Body Politics: An Intersection of Gender, Sexuality and Commodification

A body is the social site where many political factors such as gender, sexuality, and commodification are intricately interwoven and operate together historically, culturally and politically (Bartky, 1997; Bordo, 2003; Budgeon, 2003; Foucault, 1979; Nettleton & Watson, 2002; Shilling, 2012). In contemporary era where varied industries ensue to produce products related to a body in tandem with today’s commodified culture, the body functions as a symbolic institution beyond a corporeal form, where desires, identities are reflected in socioeconomic, cultural and historical contexts. First, the feminist movement has triggered revealing that historically women’s body has been suppressed and managed by male according to gender system (see Bordo,

Based on Foucault’s idea of governmentality, Bartky (1997) poses the technique embedded in body discipline needs to be examined with the interconnection between the modern patriarchy, female identity and subjectivity. As the “style of the flesh,” femininity is accomplished through internalization of bodily practices such as gesture, posture, diet and abstinence of appetite as appropriate modality for the racially or classed specific (Bartky, 1997). As the internalized self-discipline appeals to “narcissistic indulgence” (Bartky, 1997, p. 103), gender ideology within the self-discipline privileges the patriarchal hierarchy by denying and marking those who might potentially resist to the hierarchy and bring discomfort in the operation of the current system as the Other. In this vein, studies about everyday gendered performance have focused on how the gender norms are manifested and ratified as consequences of self-discipline (Butler, 2002, 2004; West & Zimmerman,

Under the prevalent logic of governmentality, the body is colonized; an aged, ill, or unhealthy body is denounced as “abnormal” while the self-disciplined and mastered body, which resists to the natural process of biological aging, is suggested as “normal.” The internalization of governmentality is premised upon objectification of subject. In the examination of its own body by referring to the suggested images, as Bauman suggests, the process of self-monitoring obscures the boundary between subject and object (1995, p. 119). Many body practices that are frequently consumed in today, such as anti-aging, plastic surgery, fitness, and diet, dovetail with enactment of corporeal standards and their performative implementation (Bartky, 1997; Twigg, 2004). Under neoliberalism, individuals follow the logic of governmentality, by fragmenting their bodies in their observation of the bodies, evaluating them, and making efforts to fit into the standards. Thus, despite autonomous work in self-discipline, the matter of body management cannot be developed into a further discussion of agency or actor, rather it is confined to a matter of the objectified subject or object of action (Bauman, 1995). Still one question remains unanswered; what happens during or after