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Gidden’s Reflexive modernity theory and feminist theory on bodies in Contemporary society

‘Contemporary Individuals increasingly work on their bodies in a variety of ways. Does this reflect increased  agency to pursue individual body projects, or, does it show there is more  pressure to comply with unrealistic ideals in today’s society?

Giddens reflexive modernisation:

In our current age, a time labeled as late modernity, it seems people in western society generally have a lot more options in life than in past times. This is due to a number of different factors including globalisation, industrialisation and political movements such as feminism giving oppressed groups more rights. Contemporary individuals are exposed to a diverse range of lifestyles they otherwise wouldn’t know in traditional “tight knit” communities that existed in the past. While it is up for debate as to weather we really are more free with our bodies in this day and age, it is undeniable that there are generally many more options on how to pursue your body. Anthony Giddens is a sociologist who has written extensively about the effect that modernity has had on self identity and body projects, popularizing the theory of reflexive modernisation. Giddens compares “the new sense of self identity” used by Wallerstein and Blakeslee to describe people after divorce to the sense of identity people have in the age of late modernity.^:81 Giddens believes that people have more of an opportunity to find themselves in modern times. While he mentions that there are positives and negatives that come along with the opportunities of the modern age, it is clear that Giddens leans more toward the idea that individuals working on their bodies in contemporary society reflects increased agency to pursue individual body projects. This is not the only view on body projects in contemporary society however, some views for example the feminist view believe that certain groups, women especially, are more controlled as to how they pursue their body due to new techniques imposed in the modern day.

Anthony Giddens (2004)

Giddens sees the self as a “reflexive project”, and holds the view that what the “individual becomes is dependent on the reconstructive endeavours in which they engage”.^:75 While the outside world has influence on how the individual carries themselves, it is more the lifespan of the individual and not the outside events that become the “dominant figure”.^:76 to individuals in contemporary society. life experiences need to be combined with self development in order to create an “authentic self”.^:80 Giddens sees people who live in the age of late modernity as having liberated minds, who have broken away from the behavioural rules of the past. People generally have more choice these days, however more freedom doesn’t necessarily mean a better life than in the past where there were more established sets of behaviour. Just because there are more possibilities for what people do with their bodies doesn’t mean people will make the right choices and choose the best possibilities. The reason people often make bad choices in contemporary society is because there are so many choices however not a lot of guidance as to which are the best options. Contrary to the past when people generally let their life be determined by external factors such as culture and religion, these days most people in society have “no choice but to choose” a certain lifestyle.^:81 Giddens sees that individuals have increased agency to pursue body projects, however we have no other option but to pursue a certain lifestyle in contemporary society. Giddens doesn’t believe that once you have chosen a lifestyle it will remain that way however, everyone’s routine is open to change due to the reflexive nature of self identity.^:81

In contemporary society people are generally more free to choose their friends, sexual partners and spouses. Giddens describes relationships today as being “pure relationships”^:89. Relationships these days have more reflexivity, showing the reflexivity of late modernity. The main reason for most relationships these days is emotional satisfaction, there are less “external anchors” that held relationships together in the past.^:92 If someone is unhappy in a relationship these days they are more likely to just break it off or distance themselves. Giddens sees the purification of relationships especially with marriage. Marriages generally aren’t political or economic anymore, neither do people really marry for labour division anymore, love has become a lot more important ^:89, and people are more free to marry out of love and pursue the relationship for personal interests.

Giddens argues that in the modern day we are becoming more responsible for the design of our own bodies. ^:102 Some tamer examples of this include “body care” which involves simply listening to your body to pick up signs where things go wrong, and going on diets. More extreme examples of modern body projects include anorexia, Giddens sees Anorexia as a means of the individual going to extreme lengths to maintain self identity and a certain body appearance.^:105 While Giddens believes that both women and men have more possibilities in late modernity, he agree's that women have it harder in this masculinist culture, in that they have to try harder to break away from their “fixed identities” they had in the past. Even though women still have to protest for their rights on occasion in contemporary society, they have more possibilities on how to protest and Giddens sees anorexia as one of the means of protest. ^:106 It is important to note that Giddens doesn’t see body regimes as only a product of changing body ideals and influence of advertising in modern society. ^:102

While people have a lot more possibilities to choose these days, in every social setting there are usually at least vague pre set decisions on how individuals are meant to act, Giddens describes these different groups as “Milieux”. ^:83 Milieux referring to the french word meaning ones social surroundings. It is uncommon in late modernity for people to only spend time within one Milieux throughout their daily life, most people spend time in different milieux throughout the day. Examples of this includes groups of friends, colleagues at work and family. People may act differently depending on what group they find themselves in, this concept is defined by Giddens as “Lifestyle sectors”. ^:82 People may change their appearance according to the setting, however this does not mean that there is no core self identity. Giddens believes that adjusting to certain settings is "preserving ones self identity by integrating your personal demeanour into the narrative of the setting." ^:100 Even though someone can mostly choose which Milieux they get involved with, some people are stuck in circumstances where they don’t have the same availability of jobs or resources as others do, these circumstances involve group pressures, role models and socioeconomic circumstances. ^:82

Giddens observations are applicable to the lifestyles seen to be lived by people today. Social media platforms such as twitter and instagram are full of people posting about how they are working reflexively on their individual body projects. These people are showing off the variety of lifestyles people in late modernity can choose from. Just about every body form can be found to be celebrated somewhere on social media, weather it be being really skinny, really fat, having a really natural or an extremely modified body. Social media makes it possible for people all around the world to see these lifestyles and choose which one they prefer (however the circumstances of individuals in the western world usually makes it easier to follow their chosen lifestyle with less restrictions). The Pure relationship has become a lot more prevalent, higher divorce rates than in past times show this: people feel more free to break off the marriage if it doesn’t bring emotional satisfaction. Even though the divorce rate has been declining in the last decade, it is still a lot higher than it was a century ago when there were a lot more rules and economic motives behind marriage . The decline in divorce can be greatly linked to less people getting married, which can also be linked to modernity as people have the freedom to enjoy a romantic relationship without the pressure of getting married.

The Feminist perspective:

Second wave feminism started in the 1960’s, made up of activist groups such as the National Organisation for Women and the Women’s Liberation movement. The differentiation between first and second wave feminism is that second wave feminism was more about “women’s liberation” than it was about “equal rights”. ^:25 The Goals of second wave Feminism were to get women to be able to fully participate in the mainstream and have the same privileges and responsibilities as men. Another goal was to make women’s personal experiences of discrimination through things like marriage and and sexual practices political. ^:25 In 1968 the Women’s liberation movement demonstrated against the Miss America beauty contest, ^:25 showing a distaste in second wave feminism for the way in which female bodies were being portrayed by setting unrealistic beauty standards for women. This aspect of feminism concerned with women’s bodies inspired books such as The beauty myth written by Naomi Wolf in 1990. The beauty Myth argues that even though women are gaining more political and economic rights with modernity, there are new forms of oppression due to unrealistic body standards portrayed in the media. The book also argues that these unrealistic body standards keep a lot of women feeling down most of the time therefore keeping men in charge. Wolf also recognises a economic motive behind making women feel like they need to consume cosmetics in order to make themselves prettier. The rise of modernity and fall of following religious rules is very often attributed to giving individuals more freedom, however feminists are interested in how women’s bodies become vulnerable to control by these changes.⁶⁰

Breast augmentation- the most popular cosmetic surgery procedure among women

One way in which feminists believe women are being controlled with the new technologies of late modernity is cosmetic surgery, and how it is disproportionately aimed at women. Kathy Davis is an author who has written about this issue in her article: A dubious Equality: Men, Women and Cosmetic Surgery. (2002). In this article Davis analyses an early 90’s British TV show called “Plastic Fantastic” which is about different procedures of cosmetic surgery. While the show did show cosmetic surgery procedures for men, they were portrayed very differently to the procedures performed on females. Davis states that “once you scratch the surface” of the show it is evident that it isn’t about equality in cosmetic surgery, but that the procedures are portrayed as being a lot more natural for women and more shameful for men. ⁵⁴ The doctors on the show seemed a lot more neutral when explaining breast augmentation for women and a lot more judgemental when explaining the penis enlargement surgeries for men, often cracking jokes about it. Women are expected to have surgery as they are expected to have lower self esteem, this stems from women’s bodies being described as medically “deficient and in need of repair” at some points in history. Plastic surgery is a new way of conforming to this line of thought.⁵⁶ When men have plastic surgery it is conceived as either an actual deformity that they need fixed as opposed to women who just want to look beautiful, or more commonly as the man being psychologically disabled and less masculine. The societal norms surrounding plastic surgery therefore are not only controlling to women by being disproportionately marketed toward them, but also controlling to men by stigmatising those who do opt for cosmetic procedures. “cosmetic surgery cannot enhance masculinity in men like it can enhance femininity in women”. ⁵⁹ This is due to the fact that with masculine norms the vulnerabilities of the body should be denied and it is emasculating to submit your control to a surgeon, a profession in which most of the practicians are male. ^59,60. Davis Theory can be proven correct by looking at the stats of cosmetic surgery in 2018, where a whopping 26,043 women had cosmetic surgery, compared to a humble 2,304 men.

The most common cosmetic surgery procedure performed on women is breast augmentation, of which there were 7,727 cases in Britain alone in 2018. Many feminists argue that women get breast implants due to the wider patriarchal forces that drive women to want to be more sexually desirable to men. . Certain feminists believe that breast augmentation is a result to the pornographic and sex industry constructing modern standards for how women’s bodies should look. In her article Fake breasts and power: Gender, class and cosmetic surgery, J.S Taylor found that the women who she interviewed about breast augmentation were having their “ desires to position themselves as successful modern women within the hierarchies of class and gender exploited by cosmetic surgery companies”. These views show that there is a general consensus among feminists that women’s bodies are unfairly exploited in the sex industry and in plastic surgery by portraying certain beauty standards the contemporary female is expected to live up to.

conclusion:

Overall Giddens believes that in contemporary society individuals generally do have more freedom and agency to pursue individual body Projects. Contemporary individuals have a “new sense of self identity” with “no choice but to choose”. People are able to be more responsible for their own bodies, with dieting and body care becoming a central part of individuals body regimes. Individuals also have more of a choice on which relationships they pursue, and the relationships become more reflexive. People can choose a lifestyle, or lifestyles in different milieux’s and change reflexively according to which groups they decide to surround themselves with. While individuals are more free to surround themselves with people they want, Giddens agrees that some people are born into socioeconomic circumstances where there is less choice, recognising that some groups such as women and people of colour have more constraints. These people still have the possibility of choice, however a single mother who’s a women of colour for example may have to explore more “Novel modes of activities” in society due to her circumstances, and these activities are more likely to end “in despair than in self enrichment”.⁸⁶ Certain groups of people being constrained however, doesn’t necessarily have to do with complying with unrealistic ideals in todays society, but with oppressive patriarchal structures that still exist from the past. Giddens sees Modernity as mostly bringing more freedom to individuals to pursue themselves and their body projects. The feminist view on the contemporary body focuses greatly on new ways in which the female body is exploited by new technologies. Examples of this include cosmetic surgery and beauty enhancement products being disproportionately directed at women and unrealistic beauty standards in the media and the sex industry. Under feminist view the female body is not necessarily more free than it was in past times, and the beauty standards of modern times minimise females choices about how to pursue their body projects. This is different to Giddens views, as while Giddens agrees that social and economic conditions can influence how much choice people have in society, he believes that everyone has more choice in late modernity than they did in the past, and have the possibility to change reflexively. There is truth to both of these views, while many women still feel the need to conform to a certain look, there are many modern movements which encourage women to break away from these gendered norms. There are many online platforms where non traditional forms of femininity such as being hairy or overweight are celebrated. This can be seen through the concept of Milieux as explained by Giddens. Women in contemporary society are usually able to choose which Milieux has the most attractive lifestyle and they want to align themselves with. However going back to the feminist theory, while there is a Milieux for almost every lifestyle and body type in modern times, there are some which are more accepted in society than others. This means that while people in contemporary society can theoretically choose how they want to pursue their body, societal pressures do still limit the possibilities for many people. While there is generally more agency to pursue individual body projects for some people in contemporary society, some groups, especially women might find themselves under a lot more pressure to comply with ideals in todays society than in the past.

References

Harvard referencing:

1. Baaps.org.uk. (2019). Cosmetic surgery stats: number of surgeries remains stable amid calls for greater regulation of quick fix solutions  | The British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons. [online] Available at: https://baaps.org.uk/about/news/1708/cosmetic_surgery_stats_number_of_surgeries_remains_stable_amid_calls_for_greater_regulation_of_quick_fix_solutions [Accessed 20 Nov. 2019].- cosmetic surgery stats pic
2. Davis, K (2002) A Dubious Equality: Men, Women and Cosmetic “Surgery. Body & Society” Vol.8 Issue 1, p49
3. Gamble, S. (2001) The Routledge Companion to Feminism and Postfeminism London:Routledge
4. Howson, A (2013) The body in society: an introduction. Cambridge: Polity
5. Schraer, R. (2018). The blame game: Divorcing in the UK. [online] BBC News. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44253225 [Accessed 18 Nov. 2019].- divorce stats pic
6. Taylor, J.S (2012) Fake breasts and power: Gender, class and cosmetic surgery, “Women’s Studies international Forum” 35(6) pp 458-466

Extra reading

• Wilson, E. (2005). Women: A quick reminder ... The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/oct/18/classics.shopping [Accessed 19 Nov. 2019]
• Wolf, N (1991) The beauty myth: how images of beauty are used against women. London: Vintage

Images:

File:Anthony Giddens at the Progressive Governance Converence, Budapest, Hungary, 2004 October.jpg

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File:Dr. Placik Breast Augmentation.jpg