The Body as an Investment

Obesity is a very central topic in America. Online, on tv, in print, Americans are bombarded with statistics about the obesity epidemic or new diet ads. Thin and fit bodies have a higher social value whereas fat bodies are medicalized and seen as a problem. A lot of things are assumed just based on an individuals body type: from health, to work ethic, to activity level.
In the reading for today, "Your body is your business card: Bodily capital and health authority in the fitness industry", by David Hutson, how bodies are seen and utilized in society as a form of exchange for capital and authority is looked at. We read about how individuals use your body to evaluate your health, morality, will power, knowledge, competence, and make assumptions about you.
A good looking body, fit or thin, is seen as having a higher social value due to increased will power, strength of character, higher morality, and better health. Just by possessing an "attractive" body one may gain symbolic and material rewards, by using your body as capital.
"The concept of "body capital" describes the value attached to peoples appearance, attractiveness, or physical abilities that may be exchanged for other forms of economic, social, or cultural capital"-Hutson. In our society, currently, thin and fit body types are highly coveted and valued. With the theory of "body capital" putting time and effort into obtaining/maintaining an ideal body is seen as a form of investment that allows for your body to gain you advantages.
Hutson mainly focused on how bodies gain authority and respect in specific fields that place higher values on fit bodies, medicine or fitness, but in society today there are many everyday advantages to having fit to normal body types that many people probably don't even notice. There is a blog on tumblr that I cam across awhile ago called "This is Thin Privilege" the blog demonstrates advantages, from small to large, that are gained just by having the thin body that society has constructed as the body ideal.
 http://thisisthinprivilege.tumblr.com/
The blog shows examples of benefits of thin bodied individuals and also how the bodies of the other, the fat bodies, can be discriminated against. The idea of our bodies as a business card goes much farther than the fitness and medical realm.
People make assumptions about others within seconds of meeting them, based on their body and appearance. How society constructs and places value on body types influences what others expect of you, there are real tangible benefits for maintaining a socially desirable body. The body as capital presents the body as an investment that says a lot about the individual as a person and can gain returns on that investment in society. Just as there are sexual orientation, gender, sex, racial hierarchies that lead to assumptions and social values there is are body ideals, all of these things are socially constructed hierarchies that are essentially made up by society but produce real word consequences.

Appearance is Worth

            This week’s reading “Your Body is your Business Card,” is one that I find particularly relevant to how we see and judge bodies today.  Hudson explores the theoretical framework of  “body capital,” which is the “value generated from appearance, attractiveness, and physical ability” (63).  In the wake of the fast food industry boom and the “epidemic of obestity,” fit bodies are seen more valuable and innately healthier, which means they possess a higher “body capital”. 

There has been a huge push to appear physically fit, but not necessarily be physically fit.  The growth of the weight loss and diet industry are indicators that this is true.  They seemingly offer a way to get skinny overnight without having to put in the hard work that is associated with having a fit body.  This could be another area where we would see fat people as lazy, unmotivated, and inferior to “fit people,”  if they are trying to find a quick solution to get around the hard work that everyone else has to do on their body then they are seen as lazy and unmotivated.  Also the view that they let themselves get fat is another reason why fat people are seen as lazy.  The thinking behind this is that a motivated person would never let their body go like that.

It has become increasingly popular for doctors to talk about body appearance in relation to health.  Maintaining a fit appearing body is associated with health more now than ever before.  To increase their own credibility, physicians may have to work on their appearance before they can get their patients to believe that an active lifestyle is a healthier one.  The same is true about physical trainers at the gym.  To be the most successful trainer, a trainer would have to have one of the most fit bodies/ a high “body capital”.  They invest a lot of time and money in the gym and for food and supplements to build their “body capital” to ensure that they get a pay-off of more clients.  They are treating their body as an investment.  To be fit also implied that those trainers have the most knowledge and so they should be the ones that people trust.  This part of the article made me think of the movie Pain and Gain, with Mark Wahlberg as a body builder, who believes in fitness and that his superior body appearance made him a superior person even though he had never been to college.  He was sickened by people who did not take care of their bodies.  He believed that the world owed him something, so he decided that instead of work to make money that he would steal it from one of his rich clients, who he believed to be lazy because he wasn’t fit.  So he decided to exploit the trust that he had with his client, because he felt that his investment in his body should have paid off more. 

Bodies that are muscular and yet thin are the most sought after and the highest form of “body capital”.  The problem with this is that not all people are born with the “thin” body type, but they can still be fit, as was the case of Jennifer Portnick, who was fired because she looked too heavy but was fit enough to instruct an aerobics class. (65)  This would be an example of how “body capital” only works for people would appear to be physically fit rather than for those who are fit but do not necessarily appear to be. 

I have encountered this within the military world.  I know people who are physically fit but their body type is heavier so to fit within the military body standards they have to be taped to make sure that they are within a certain BMI.  If they do not meet those standards then they fail that portion of the fitness test, even though they may have passed the actual running, crunches, and pushups/pullups portion of the test.  Appearing fit is half the battle. 

Your Body is your Business Card

The course reading, “Your body is your business card”: Bodily capital and health authority in the fitness industry,” was one that I could relate to being an athlete. Personal trainers have to be at their physical best to make the people they are training feel comfortable and to show that they are the best at what they do.

I could not walk into Schembechler Hall at the end of my off season out of shape. I would be forced to do extra work outs to make sure that I can reach my maximum potential. My body is my business card, and in the world of athletics I could relate to the personal trainers that Huston mentioned in the introduction of his study. I have always been fit, I agree that being fit  “influences authority and credibility in interpersonal interactions,” (63) or at least it helped in my case. In high school I appeared to be the strongest. I got the hardest hits, ran the most yards, and became the best player. When I got to Michigan none of that mattered, I was put in a pool of over 100 guys of all shapes and sizes. Some of them were overweight and close to being obese. I was sure that “obesity is a looming national problem.” (64)

 Obesity is a problem that has become significant in the Unites States over the past few years. With the increase of fast food chains that offer the world’s most unhealthy foods at remarkably low prices, I can imagine that some of my teammates were consuming just a little bit too much of it; even I would get a quick bite to eat at the McDonalds by my house after a long day at practice.  College was a different. I did not have a personal trainer at my high school and here I was being tested by some of the fit men that I have ever seen.

“A personal trainer’s bodily capital provides a degree of moral authority that establishes trust with clients and allows their work to be seen in terms of healing and treatment.” (Hutson, 66). I can agree with this statement, I would NEVER take advice about physical fitness from someone who is not at his or her physical best. As an athlete I have to know that I am working with the best and the body of the personal trainer is the only way of knowing the potential that they can help me achieve.  I have to see the work that the trainer has done in the past, and I can assure you that the athletes that came in with me that are obese are obese no longer. As I take move along in my career I will make sure that my trainer looks his physical best. After all, your body is your business card. 

"Protesting with my Body"

            In the longest reading, “Chicks with Dicks, Men in Dresses: What It Means to Be a Drag Queen”, Verta Taylor focuses on determining the gender role that drag queens establish for themselves.  His findings do not only suggest that the process of becoming a drag queen help most males find and establish a new identity but through the new identity these individuals are able to do things that they would never do in the gender role of a male, as Robert states:

“As Inga I can do things I could never do as Roger, I would never do” (pg 124).

Throughout the study, Verta Taylor witnesses a variety of reasons to why drag queens decided to follow this particular path. The scale of masculinity, and femininity varies depending on the individual.

            Aside from the main findings, what I found really interesting is how they use their body as a form of protesting. In my opinion, being open and expressing themselves through this identity shows that regardless of the gender norms, drag queens continue to live their lives as they are.  Since our society has always been afraid of the unfamiliar, drag queens portray their identity in a non-violent way to make people realize that what they stand for might be different but it is their way of life. When I thought about the way they protest it made me think about the cool pose, the cool pose was first established in the social structure of African Americans, it was also a way for them to protest in a non-violent way. To this day, despite history, and all the discriminatory circumstances these groups encounter, they used their body as a form as protest because any other way could potentially lead to the reinforcement of stereotypes. Drag queens, and under represented minorities have found ways to use their body to protest and in my opinion the methods used have been successful.

            Lastly, in my notes I clearly state that this particular section of the sociology of the body has made me realize that the readings assigned capture the extremes of gender roles. Any reality show can be used as an example, but Jersey Shore serves as a perfect example for this phenomenon. Throughout the seasons, certain gender roles are established, and the cast treats their bodies in a particular way. Overall, the show got so popular because it portrays the stereotypes of Italians to an extreme. 

Drag Queens: They're just like you and me

It’s a seemingly typical night in Kerrytown.  My roommate and I sit at the kitchen table cramming for the last of our winter term exams, when suddenly the silence is broken by the clicking of size 12 heels and a deep male voice greeting hello. In walks our friend, a man, dressed as his drag queen alter ego. My initial shock isn’t because a drag queen has just interrupted my AmCult studying, but that he is so convincing! His nails are long, his hair long and perfectly coiffed, his eyes popping with bright bursts of blue and subtle hints of purple. He looks utterly fabulous.

This young man’s story certainly echoes the sentiments of today’s materials. He is a gay man, who enjoys his feminine side and has always struggled to fit in. He has a strong background in theatre (as do many drag queens according to the article by Rupp and Taylor).  He doesn’t identify as transgender, but rather as a homosexual man with a penchant for bending gender roles and stereotypes. He transforms his appearance and behaviors on a daily basis to match the environment in which he is participating. When surrounded by straight men he displays a vastly more masculine side- wearing backwards caps, lowering his voice dramatically, and referring to the other men in the room as “bro” or “dude.” Other times he can be found painting his nails or suiting up for an important professional opportunity.  As Libby Hill writes in “Drag Is Raw: Wrestlers, Queens And Gender As Performance Art”: “No one wants to fail at being a man or being a woman. So perhaps true victory comes in realizing we're all just approximating.” There is immense truth in this statement. My friend is approximating who he thinks he is expected to be in each of the situations he encounters. We all do it! In a single day, most U of M students approximate several different roles- who they are supposed to be as student, friend, child, sibling, coworker, etc. 

In the 2012 State of Drag Survey we are given an interesting look into the world of drag queens. Most are 20-29 years old, identifying putting on their mother's heels as children as their first exposure to drag,  and reporting that dresses are the most expensive item on their drag shopping list. I found it particularly interesting that most thought of putting on high heels as a child as their first taste of drag. Most little boys parade around in their mothers' heels, thinking nothing of it. If the implications surrounding such an innocent act of childhood curiosity were made more public, it makes me wonder if fathers everywhere would be stowing away their wives’ shoes and shunning their sons from their mothers’ closets? What a sad reality that would be, a world even more affected by the constant struggle to be who you are supposed to be according to your gender. 

The website www.dragofficial.com markets itself as “The #1 for Official Drag Queen News.” Visitors to the site can view photos, videos, news regarding the drag world, they can even see when the next drag event is happening in their state. I found an interesting article on the site titled “12 Types of Drag Queens.” Reading through the list it occurred to me that the “12 Types of Drag Queens” is no different from the 12 types of men, or 12 types of women. There’s “the diva,” “the showstopper,” “the professional,” “under the radar,” “the original one,” “the dancer,” “the fashionista,” “the career queen,” “the headliner,” “the rule breaker, “the orphan,” and “the beauty queen.” The titles are pretty self explanatory, and upon reading their descriptions as interpreted by the author, it only solidified what was becoming more and more evident. Drag queens, a group of people normally deemed “different” by most of society, aren’t really that different than anyone in reality. They take on different roles in society in the same way that everyone does. Some are outgoing, others are introverted, some crave attention, others strive to reinvent what has already been done. Drag queens are no different than anyone else, they just happen to look better in 6 inch heels than most of us. 

When The Attic and Basement Don’t Match

The reading “Chicks with Dicks, Men in Dresses” discusses drag queen subculture and explains the components that are present in such a social context. Taylor and Rupp strive to conclude on whether drag queens are more gender-conservatives or more gender-revolutionaries. Specifically, if drag queens conform to the displays of traditional femininity and institutionalized heterosexuality or if these individuals are presenting a hybrid gender that blur the boundaries between male and female. After expensive research, Taylor and Rupp believe that this drag culture demonstrates a third gender; one in which is neither male nor female, but rather a gender in between. Thus, showing that drag queens are in fact gender-revolutionaries.

            There is a lot of confusion associated with distinguishing drag queens from transsexuals and transgender individuals. Before reading this piece of literature, I too was baffled by the differences. However, the simplest way to think about it is that transsexuals are people who go out in public as the opposite sex, live as if they are the opposite sex, and would transform their bodies permanently to represent the opposite sex. On the other hand, drag queens are only putting on a performance as the opposite sex. Drag queens are simply performers, enduring a transgender life for a specific period of time. They do not live their full lives as females, but rather gay males. They participate in drag culture because they can be very expressive and embrace a theatrical identity. As a whole, “drag is an act, not a lifestyle.” My main question is: if drag queens do not present one of the traditional binary genders, then what is their gender considered to be? Also, why does this third gender make so many people uncomfortable? In my opinion, this third gender is one that represents males who want to express excessive feminine traits, but do not want to represent those traits all the time. They still want to be masculine and have a penis, but they do not want to be constricted by the binary traditional gender system that looks at males as being abnormal if they show feminine traits. People might be uncomfortable with drag culture because it makes it difficult to determine the sex of an individual. The fear of feeling attraction toward an individual representing a specific gender, but then having reproductive organs that are opposite of that gender is freighting for most people in this society. Here is a clip from Jerry Springer that shows the reaction of two heterosexual males being told their significant other is actually a male.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJRqasnq7Ec

This is the reaction that many people would have if they were attracted to an individual that identifies with a gender that does not represent that gender’s traditional sex. People may fall in love with a person who identifies with the gender they are attracted to, but if their sex is not that person’s desired sex then they may automatically throw away their feelings toward that person. If individuals were more accepting of these people who identify as a gender different from their sex, the binary system in place today could be broken. There is an example of an individual who is open to new explorations that go against traditional views.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skwszyB46gk

Though drag queens only express the female gender at specific times and these individuals in the clips may be transgender all the time, treating it as a lifestyle, there are important conclusions that can be stated from these clips. First, that contemporary society looks at people not showing their traditional genders as abnormal and second, that there is hope that one day “third genders” or people deviating from the norm may be more accepted.

 

Drag queens, transsexuals, transgenders, intersexes, and all others who do not represent the norm in society fall between these two curves. There is a possibility that one day, everyone represented by this diagram will be accepted by society.  

Female Body: #Strength or #Weakness ?

   For much of the past, the perception of the woman has been based on what society around them expects. This notion, what is expected from a woman, has been inextricably embedded into society and passed on from mother to daughter and has become the norm in how the woman behaves and acts in public. From this damning narrative, women have been belittled to objects that society projects upon them what they would like to ideally view a woman as being. 

  Young's piece, "Throwing Like a Girl", articulates her message by explaining girls are socialized at a young age that their bodies are fragile pieces that must be maintained in a manner that is conservative to their male counterparts. Further, it is presumed that females are not to participate in male activities because of their bodies which relates to the naturalistic body and suggests that it is biological as to why females are not to participate in male dominated fields. This is articulated by Young in the example of minimizing the amount of space to take up with the female body which leads to the lessening of a female also participating in activities that may increase the bodily capacity of the woman in relation to the male counterpart. An example of what Young is explaining is related to how young boys are socialized into sports and activities that are physically demanding while young girls are given Easy Bake ovens, Barbies and princess-related movies to occupy their time. 

  The central argument Young conveys to the reader is body related and how the connotation surrounding a female body stresses Victorian-era body standards and the production of presenting oneself. The dilemma stemming from how the female body should be produced in what Young explains as "…we often lack the confidence that we have the capacity to do what must be done." The lack of confidence Young explains has manifested in that young females worry about physical appearance to please their peers, but only because of the socialization they endured (hence the Mean Girls clip). 

  Take for example, the amount of women in careers related to STEM subjects. From a young age, the woman is self-taught "I cannot"which has led to the disproportionate amount of females in STEM careers. If the young girl is taught that she should be cautious and not as ambitious as her male counterpart because of biology, then gender gaps in fields where confidence is a major part of success, is a consequence. 

  Then, related to the body and the discussion concerning sports and males, here are numbers that display how the damning narrative of how the female body should be conservative/dainty have negative effects regarding females and sports. It is apparent that the message Young wrote about years ago is still prevalent in 2014 and affecting young females today. Notably, if a female is seen to be exercising it is usually related to weight loss or to "be fit" instead of trying to gain muscle or build endurance like their male counterparts so proactively enjoy doing. Even further, a female who is interested in sports and does have noticeable amounts of muscle is deemed to be "butch" and out of the mainstream views of how a female should be presented. 

  

  

Shooting Like a Guy

Historical and sociological forces unique to each gender cause disparities in the relationship to the body between men and women. Most of us, including the artist of the above cartoon, are likely to agree on that fact even before reading Young's work. As can be implied from the image, because we live in a world where a woman’s value is still associated with her appearance, societal beauty standards have the power to cause healthy, attractive women to feel overweight and self-confident in a way that men with the same body mass index would never imagine feeling. 

              Observations such as this serve as the basis for Young’s explanation on why many have incorrectly perceived the phenomenon of throwing a ball “like a girl” to be the product of a “natural feminine essence”. Her theory, as I understand it, is thus: (1) Society’s sexist objectification of the female body causes women to literally “objectify” themselves, coming to view their own bodies as objects separate from the experiences that their bodies create. (2) This conscious awareness of the body as a separate entity from the psyche, coupled with social conditioning that steers females away from male-gendered activities, actually changes the way in which many of their bodies operate in the three-dimensional world. In short, she posits that differences in bodily existence for each gender are based primarily on differences in cultural status between men and women—she maintains that there is no natural feminine essence.

              The following video presents an example of how differences in gendered bodily existence might be assumed natural by society:

              Based on this, it would seem that women might be more predisposed to hurting themselves with a powerful gun. Even if we ignore the complexities of a statement like that and assume it to be true, however, the question remains, why would women be more likely to cause themselves harm from an improper bodily technique? Some would argue that women’s hands are naturally more delicate, which is why they have such a hard time.  If Young is to be believed, however, it is more likely to be because the women have been socialized into such a position. They have been told constantly that they are fragile or they have had little experience with a gun, and perhaps for these reasons, they assume they are not really in control of their physical situation (which can explain why they have difficulty performing the task).

              The short video for today, “Men Throwing Rocks with the Other Hand,” further exemplifies how this could be so. When men throw with their non-dominant hand, it presents a form that is “unnatural” in appearance, similar to the way that girls are said to throw normally. This emphasizes that even men do not throw great naturally, but rather were conditioned to do so through their relationship with their social environment. We know women have been historically discouraged from doing perceivably masculine activities, so how could we expect them to perform bodily techniques in the same way as their male counterparts if they have not been socialized in the same way?

             

              The larger implication of Young’s theory seems to be that gender is socially constructed just as much as race, sexuality, or any other non-biological identifier. The fact that in everyday life, one bathroom has a dress on the door and one does not is because we as a society have created an “essential” difference between men and women that is not naturally essential. We already knew that this distinction had huge effects on the social realm as well as how men and women viewed their bodies, but now we have learned that the pervasiveness of such a division extends even into the way that our bodies function in physical space.