Breasts in public

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Recommended: Foucault, femininity, and the modernization of patriarchal power, sandra lee bartky summary

As Sandra Lee Bartky stated in her paper Foucault, Femininity and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power, there is no reason for women to fight for their rights, because they already enjoy them- well, at least in the developed countries. Women have the right to show their breasts in public, but majority of them decide not to. What is pulling them back? Is it really them who decide or an “anonymous power” who is responsible for this unconscious reinforcement? (Bartky,88). Based on the Breast of Intentions, Swedish Women Shed Bikini Tops in Pool Campaign and Dixon-Muir’s Breast Test articles in the course pack, there are certain reasons why majority of women choose not to go topless in public, although they have the right legally to do so. On the other hand, Bartky analyzes some of the possible regimes, which enforce women to submissiveness, but also recognizes that they are the ones who seem to practice them on and against their bodies.
To start with, Bartky describes how women personalize men’s expectations in regards to their physical appearance, style, attitude and behavior, by using “internalization”. The author is trying to explain that women incarnate “patriarchal standards of bodily acceptability” meaning that have embodied the social standards; which make them feel guilty if they fail acting in accordance with the appropriate principles. Furthermore, women struggle to meet men’s expectations with the fear that if they don’t, they will face male refusal. ‘Male gaze’ constructs how women’s appearance should be according to what is more attractive and more appealing to men. It is also recognized from Bartky that women willingly accept what men want and the disciplines are forced to, but she also understands that the...

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... she refers to it as no one in particular, meaning that even people we hardly know, can be the “top sergeant in the disciplinary regime of femininity” (Bartky,88).
While societies change and old forms of patriarchy corrode, new ones concentrate and develop (Bartky 94). A woman’s feminity is no longer restricted to certain forms of disciplinary practices such as her dressing and her smile. However, the center of attention in today’s modern society is a female’s body and its appearance. Bartky argues that when this anonymous power controls a woman about how she should feel about her body, oversees everything she does and directs her to change what is not good enough, she immediately becomes objectified (Bartky, 94). While today‘s world is advancing, a female’s body, such as her breasts will always be the center of attraction and always be seen as sexual.

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