WGST 1808 Chapter 10: READING NOTES - The Flight from the Rejected Body (Susan Wendell)

• School: Carleton University
• Department: Women's and Gender Studies
• Course: WGST 1808
• Professor: Aalya Ahmad

Document Summary

Body is idealized & objectified demands to control our bodies and attempt to perfect them. Creates rejection, shame, & fear in relation to (1) failures to control the body and (2) deviations from body ideals. Implied in any idealization of the body is the rejection of some kinds of bodies or some aspects of bodily life. Idealization of body is related in complex ways to the economic processes of a consumer society profit. Conflate body ideals w/ our concept of what is physically normal . Cultural splitting of mind from body & derogation of the body. Medical ways of seeing & treating the body. To objectify another person"s body is to ignore the consciousness that is embodied there. Objectifying one"s own body requires splitting one"s consciousness from it & ignoring one"s subjective experience of it (view it as another person might) Observing & participating in constant cultural objectification of other people"s bodies encourages us to objectify our own.