Search results for patriarchal bargain

Earlier this month, Lisa posted about the objectification of female beach volleyball players at the Olympics, discussing the types of photos and poses that are used when reporting on different types of sports, including gendered differences.

Autumn B. sent in another over-the-top example of the objectification of female athletes. The commercial is for RoadID, a company that sells “identification gear.” Autumn saw it while watching the Tour de France; she found this shortened version online, which she says actually features less objectification than the original did.

The main focus of the ad is a slow investigation of various aspects of cyclist Jenny Fletcher’s body. The camera travels slowly up her leg, then shows her full profile before zooming in on her breasts as she zips up her shirt:

Jenny Fletcher has no dialogue. She exists as a body to be broken down into eroticized parts for the consumption of the viewer. As Autumn put it, it’s frustrating that, a fan of the “the male-centric Tour de France,” that “when they do FINALLY feature a female cyclist, it is as a sexual object.”

For other posts on this topic, see Serena Williams’ patriarchal bargain, Sports Illustrated covers, feminizing female athletes, Serena Williams in ESPN magazine, and media portrayals of female athletes.

Course Guide for
SOCIOLOGY OF SPORTS
(last updated 4/2012)

Developed by J.A. Carter
University of Cincinnati

 History

• Social Hygiene and the Gender of Health in 1922
• Vintage Women’s Basketball Teams: So Funny!
• Chance, Innovation, and the Evolution of Skateboarding
• Woman Wears Men’s Clothes to a Prizefight World Gasps 1910
• 1927 Wimbledon Ad Using Women’s Progress to Sell

Culture

• Sociologist Doug Hartman on Why We Love Football
• Context: How do you Play Football?
• Brit Hume: Only Christianity Can Save Tiger Woods
• Arizona’s Prayer at the Super Bowl
• What Does it Mean to Believe that a Human Characteristic is Natural?

Fans

• Jay Smooth on the Irrationality of Sports Fandom

Stadiums/Economics

• New Sports Stadiums and Economic Development
• The Economic Sociology of Triathlons

Race/Ethnicity

• Distracted by “Linsanity”: Hidden Racism and the Model Minority Stereotype
• Jeremy Lin, ESPN says, has a “Chink in the Armor”
• Racial Stereotyping and Perceptions of Competence
• Tragedy at Red River: Race, Privilege and Learning to Swim
• Racism and Jingoism Among US Soccer Fans
• When Whiteness Matters in Sport
• Media, Race, & Web 2.0
• An Indigenous Olympics
• Russian Ice Skaters Impersonate Aboriginals, Win Gold
• Orientals v. Gauchos: Who are you Rooting for?
• Dutch Soccer Club Nicknamed the Jews
• Notre Dame’s Fighting Irish Mascot
• Some Native American Sports Mascots
• Don’t Olympic Athletes have Other Things They Need to be Doing
• Olympians Making “Chinese Eyes”
• Arab Women and 2008 Olympic Athletes
• “The Angry Black Athlete”
• Race and the King Kong Motif
• Southern Hospitality?
• Corporate Plantation

Gender

• The Manly Origins of Cheerleading
• Women and Exclusion from Long Distance Running
• Policing Gender in Figure Skating
• I Wonder How Much Laundry the Average Team USA Dad will Do
• Happy Super Bowl Day!
• Barbie and GI Joe: Inscribing Gender Norms on Toys
• Which Women Play on the Center Court at Wimbledon?
• Skate Canada gets “Tough”
• Participation in High School Sports by Gender and Sport
• The Sexualization of Female Olympiads
• Breakfast and Lunch and Dinner of Olympic Champions
• “Come to the Ball”: Swiss Soccer Ad
• Valuing Dads in the WNBA
• Blaming Jessica Simpson: Women Sap Men’s Strength
• Pink Sports Team Clothing: Making a Masculine Arenas Safe for Women

Sex Differences in Sports

• Opportunity and Athletic Performance
• Male as the Neutral Default
• The Question of Caster Semenya’s Sex

Equipment differences in sports

• Female Boxers may be Required to Wear Skirts
• Ideology, Safety, and the Lingerie Football League
• The Amazing Disappearing Cheerleading Outfit
• Femininity and the Proposed Badminton Dress Code
• Two Fun Facts About Figure Skating Fashion

Masculinity

• Hegemonic Masculinity in Super Bowl Commercials
• No Man’s Land and the Alice Band
• Mocking Men with Femininity
• The Daintification of Masculinity
• Men without Sports Knowledge/Skills are Inadequate Human Beings
• Energy Drinks and Violent Masculinity
• Crossing Gender Lines: Boys Doing Double Dutch
• A Set of Ads Suggesting that Men must Eschew Femininity or Else
• Social Construction and Hegemonic Masculinity

Sexuality/Homophobia

• Pushing Back Against Homophobia in Sports
• “Powder Blue Faggots”: More Sporting Homophobic Taunts
• Yankee Fans Verbally Assault Teenage Red Sox Fans with Homophobic Taunts
• What Does a “Prehomosexual” Look Like?
• Johnny Weir: That’s Gay
• Pulled Homophobic Nike Ads
• “Homosexual” vs. “Gay”: Discourse in the Culture Wars
• You’re a Quarterback for SC?  That’s So Gay!

Bodies

• Tim Tebow and the Religious Body (Politic)
• Disabled Bodies and Ableist Acceptance
• World Champion Olympic Medalist Reduced to Woman on a Diet
• Objectification of Women = Go Team!
• Idealizing Shawn Johnson
• Re-Framing Menstruation
• Ski Jumping’s Weight Problem
• An Entitlement to the Right to Define and Consume Female Beauty
• Nude Calendar Images of German Paralympic Athletes
• Release the Thin Athletic Body Trapped Inside your Big Fat One
• The Male Gaze Does Not Allow for Boy Nipples
• Men’s Bodies are Allowed to Grow Up

Media

• What’s Important About Female Athletes?
• “Come for the Ladies, Stay for the Legends”
• Serena Williams’ Patriarchal Bargain
• Female Athletes Support the Guys
• His and Hers Sports Illustrated Covers
• SportsCenter, the Predictable Gender Trend
• Cheerleader Dreams at Mattress World
• ESPN Introduces Website for Women
• Women Talk, Eat at Baseball Game; Earth Stands Still
• Welcome, Women to your Special Section
• It’s the Ironman, Not the Ironwoman, so Shut your Cereal Hole
• A Breakdown of Televised Football Broadcasts
• Feminizing Women’s Sports Teams
• It’s so Boring to Wait While your Wife shops for you
• Serena Williams on the Cover of ESPN
• Another Collection of Gender-and-Tech-Related Images
• Female Athletes: Be Pretty, but Not Sexy or Pregnant
• Bringing People Together with Coke
• Marketing Sports Supplement to Men and Women
• Media Portrayals of Female Athletes
• Connecting Golf and Sex
• Score Big at Sports Bar

Violence

• Reception of Rape Victims: Silsbee, TX Edition
• Glorifying Violence in American Football

College Athletics

• In Defiance of Title IX Colleges Report Male Athletes as Women
• College Athletics and Graduate Rates
• College Athletes and their Majors
• Where Sports Scholarships Go

The title question haunts me.  I’m a feminist, a recovered anorexic and, yes, I’m on a diet.

Because of my experience with anorexia, I know how horrible things can get when one starts obsessing about “bad foods” and setting (and re-setting) weight-loss goals.  My eating disorder made me miserable, and I have lasting health issues that could eventually shorten or lessen the quality of my life.

That said, recovering from anorexia made me a feminist.  While battling for my sanity and health, I became increasingly pissed off at the THIN=BEAUTIFUL*GOOD environment we live in.  Our culture’s valorization of thinness caused well-meaning friends to compliment me on my rapid weight-loss, literally up until the weeks that I entered treatment. Even after entering treatment, some people didn’t think I was skinny enough to be “really” anorexic.  Worse, my awful then-boyfriend hinted that it would be great if I could recover without gaining any weight, “since you’re not, like, scary-thin.”

In the end, I got better, got angrier, and ultimately re-arranged my life so that I could stay healthy and continue fighting-the-good-fight as my career.

We feminists typically view dieting — and, particularly, the diet industry — as an expression of patriarchy that is bad for women.  As a scholar who studies the harmful effects of our culture’s beauty standards, I agree with this.  Diets (which FAIL 95% of the time) drain women’s energy, happiness, and wallets – often while risking our health.  Hence, “RIOTS, NOT DIETS!” has become a well-known rallying cheer for many feminists.

Dieting can also be understood as a type of “patriarchal bargain” (an individual woman’s decision to accept gender rules that disadvantage women-as-a-group, in exchange for whatever power she can wrest from the system).  By strategically losing weight, we accept the THIN=BEAUTIFUL*GOOD equation (which implies FAT=UGLY*BAD), and propel ourselves into positions of greater social advantage.  On an individual level, having “thin privilege” feels empowering.  (Recall, Oprah Winfrey — arguably the MOST powerful woman in the world — has described “going to the gym when I really prefer wine and chips” as her greatest accomplishment!)  Yet, these THIN powered feelings depend upon a system of inequality in which power/privilege/respect are denied to others on the basis of these standards.

Frustratingly, given the patriarchal bargain of weight-loss, being radically anti-diet as a political stance doesn’t always fit comfortably as a personal stance. Because we live in a society that punishes women for being “fat,” even the most dedicated feminists report struggles with body image.  The threat of becoming a martyr for this cause (i.e., by voluntarily giving up ”thin-privilege,” if we’ve got it) can be terrifying.   Add to this the personal fact that I’ve gained an (subjectively) uncomfortable amount of weight in the past year by neglecting to care for my body, and suddenly I’m facing a conundrum.

So what’s a good feminist to do?  Here’s how I’ve proceeded.

Step 1: Shun Mirrors for 1 Year

I was saying mean things to my reflection in the mirror and wanted to lose weight, urgently.  My body insecurities were reaching a dangerous peak, and it scared me.  Was I on the verge of a relapse? 10 years ago, I’d probably have gone on an extreme diet, but this time something blissfully self-protective kicked in.  I still did something extreme, but in a vastly more body-positive direction: I decided to shun mirrors for a year.  Yep, you read that correctly.  I’ve embarked on a quest to go without mirrors for 365 days.

Thus far it’s been enlightening (and challenging), but hasn’t completely resolved my body image issues.

Step 2: Revamp Eating and Exercise Habits to be Healthfully Moderate

So, in addition to shunning mirrors, I’ve decided to monitor my food and exercise until I’m back on track. As an advocate of the “Health at Every Size” movement (which stresses the importance of healthful behaviors but rejects the idea that there is a universal “healthy weight”), I’m going to try to judge my “success” based on my behaviors, instead of my weight.  My goal is to consciously re-engage in healthful eating habits and joyful activity, and then accept my body size and shape wherever it settles.  As much as I’m still tempted to “get skinny,” I know I can live with this, and (more importantly) I know my body can live through it.

But I still hope I lose some weight.

So, what do you think? If “fat is a feminist issue,” can a feminist diet?

————————

Kjerstin Gruys is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Sociology Department at UCLA where she’s writing her dissertation on clothing size standards in the fashion industry. At her blog, A Year Without Mirrors, she’s chronicling her commitment to avoid her reflection for 365 days.

If you would like to write a post for Sociological Images, please see our Guidelines for Guest Bloggers.

E.C.S. sent along this clip from Keeping Up with the Kardashians in which the world is introduced to Kim’s wax figure, to be installed at the famous Hollywood wax museum, Madame Tussauds. E.C. asks, and suggests and answer to, the question: What has Kim Kardashian done to earn a spot beside historic presidents and renown musicians?  Kardashian, she explains, is being honored for her capitulation to patriarchy.  She explains:

Using her attractiveness, and her sexual and social capital as tools, Kim has made herself both a career and fame by winning the attention of men…

E.C. is referring, here, to Kardashian’s patriarchal bargain.   A patriarchal bargain is a decision to accept gender rules that disadvantage women in exchange for whatever power one can wrest from the system. It is an individual strategy designed to manipulate the system to one’s best advantage, but one that leaves the system itself intact.

Indeed, this is what Kardashian has done, and very successfully. So, for what is she famous? For making this bargain and getting such a good deal for herself. “Congratulations, Kim,” E.C. writes, “for being patriarchy’s perfect woman.”

Clip:

See also our post on how Tila Tequila’s patriarchal bargain ultimately backfired.

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.