body as a project make clear the reasons why Deleuzian frameworks may be more useful, in order to move beyond the sorts of dualisms that are at the heart of theorising the body s relationship with society. Giddens has been widely criticized for viewing the social actor as disembodied, as an emphasis on reflexivity produces a social actor whose mind enacts a choice on a blank and passive body (Turner 1992: 7; Budgeon 2003: 37). When the mind is privileged over the body, this reinforces the Cartesian mind/body binary (Grosz 1994). Feminists have sought to deconstruct the mind/body binary because of its connotations with phallocentric thought in which the female body is always other, and the implication that the body serves as a natural foundation upon which meanings are inscribed (Budgeon 2003: 36). Following feminist embodiment theorists and Deleuzian questions of what can a body do? I argue that such approaches are important in moving 2

3 beyond dualist (and inadequate) conceptions of the body such as found in Giddens s concept of the body project. Theories of embodiment have sought to overcome dualistic conceptions of the mind and body as being separable and separate aspects of the self, and focus on understanding and exploring the ways the body is lived and experienced. As Merleau-Ponty (1962) has argued, the body functions as being-in-the-world ; the body is our general medium for having a world. In this way, mind and body, subject and object are inseparable from each other, because both are always already implicated in the way a person experiences the world. Merleau-Ponty s notion of flesh as a designation of the world s capacity to turn in on itself points to the flesh as being pure potentiality, or limitless capacity for change and regeneration. Finding a way to conceive of the body s potential, whilst also being concerned to critique the way certain social forces and contexts come to bear on the way a body is lived, are central to understanding the ways that body work is practiced and experienced, to account for the differences and commonalities between the experiences of the participants in this study that go beyond body image and body work as an effect of media images and influences. Embodiment theories are useful for understanding some of the participants in this studies experiences of body work, because understanding their practices as embodied negates many of the ontological problems associated with seeing body work as part of a chosen project. Body work has been theorised as a crucial element of the way the body is experienced in industrialised Western societies such as Australia, linking with consumer culture and neoliberal contexts in which individuals are increasingly encouraged to attend to their own health and wellbeing through a range of practices (Featherstone 2010, Moore 2010, Crawford 1987). Between March and August 2010, 22 interviews were conducted by the author with even numbers of men and women aged in Melbourne, and focused on participants experiences of body work, and perspectives on gender. Qualitative methods are particularly relevant to the present study, because asking participants to speak about their bodily experiences is the most appropriate way of studying embodiment. Since all human perception is embodied, we cannot perceive anything and our senses cannot 3

4 function independently of our bodies (Nettleton & Watson 1998:9). Paul s narrative below illuminates the relation between body work and embodiment in his experience: I ve always gone to the gym a little bit. Mostly just to stay active and feel better; partly physically, partly the way I look, but also partly the way I feel about inhabiting my flesh. (Paul, 33, film sound editor) As Paul explains, feeling, looking and doing are inseparable processes here. Recognising the ways that these aspects of the experience of body work is felt and lived is crucial. The body is never simply an object which is acted upon by external forces. The body is irreducibly linked to the social world and as a result, always in the process of negotiating and renegotiating self identity through lived social conditions and lived experience; both of which are embodied. Opening up new possibilities for understanding the body in terms of the connections it forms and its capacities means understanding the body as more than a limit, and beyond debates of mind/body, subject/object, structure/agency,. According to McNay (1999: 98), the problem of how to analyse gendered embodiment and subjectivity in a way that transcends dualisms such as mind and body and subject and object can be overcome by understanding the body as a dynamic, mutable frontier; neither pure subject nor pure object. In this way, conceiving the body as a concept that hovers perilously close and undecidably at the point of binary pairs (Grosz 1994: 23) suggests that the body needs to be thought of as neither simply one nor the other, but rather simultaneously and inseparably both at once. Deleuzian frameworks have been used in recent feminist work on the body as a way of moving beyond Cartesian dualisms, to find terms that exceed binary logic and dichotomous thought (Grosz 1994). Asking what can a body do? begins from the premise that we do not know what a body is capable of, that the body surpasses the knowledge that we have of it (Deleuze 1988: 18), and conceives of the body s linkages and connections as a way of understandings the body s capabilities in a different way. Deleuze argues that bodies become through interactions and connections with other bodies, things and the surrounding world; that the body is a relational becoming never 4

5 separable from its relations with the world (Deleuze 1992: 628). In light of this, Coleman (2008: 64) has contended that feminist research needs to shift from understanding bodies as subjects and objects which pre-exist their relationality to instead focus on the ways that bodies are experienced through these relations, and the limitations and extensions for the becoming of bodies. Feminist philosophers such as Elizabeth Grosz (1994) and Moira Gatens (1996; 2000) have articulated the possibilities that such frameworks may have for a feminist understanding of the body, and a way of moving beyond not only Cartesian binaries, but also a way of thinking beyond appraising body practices as being either libratory or repressive; instead understanding what the body performs, the becomings it undergoes, and the connections that it forms. This framework suggests that in negotiations and renegotiations of the self and identity through body work, the bodies can be conceptualised as events that are continually in the process of becoming through relations with the world, rather than subjects or objects that society or structure passively moulds and determines. A framework of becoming is relevant to conceptualising some experiences of body work and gender in this study. In the following example, two women who had recently undergone breast enlargement surgery highlight their motivations for having the surgery and the ongoing consequences of the surgery. I ve got fake boobs, I got them last year, cos I had one [breast] that was a C [cup size] and one was an A, so I had to have reconstructive surgery, but they made them a D anyway because they had to put 2 implants in each to make them look normal. And they had to move one of my nipples too. Just to feel comfortable, to feel normal, because they looked a bit funny Yeah, I had to get that done. (Isabelle, 24, beauty therapist) Isabelle describes having breast implants as something she had to get done, to feel comfortable, to look and feel normal. Kathy Davis s (1999) discussion of women s bodies and cosmetic surgery suggests that the intervention of cosmetic surgery is in many cases an intervention into (embodied) identity. Isabelle describes the surgery as though it 5

6 was a necessity, and can similarly be understood as an intervention into her embodied identity. That Isabelle uses the terms looking normal and feeling normal interchangeably is also significant, and suggests not only that her sense of self is strongly tied to her physical appearance, but also that the embodied experience of the way she looks on the outside is manifested in (and inseparable from) the way she feels on the inside. This underscores the entanglement of binary pairs such as inside/outside in embodied experience, and shows that an understanding that goes beyond the either/or of these terms is required. Similarly, Kate describes the ways that having her breasts surgically enlarged has changed the way she lives: I never had boobs, they should have been there but they were just never there, I had nothing! I had nipples! All my girlfriends were like don t do it. So you re making a decision going against everyone else. And it s a massive, massive thing. But over time, you can t put a price on being happy with your body. I ve had so many moments where I just feel I don t have this feeling in my stomach where I m worried about wearing bathers Like if I wanna wear bathers, or going shopping I m like, oh I could wear this, it would fit me! You know, dresses are designed for women with boobs. And just, everything. Not stressing about summer, and enjoying your life, and just really living it. And yes, it sounds crazy, like why would she care that she has no boobs? but you do, you just do. (Kate, 24, nanny / administrative assistant) Kate explains that she was aware of going against everyone else in her decision to undergo surgery, but emphasised the (priceless) value of being able to enjoy life, really live it. She contrasts the feeling in her stomach associated with her anxiety with wearing bathers in summer with the pleasure and freedom of having the shape that will allow her to fit into the clothes she wants to wear, and which in turn translates into everything about her life. Before the surgery, as she describes it, she had persistent feelings of anxiety and worry which were more potent than the consequences of going 6

7 against everyone else or sounding crazy. Kate and Isabelle s experiences of cosmetic surgery are embodied, and can be seen as bound in a process of interactions and connections with the world around them. Models influenced by Spinoza and Deleuze further conceptualise these sorts of interactions between and through bodies, and involve seeing bodies as events that are continually made and remade; becoming. To adequately conceptualise experiences such as Kate s and Isabelle s, a framework that focuses on relationality is required which can accommodate the complexities of experiences of cosmetic surgery, instead of viewing such practices in a dualistic way as predominantly repressive or libratory. Being concerned with the becoming of bodies involves addressing the becoming of particular bodies through particular relations with particular aspects of the world (Coleman 2009:1-2). Accordingly, the becoming of bodies is made possible and impossible through relationality. This is what Gatens is referring to when she explains that what a body can do is determined in part by its relations with other bodies (Gatens 2000: 68), and thus power remains an important component of analysis when using this framework. Power too is conceptualised as an event from which beings and identities are effected (Colebrook 2000: 85). In this context, the forms of body work described above, particularly in Kate and Isabelle s examples, can be understood as thoroughly implicated within the current social conditions in which gender remains a locus of division and inequality. Angela McRobbie insists that attention needs to be paid to the significance of forces which deter becomings (McRobbie 2009: 160), and gender, I argue, remains one such force. The ambiguities and dissonances in the ways men and women occupy gendered subject positions (McNay 1999) is an ongoing focus of this study. Because bodies are gendered, body work is gendered. Body work often involves a different set of practices for men and women, which are organised around traditional ideas about gender, such as prettiness and slenderness for women and muscularity and other means of physical presence such as height, for men (see Bordo 1993; 2001). Although much of the body work undertaken by the women and men in this study is gendered in these above ways, these practices were 7

8 often interrogated by the participants themselves and were certainly not experienced in a uniform, straightforward way. For example, Adam and Jason, both footballers, described that their training is not just for football but also to help me look better : I want a body that gets me noticed. And that did start to get me noticed, by girls especially. That was my main objective I think at the time. I know it sounds funny but because I was so skinny, part of that was, if I can build myself up, not only can I have the advantage of being noticed by girls but also guys will start to respect me more for having a bigger body. And I guess you look more intimidating and guys are less likely to bump into you at the pub because you ve got the image that says you re tough, I guess. (Adam, 23, footballer / student) Adam explains that he initially began working on building muscle to be noticed by girls. The male body as an object of the gaze is not congruent with traditional masculinity, although the current muscular aesthetic of the male body is certainly a feature of more traditional hegemonic masculinity (Connell 1995). Whilst many agree that the male body is increasingly fetishised and targeted in consumer culture (Bordo 2001; Featherstone 2010), the cultivation of appearance through body work is widely thought to have more purchase for women, since within traditional and current gender discourses, striving to be a source of visual pleasure remains an imperative of femininity. Although he is an object of the gaze in one way, Adam s narrative also explicitly links with hegemonic tough masculinity when he states that having a bigger body literally means that he garners more respect from other large men in public. Hence, Adam is certainly not an object of the gaze in the same way women have typically been; although his account somewhat complicates traditionally gendered subject positions in which men are equated with subject, and women are primarily object (Grosz 1994). Here, the utility of a framework such as the one suggested by Spinoza and Deleuze is particularly apparent, since it allows for a more thorough interrogation of gendered experiences of body work than binarised subject and object explanations provide, and is able to attend to the ambiguities and dissonances of gendered experiences. Importantly, such a framework enables a discussion of the gendered aspects of body work that avoids 8

9 seeing these practices as an effect of society or culture and as more than a limit; instead conceptualising the process as one of relationality wherein bodies cannot become what they want, but neither is the becoming of bodies to be presumed in advance (Coleman 2009: 28). While Giddens has been important in terms of bringing body projects (back) into sociology, the limitations to his approach highlight that bodies and body work must be understood as embodied processes which move beyond binarised conceptualisations and analyses of the body in society. In this regard, 'embodiment theory' and Spinozan and Deleuzian frameworks which focus on the becomings that may be possible, provide important analytic insights. Considering body work using embodiment theory and understanding the body as an event of becoming, along with an interrogation of the contexts and conditions in which body work is gendered and the ways that power is implicated in these processes can further contribute to contemporary understandings of the ways that bodies and gender are lived. References Bordo, S. (1993) Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western culture and the body, California: University of California Press. Bordo (2001) The Male Body: a new look at men in public and private, New York: Farrar and Giroux. Budgeon, S. (2003) Identity as an Embodied Event, Body & Society, 9:1. Colebrook, C. (2000) From Radical Representations to Corporeal Becomings: the Feminist Philosophy of Lloyd, Grosz and Gatens, Hypatia, 15:2. Coleman, R. (2008) The Becoming of Bodies, Feminist Media Studies, 8:2. Coleman, R. (2009) The Becoming of Bodies: Girls, Image, Experience, Manchester: Manchester University Press. Connell, R.W. (1995) Masculinities, St Leonards: Allen & Unwin. 9

10 Crossley, N. (2006) Reflexive Embodiment in Contemporary Society, Berkshire: Open University Press. Davis, K. (1995) Reshaping the Female Body, New York: Routledge. Deleuze, G. (1988) Spinoza: A Practical Philosophy, (R. Hurley, trans.), San Francisco: City Light Books. Deleuze, G. (1992) Ethology: Spinoza and Us, in Incorporations, eds. Jonathan Crary and Sandford Kwinter, New York: Zone. Featherstone, M. (2010) Body, Image and Affect in Consumer Culture, Body and Society, 16. Gatens, M. (2000) Feminism as Password : Re-Thinking the Possible with Spinoza and Deleuze, Hypatia, 15:2 Giddens, A. (1991) Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age, Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. Grosz, E. (1994) Volatile Bodies: Towards a Corporeal Feminism, St Leonards: Allen & Unwin Merleau-Ponty, M. (1962) The Phenomenology of Perception (M. C. Smith, Trans), New Jersey: Routledge & Kegan Paul. McNay, L. (1999) Gender & Agency: Reconfiguring the Subject in Feminist and Social Theory, Cambridge: Polity Press. McRobbie, A. (2009) The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture and Social Change, London: Sage. Nettleton, S., & Watson, J. (Eds.) (1998) The Body in Everyday Life, London: Routledge. Turner, B. (1992) Regulating Bodies: Essays in Medical Sociology, Routledge: London. 10

6. Embodiment, sexuality and ageing

6. Embodiment, sexuality and ageing Overview As discussed in previous lectures, where there is power, there is resistance. The body is the surface upon which discourses act to discipline and regulate age