"Docile Bodies" Subconsciously or Consciously?

As I’m writing this, I look at my mail on my desk, Express clothing magazine with a woman in tight skinny jeans, stilettos, and a cool top that extenuates her womanly figure. On my other side of my desk is another magazine, The Victoria Secret catalog, as I page through it I am continuously seeing size 2 girls with long legs, huge breast and long beautiful hair. Do I want these clothes? Yes, but why do I want them? Because they make these women look amazing. As I stare at the clothes in either catalog I start to imagine myself in this top or those jeans with these pumps. I am subconsciously or consciously choosing these clothes because of how these women look in them, as I’m sure many other girls my age are hoping and dreaming to look like these women too.

I’m thinking, why I would want to look like these girls, what makes me think they are so perfect and beautiful? Well as we discussed in class last week, it’s because of Social Construction. Social Construction is an example of how our society has transformed our knowledge and way of thinking, leading away from the inherent value of a view or position. My mail is a great example of this. Although centuries ago and still to this day in many different cultures, curvy women are looked at as beautiful. Even though that may still be true I find that in our culture such as in these magazines, we have socially constructed our culture to think the skinny, the prettier. The more expensive clothes you buy, the cooler you are. As best said by Susan Bordo “It’s a pursuit without a terminus, requiring that women constantly attend to minute and often whimsical changes in fashion-female bodies become docile bodies-bodies whose forces and energies are habituated to external regulation, subjection and transformation, “improvement”. Through the exacting and normalizing disciplines of diet, makeup, and dress, central organizing principles of time and space in the day of many women.”

As women we focus so much on our looks, on what others think of us and how to fix our imperfections every single day. We do this mostly subconsciously, not knowing why we particularly want our hair to be this way, or our make up that way. We try to fit into this Structured Subculture of beautiful women we see on TV and the cover of magazines, wanting to have their tiny waist, but still curvy body that in reality is probably photo shopped to perfection. And one of the main questions that you’re asking is WHY DO WE DO THIS?! In my opinion it’s because of what these women represent to the readers and buyers of these catalogs and magazines. It’s the men and women who look at them and get this perceived notation that this is what a beautiful women looks like, and this type of beautiful women wears these types of clothes and hangs out with these types of men. In a very weird subconscious way we are subjecting our bodies, almost as if our bodies were canvases that we continuously try to fix, reshape and contemplate about.

Now that we know somewhat why, the question is how can we fix this?