Disciplining gendered bodies

Disciplining gendered bodies is the practice of conforming one's body to society's standards and expectations.

There are various visible ways in which people and cultures consciously and unconsciously maintain binary heteronormative norms, which involve choices of female or male gender actions and performances. Common body practices, or gestures, are combined with gender expectations that make it hard to recognize these practices. Three examples of heteronormative disciplines are gendered attractiveness, embodied space, and body movement.

Gendered attractiveness is the physical appearance of a male or female that is considered ideal, beautiful, attractive and having sex appeal of oneself or others. Males, for example, should be large in stature, muscular, full head of hair, straight white teeth, healthy and alluring to look at. They spend many hours trying to perfect their bodies with physical exercise. They also make changes to their appearance with hair removal, hair plugs, teeth veneers and body tanning. Males want to be seen as strong, dominant and masculine. Females, on the other hand, should be slender, tall, have long blonde hair, perfect skin and Barbie doll-like features. Females want to be characterized as petite, skinny and fit. Females are concerned about how they look, what they wear and they desire to be attractive, and thus go to great lengths to make sure that they feel and look attractive and polished. Females make permanent changes to their bodies as they have cosmetic surgery on all areas of their bodies such as, nose, face, lips, chin, teeth, breast, buttock, feet and many other parts of the body. Females also make temporary changes such as cut and color hair, tanning for darker skin color, hair removal from body, paint finger and toe nails. In addition, females use clothes, shoes and accessories such as scarfs, jewelry, purses and eyeglasses to help make them feel and look attractive.

Embodied space is the way males and females familiarize with their bodies in their surroundings and often compare to each other. The area of personal and interpersonal space tends to be diverse and has various levels for different genders and how it is used to disciple one’s self and others. Males and females also experience their bodies in different ways such as females are more guarded in the way they experience their bodies than males who are less guarded. The size of personal space also had to do with gender. Females compared to males take up less space and males tend to spread out. An example would be when a female sits in a chair they normally sit straight up with legs crossed and when male sits in the chair they sprawl out and legs are spread.

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