The Female Body

Paper Summary:

Using Sandra Lee Bartky's theory of internalization, which is based on Michel Foucault's 'Panopticon' theory, this essay discusses quite complicated theories regarding the effect of patriarchy on a woman and her experience of her own body. This is written from a feminist perspective, but quite simply and passionately. The essay goes into much detail regarding the ways in which women internalize patriarchal standards and desires, so that women come to punish themselves for not living up to the male-imposed bodily standards of beauty. Foucault's theory of the Panopticon is only employed to demonstrate this 'internalization' process; the Panopticon is a prison where each prisoner is permanently visible. When one believes they are permanently on display, whether they are actually being watched or not, they will internalize the standards of the 'watcher' and self-monitor. This essay's contention is that the internalization of patriarchal standards of feminine beauty on women causes women much stress, pain and anxiety medically, physically and psychologically.

From the Paper:

"In contemporary patriarchal society, a woman lives her body from outside-in. She is perpetually conscious of how she looks to another, because she knows she is perpetually watched by a patriarchal Other, and it becomes her duty to stand outside her own flesh and monitor her body's movements for him. A woman comes to watch herself as though she too were a patriarchal Other. She becomes both the seer and seen, the "object of desire," internalizing his values regarding her body and making them her own values about her own body. Her embodied experience will reflect this knowledge that she stands always before his gaze and under his judgment; her body is not her own. Similarly, her own sexuality is not self-defined, and she will not experience herself as beautiful or sexual unless she complies with the patriarchal ideals of feminine beauty."

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