Sociology PhD candidate Kjerstin Gruys recently guest posted about her effort to shun mirrors for one year in the hopes of improving her body image. As any really interesting and challenging project should, it’s begun to get some major media coverage, including a story at Yahoo News. When a political project starts getting mass media attention, though, it risks being contextualized and even co-opted by the status quo. This is a case in point.
Interspersed among the article about Gruys’ project are links, an effort on the part of the website to get readers to spend more time on its pages and the pages of its advertisers. These are probably randomly generated according to the content of the article. So, since Gruys’ project is about her feelings about her body and avoiding mirrors for six months before and after her wedding day, the links center around beauty and weddings. The first two links nestled in among the first few paragraphs read “Are you Satisfied with Your Face?” and “A Wedding Dress to Fit Your Body Shape.”
By publicizing her project, Kjerstin is trying to make the personal political. But one of the only means of drawing awareness to her work includes losing control of how it’s talked about and delivered. While she wants women to feel better about themselves, and some may be inspired by her project, in some ways this is also another instance of the mass media reminding women to think about the appearance of their face and body. The inserted links, further, can be read as upholding the very standards that Gruys is trying to combat. And in at least some cases, they do. The “Are you Satisfied with Your Face?” link, in this vein, goes to a site sponsored by super-beauty project corporation L’Oreal.
Thanks to my student, Kirsten Easton, for sending along this link!
Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
Comments 22
Molly — August 30, 2011
Interesting that the article has to include a picture of her; in the comments section, this elicits the judgmental attitude that she's pointing out in her project, only directed at others instead of self. ("She's hot and doesn't need to look in mirrors!" "She's ugly and should look in a mirror!" etc.)
Jack Jackson — August 30, 2011
This is similar to the findings of Sarah Sobieraj's new book, Soundbitten, which found that activist orgs spend a lot of time trying to garner and use media attention, but that often media attention harms more than it helps.
Casey — August 30, 2011
I hate it when other people do this, but no one else seems to minds, so I'm gonna straight up call this out for sexism. Why is it only women with body issues this project is targeting? Do men not have body-image issues? Am I about to hear an argument that women's body-image issues are inherently worse because they're women?
Meghanb — August 30, 2011
"But such modes of protest and transcendence are no longer contradictory to the status quo and no longer negative. They are rather the ceremonial part of practical behaviorism, its harmless negation, and are quickly digested by the status quo as part of its healthy diet." -Herbert Marcuse (1964), One Dimensional Man, p. 14
Rachel Ann Hanson — August 30, 2011
This has been on my mind a lot in the last week because one of the classes I'm taking this semester is "Research Methods in Social Science." It's so unfortunate that research is taken and skewed by "journalists" for their own ends.
BTM — August 30, 2011
I'm all for improving women's self-esteem but I'm not crazy about this project. How will will she do practical mirror-enabled things, like making sure there isn't a chunk of spinach lodged in her teeth? And how will she avoid her own reflection in a world full of shiny surfaces?
Worse than that, though, is the idea that ignoring herself will somehow make her like herself more. I keep drawers and closets full of junk--sure I can close them and not have to look at them, but that doesn't actually solve the junk problem.
I think she'd do better to learn to love herself and the way she looks, and learn to love her mirrors. This all smacks uncomfortably of the idea that she thinks she's too ugly to look at.
Faldwin — August 30, 2011
To be fair, the in-text links are automatically placed by a computer, based on the words on the page. If this woman has Google Ads on her own blog, they likely advertise the same things.
Kurt Engelhart — August 30, 2011
Today an idea can travel around the world in hours if it is deemed important. This is not accomplished by the media but by personal interactions. Good ideas do not need to be sold, which is what the media feels is its purpose. Notice the use of the singular. The media is unanimous in this, and they will not use anything that is not a means to sales. Ignore the media. It is not your friend. It is somebody's friend, but not yours.
Anonymous — August 30, 2011
I think that those ads/suggested articles are randomly generated based on key words. Similarly to how women in their 20s on facebook often get ads for baby products, shopping deals, and sorority t-shirts even if those have nothing to do with their interests, simply because they are women.
In response to the idea itself, her goal is also short-sighted, self-indulgent, and unreasonable. People don't simply look in mirrors to check out how hot they are, put on makeup, and lament that they've gained love handles in the last year. There ARE parts of our appearance that not only are we judged for, but we are JUSTIFIED in being judged for. Not things such as weight, or how trendy our makeup is, but just so we look like we have good hygiene and common sense. I look in the mirror just as much to check that my hair is brushed, my underwear isn't hanging out, and I don't have visible boogers in my nose. But if she's privileged enough to be in a job where she doesn't ever have to worry about things being affected if she presents as dirty or sloppy, good for her, I guess....