Body work : beauty and self-image in American culture / Debra L. Gimlin.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gimlin, Debra L., 1967-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Beauty, Personal--Social aspects--United States.

Beauty, Personal.

Beauty culture--Social aspects--United States.

Beauty culture.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (182 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, 2001.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Today women are lifting weights to build muscle, wrapping their bodies in seaweed to reduce unwanted water retention, attending weigh-ins at diet centers, and devoting themselves to many other types of "body work." Filled with the voices of real women, this book unravels the complicated emotional and intellectual motivations that drive them as they confront American culture's unreachable beauty ideals. This powerful feminist study lucidly and compellingly argues against the idea that the popularity of body work means that women are enslaved to a male-fashioned "beauty myth." Essential reading for understanding current debates on beauty, Body Work demonstrates that women actually use body work to escape that beauty myth. Debra Gimlin focuses on four sites where she conducted in-depth research--a beauty salon, aerobics classes, a plastic surgery clinic, and a social and political organization for overweight women. The honest and provocative interviews included in this book uncover these women's feelings about their bodies, their reasons for attempting to change or come to terms with them, and the reactions of others in their lives. These interviews show that women are redefining their identities through their participation in body work, that they are working on their self-images as much as on their bodies. Plastic surgery, for example, ultimately is an empowering life experience for many women who choose it, while hairstyling becomes an arena for laying claim to professional and social class identities. This book develops a convincing picture of how women use body work to negotiate the relationship between body and self, a process that inevitably involves coming to terms with our bodies' deviation from cultural ideals. One of the few studies that includes empirical evidence of women's own interpretations of body work, this important project is also based firmly in cultural studies, symbolic interactionism, and feminism. With this book, Debra Gimlin adds her voice to those of scholars who are now looking beyond the surface of the beauty myth to the complex reality of women's lives.

Contents:

Front matter

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Body Work as Self Work

1. The Hair Salon: Social Class, Power, and Ideal Beauty

2. Aerobics: Neutralizing the Body and Renegotiating the Self

3. Cosmetic Surgery: Paying for Your Beauty

4. NAAFA: Reinterpreting the Fat Body

Conclusion: The Body, Oppression, and Resistance

Notes

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 151-163) and index.

Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

ISBN:

9786612758911

9781597345064

1597345067

9781282758919

1282758918

9780520926868

0520926862

OCLC:

437143980