Bodily Constructs

Embodiment is, hands down, my favourite talking point in GSDS, because it fucks with so many of the "common sense" assumptions and knowledges that float around in the socio-cultural ether and find their way into our thoughts, minds and understandings. Your understanding of the body, your body, and others bodies is constructed. Dominant understandings of the body are rooted in naturalistic, essentialist theories that presuppose the body as innate, known and unchangeable. This is one of the problems of the sex/gender distinction; even people who understand that gender is a social construct struggle to entertain the idea that "sex" is not biologically grounded and immutable, but also constructed. I came across this disagreement in the comments section of an Autostraddle article at the start of semester that illuminates my point wonderfully despite my disagreements with the article itself and provides an excellent example of discourses around bodies (yes, Autostraddle. I know, shut up, it's not that bad). Here's another one discussing how notions of gender embodiment plays out on queer fat bodies.

Micheal Foucalt and Judith Butler are the obvious writers when it comes to bodily constructs, but this last week's topic was centred around surgical interventions and the discourses surrounding the bodies/people that have them (in fact, I think the essay question I'm doing [funnily enough, the essay on bodily constructs] is straight out of Foucalt's ideas on disciplinary- and bio-power) and I chose to read Nicki Sullivan's (who is my current academic crush, along with Sam Murray) article on Genital modification and the somatechnologies of cultural (in)difference (soma = cell/body). 

I'm currently reading Somatechnics, which is edited by Sullivan and Murray, so I may be biased, but thought the article was brilliant (some people didn't, and expressed this with blinkered impassioned vitriol in the tute). Illustrating their point, Sullivan used Australian legislation on what is deemed "female genital mutilation" (again, a term that is constructed) to reveal the way in which the specific (yet generalised) bodies that access genital modification technologies are racialised, stigmatised, valorised, gendered, empowered, disempowered, victimised and sexualised through the discourse that surrounds them. Specifically, the dualism of surgical  modification of female genitalia (labia, hymen, vagina, clitoris) as a barbaric folk custom that must be stamped out (hello colonialism!) and a cosmetic surgery that is empowering and/or health driven (but also much derided and morally panicked about). 

I think people get too caught up on children, age, gender and consent when it comes to FGM to think academically on the topic. 

Guess what? Along with gender, our notions of childhood, proper bodies, life cycle and consent are also socially constructed and incredibly Western and White! Everything is socially constructed, but before you fall into an existential fuck funk: nothing matters, so relax, have a culturally relevant beverage of your choice, and discursively analyse it/party like it's 1999/enjoy the K-hole.

Sincerely,
SJ

Hegemonic Masculinity; No/body Wins

Raewyn Connell is often credited with the creation of the term hegemonic masculinity, and is a prolific writer in those discourses. Hegemonic masculinity is one of those terms that can be hard to define; I know what it is, the discourses that inform it and the discourses it informs, shapes and transposes upon. But I have no pithy sentence to give to you, no neat package of information, no discreet meme. Foucalt's idea of bodies as vessels of power is useful when understanding hegemonic masculinity. Check out this explanation and critique of Foucalt's power-knowledge-discourse-bodies work. Bodies are created, reconstructed and imbued with power, and some bodies/ways of being carry more weight, have more social ascendancy and cultural capital than others. Which bodies have more power? Ones coded as male, as masculine, and some forms of masculinity have more power than others. To steal from Sartre in Being and Nothingness "the body constitutes their meaning and marks their limits".
Go to Google (or your preferred search engine - monopolies of access and knowledge are worrying but their algorithms and servers are just so good). Type "hegemonic masculinity". Click on "Images".
The results speak for themselves. Big, buff, WHITE men doing manly things. Here are my favourite image results:

PUMP IT!!!!!!

SOMETHING WITH GUNS!!!!

JESUS!!!???

RACISM! COLONIALISM!!! SAVING HELPLESS WOMEN! SO MANLY!!!

CONVENTIONALLY ATTRACTIVE YOUNG MIDDLE CLASS WHITE GUY! RISK TAKING IS FOR REAL MEN!!! (knowledge of the Hey Girl meme/Feminist Ryan Gosling masters thesis is required to understand the hilarity)

You might also notice that most of the images are of fictional characters, heroes and models (hi Derrida!). This reflects one of the best (read - worst) parts of hegemonic masculinity. It's amorphous and temporal, changing throughout time and space. It's different for differing nationalities, classes and colours. And it does not necessarily reflect the everyday experiences and embodiment of actual men, no concrete connection to general masculinity is needed. Hegemonic masculinity is invisible, unattainable and harmful. That's the great thing about hegemonic masculinity: it not only oppresses women through devaluing their assigned attributes, violence, legislation etc., it polices and restricts all those on (and outside of) the gender spectrum, even the most manly of men. Pretty neat, huh?

Think happy thoughts!

SJ