WGS 200 Chapter Notes - Chapter 4: Plastic Surgery, Muscle Dysmorphia, Binge Eating
23 Jul 2016
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Document Summary
Human bodies illustrate the most obvious expressions of gender. Indeed, this inscription of gender onto bodies is the key to gender identities as we recognize bodies as masculine or feminine . Bodies that are not easily and immediately recognizable as fitting within this binary often cause anxiety and consternation when we cannot place them neatly into their masculine/male or feminine/female boxes. This binary aspect of bodies is taken for granted that we rarely question it. Drag shows or parades where bodies act outside gender expectations exaggerate gender performances. Drag performances accentuate traditional gendered bodies through the clothes people wear and the ways they walk and talk. They help illustrate how gender is normalized and usually experienced as natural . When gender is performed in these ways, it can be entertaining, in part b/c it emphasizes this. There is nothing natural about gender at al. Instead it is constructed and repeated over and again every minute of the day.
