Introduction
The body is constructed and conditioned through social ideas, norms, and notions of ideal human embodiment. Through construction and conditioning of the human body, people’s sense of themselves is constituted by an awareness of their bodily contours. In recent years, bodily transformation among transsexuals has increased significantly, mainly because they realise the mismatch between their natural and ideal bodies (Lennon 2012).
Notably, nature is a notion that gains legitimacy through instruments and signs (Butler, 1990). To Butler (1990), the body and any of its parts is a signifier. However, instead of people perceiving it as the signifier, the social norms, ideas and notions have conditioned the same people to perceive the same body as the real meaning. For example, women are objectified because of their bodies, while in reality; women are much more than the assumptions people derive from the objectified female body.
For example, some of them have more physical strength than members of the male gender. Unfortunately, it does not fit the societal construct of ‘femaleness’ for a woman to be stronger than a man. As such, their strength is wasted away as they conform to social expectations by working jobs that do not demand much physical strength.
Gender and the body’s construction and conditioning
In the past, people would be content with their biological bodies, which culturally, defined the gender that a person belonged to. One was born a girl or a boy, and where the distinction between the two was not clear (e.g. in a baby born with both the male and sexual organs), the parents had to choose whether they preferred their baby to grow up as a boy or a girl (Lennon 2012).
Butler (1990, p. 232) uses the example of ‘girling’ whereupon birth, a female child is pronounced as a girl. She, however, argues that the newborn child does not choose to be of the feminine gender upon birth; rather her gender identity is the result of “forcible citation of a norm, one whose complex historicity is indissociable (sic) from relations of discipline, regulation, punishment” (Butler 1990, p. 232).
Explaining this further, Salih (2002) argues that social assumptions and norms make it easy to pronounce that a baby is a girl or a boy based on their anatomical makeup. He, however, points out that the perceived differences between female and male gender can be misleading and unnatural. It is important to restate at this point that as Butler (1990) argues, nature is a notion whose legitimacy depends on instruments and ideas developed by the same people who determine whether something is natural or unnatural.
Notably, people have begun to question the accuracy of determining gender purely on the basis of human anatomy. One side of the modern thought is convinced that gender identity is independent of one’s body (Lennon 2012). The argument posits that the body may fail to reflect one’s gender identity correctly. Arguably, when they seek to physically/surgically transform their bodies to reflect their real gender identities, transsexual people are trying to fit in with what the social norms, notions and ideas have constructed and conditioned gender to be. For example, a person who changes his male body to look like a female body is trying to fit in into a society that expects the female body to be curvy, smooth, and beautiful.
As Lennon (2012) notes, there are many transsexual people who are happy with their identities, and as such, do not go for bodily modification. However, there are others who cannot function optimally without such modifications. According to Butler (2004), people have an ideal body in their minds, which is shaped by a social norm, notion or idea. The ideal body is usually imaginary and bears the burden of social normalization. The foregoing argument notwithstanding, people still attempt to fit their bodies into acceptable and socially recognizable shapes.
Butler (1990), therefore argues that people define themselves in reference to the imaginary ideal images they have in mind. A person, who feels that his body does not represent the ideal human embodiment, may face prohibitions and punishments from within himself and from the society in which he lives in (Butler 1990). The author is, however, quick to point out that prohibitions and punishments do not always work. Specifically, he argues that social norms, ideas and notions of the human embodiment “do not always produce the docile body that fully conforms” (Butler 2004, p. xix). When bodies do not conform to social norms, notions or ideas, they are perceived to be abject bodies.
In relation to the gendered anatomies of both men and women, the fictive identification that people perceive themselves with arguably bears no relations to their physical bodies. The foregoing perhaps justifies why some transsexual people still feel that they belong to what people consider a different gender despite their physical bodies suggesting the opposite. It is, however, important to note that there is a contestation between sex and gender distinction. Butler (2004) argues that the difference between gender and sex is attained when gender binaries are applied to sex.
On his part, Reeves (2009) notes that gender is culturally constructed. Consequently, the female body cannot be seen or interpreted as being a male body. Butler (2004, pp.9-10) adds her voice to this debate by arguing that “if the immutable character of sex is contested, the distinction between sex and gender turns out to be no distinction at all”. The author, however, acknowledges that it is impossible to disassociate gender from the cultural and political schemas from where it was produced and has been maintained from one generation to another (Butler 2004).
Foucault is another philosopher who believes that biological sex is an oversimplification of a reality that is more complex than most people acknowledge. He argues that if biological sex equates to gender, the world would not have people who are confused about what gender they really belong to. Drawing from Foucault, Butler (1990, p.7) argues that gender has nothing to do with cultural meanings attached to sex, but “the cultural means by which ‘sexed nature or ‘natural sex’ is produced and established as, prior to culture”.
In a gender-related argument, it has been observed that the female body has been targeted by social construction through norms, ideas and notions where women have taken up beauty regimes that include dieting and exercise in order to attain some form of embodiment that fits into prevailing social ideas about attractiveness and beauty (Bartky 1990). Men have not been spared by social construction either; the ideal man is the protector of his household or of the people around him, something that is best portrayed through his physical strength.
Men too exercise for purposes of building muscles, which they perceive as a reflection of masculinity. The reality though is that some physically weak men exist. However, they too have an ideal image of what they would like to be in future. Notably, it is these same notions of power in the male gender that legitimised and naturalised gender inequality in the past (Fieser 2005). According to Fieser (2005), women’s bodies were historically judged as inferior when compared to male bodies, and the physical potential that men had.
In her essay titled, ‘throwing like a girl’ Young (2005) argues that women have learnt to live within the social construct of what they should be, how they should act and how they should behave, so much that, they do not fully utilise their physical potential. The suggestion made by Young (2005) therefore, implies that anatomical differences between men and women has nothing to do with how women perceive their bodies; rather, it is because society has always had norms, ideas and notions of how women should be like.
Possibilities that exist for reimagining the body
The identifications that people have are fluid and can easily be changed. Something (e.g. a movie character) can make one realise that they are no longer comfortable in their socially construed gender. Transsexual people embody the foregoing argument. Arguably however, it is hard to understand why transsexuals’ cannot appropriate an imaginary signification of who they really are, to the bodies they already have.
Why, someone may ask, do they seek sexed embodiment? The foregoing aside, it is noteworthy that some scholars believe that reimagining the body is quite possible. Two such scholars are Lloyd and Gatens (1999, p. 26) who argue that “we can learn to replace misleading and debilitating illusions” that we have grown accustomed to through our socialisation. Such reimagining of the human body would arguably mark the beginning of a social and political transformation (Lloyd & Gatens 1999).
It is worth mentioning that while reimagining the human body would be liberating to most people whose potential has been constrained by social norms and expectations, changing such people’s perceptions of what they have always believed to be true would be a herculean task. Lennon (2014, para. 12) specifically argues that “[we] cannot change people’s way of experiencing the world by offering them contrary facts”. Lennon (2014) further argues that if people are to change how they perceive their bodies and those of others, theorists need to provide them with alternative pictures that make sense at both the cognitive and emotional levels,
Convinced by the argument that social construction has limited them, people can choose to start experimenting with life without the social constraints. An example of such experimentation is identified by Cohen (2012) where gender non-conforming learners (i.e. self-identified ‘girls and young women’) were encouraged to apply to a girls’ only school in the US. The example by Cohen (2012) gives weight to Foucault’s (1982) advice that reimagining the body needs the society to establish new cultural forms, new attitudes and new behavioural patterns. From Foucault’s advice, it would appear that the prevalent societal attitudes, behaviours and cultural forms would be at stake if reimagining of the body occurred. Additionally, there is a possibility that body reimagining would lead to confusion in the society as people become more liberal and carefree. Social order as people know it today would therefore arguably be at stake.
Reimagining the body would also bring new realisation to groups which have been subjected to societal norms. For example, women would possibly realise that the glass ceiling concept is a social construction, which have in the past been used to explain why they couldn’t progress beyond certain levels in their careers. This would disrupt the political landscape in a society, and as such, one can argue that traditional politics would be at stake.
Gender subjectivity would also be at stake as Holden and Scrase (2006) note. According to the two authors, the main things that would be at stake should body reimagining happen would be “gender subjectivity as an experience of bodily objectification, and of gender relations as a domain of object relations” (Holden & Scrase 2006, p. 41). Objectification theory states that “girls and women are typically acculturated to internalise an observer’s perspective as a primary view of their physical selves” (Fredrickson & Roberts 1997, p. 173).
Bodily objectification leads women (and even men) to habitually monitor their bodies, and this can lead them to experience shame and anxiety. Fredrickson and Roberts (1997) further argue that bodily objectification makes people less aware of their internal bodily states. Moreover, people who are subject to bodily objectification are less likely to be motivated by things or activities that would otherwise motivate them if they were not treated as objects. It is possible that with body reimagining, women would start being perceived for who they really are as opposed to being perceived as bodies, or a combination of body parts.
On a personal level, women and girls who have for a long time claimed ownership of socialised attitudes and values would start disowning the same (Fredrickson & Roberts 1997). Consequently, their sense of self would change. Some of the possible consequences of such changes would most likely include that they (women and girls) would stop paying too much attention to how they look like. Instead, they would focus more on reinventing themselves and living life to the fullest without living up to the expectations of the opposite gender.
By arguing that gender relations is also at stake if reimagining of the body occurs, Holden and Scrase (2006) are implying that it is the objectification of the female body that upholds prevailing gender relations. If women will start perceiving themselves differently, and if men, stop perceiving the female body as an object, gender relations would arguably change. For example, the male gender would start perceiving the female gender more objectively based on their individual capacity to accomplish other things (e.g. their skills, experiences, or intellectual potential).
Conclusion
This paper has indicated how the body is constructed and conditioned through social ideals, norms and notions of the physical male and female anatomy. Using the example of a gendered body, the paper has argued that gender is a social construction, which does consider that one’s physical anatomy does not specifically portray the gender that he or she belongs to. A person who is born as a girl does not have to belong or fit in to the female gender because gender should not be defined by one’s physical anatomy. The paper has also indicated that reimagining of the body places social order, gender relations, and gender subjectivity at stake.
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