The Socially Constructed Body: Insights From Feminist Theory1

JUDITH LORBER and PATRICIA YANCEY MARTIN. Judith Lorber is Professor Emerita of Sociology at Brooklyn College and The Graduate School, City University of New York, where she was also coordinator of the Women's Studies Certificate Program from 1988 to 1991. She taught feminist social theories of gender at the Graduate School and courses in sociology ofgender and women's studies at Brooklyn College. She is author of Paradoxes of Gender (1994) and Gender and the Social Construction of Illness (1997). She was founding editor of Gender & Society, the official publication of Sociologists for Women in Society, and, with Susan A. Farrell, coedited a collection of pa pers from that journal, The Social Construction of Gender (1991). She was 1993 chair of the Sex and Gender Section of the American Sociological Association (ASA) and received the 1996 ASA Jessie Bernard Career Award for contributions to feminist sociology. Patricia Yancey Martin teaches undergraduates about gender violence against women, and work and organizations. She tries to incorporate feminist principles into her teaching to help students question the often invisible aspects of social life relative to gender, race, class, and sexuality. She is Professor of Sociology and Daisy Parker Flory Alumni Professor at Florida State University, where she studies gender and organizations (i.e., the social constructions of masculinities and femininities at work). She edited, with Myra Marx Ferree, a collection of essays on feminist organizations titled Feminist Organizations: Harvest of the New Women's Movement (1995) and is writing a monograph on the politics of rape-work based on data from 130 organizations (rape crisis centers, police, prosecutors, judges, hospitals, and defense attorneys) in 28 Florida communities. She is currently writing a book, with David Collins on, about gender and organizations for the Pine Forge Gender Lens Series.

Body-reflexive practices . . . are not internal to the individual. They involve social relations and symbolism; they may well involve large-scale institutions. Particular versions of masculinity [and femininity) are constituted in their circuits as meaningful bodies and embodied meanings. Through body-reflexive practices, more than individual lives are formed: A social world is formed.2

In an undergraduate course on the sociology of gender, one of us invited some young bodybuilders to speak to the class. Two of the speakers were a married couple who did "customized" coaching of people who wanted to change their bodies in various ways. The husband coached young fat or skinny boys whose parents wanted them to be thinner or heavier. The wife coached women who wanted to be "more defined," meaning they wanted muscles that show when their bodies are at rest. The third person was a 20-year-old man who was tall and muscular. All the speakers had been given a set of questions in advance to think about when addressing the class. The 20-year-old man had written his comments out and, when his turn to speak came, he held the paper out in front of him, with both hands, looked down at it instead of at the students in class, and in a voice choked with emotion, said, When I was 12 years old, my dad walked out on my mother and brother and me. I knew from that day I was now the "man of the house." So I had to do something. I started working out. I tried to get big so I could fill his shoes. I've never stopped working out. I have a kid today and I know I have to be there for her, be strong, be a man. The class of 230 students sat in silence, touched by this unexpected confession. The young man had, as a boy, decided that having muscles and being "big" made him into the man of the house, which he was required to be because of his father's departure. To be a man, he felt he had to "get big." The equation of big size, strong muscles, and "true masculinity" is a pervasive theme in U.S. culture and society~3

The young man's story illustrates a major point of this chapter: Members of a society construct their bodies in ways that comply with their gender status and accepted notions of masculinity and femininity. That is, they try to shape and use their bodies to conform to their culture's or racial ethnic group's expectations of how a woman's body, a man's body, a girl's body, or a boy's body should look. This point does not deny the distinctiveness of material bodies, with their different physical shapes, sizes, strengths, and weaknesses. It does emphasize, however, that members of a society, not genes or biology; determine the proper shape and usage of women's, men's, boys', and girls' bodies, beyond dress, hair style, cosmetics, and other adornments.

For example, as shown in a recent advertisement, men are becoming the targeted market of plastic surgeons for gynecomastia or enlarged breasts. The ad said that "as many as one of three males are affected by this embarrassing problem" and that breast-reduction surgery, like the ad describes, can remove the "undesirable contour... restoring the normal male breast shape."4 This ad encourages men as well as women to judge their breasts and bodies against images that are culturally admired but that many, if not most, people find hard to meet. The popularity of expensive exercise clubs and home exercise equipment reflects our culture's preoccupation with the "perfect body."

When a person's body contradicts social conventions regarding weight, height, and shape, that person may be viewed as lacking in self-control and self-respect. Conversely, people whose bodies comply with valued conven- tions are admired, praised, and held up to others as ideals to be emulated. In short, by judging, rewarding, and punishing people of different body sizes, shapes, weights, and musculature, members of a social group persuade and coerce each other to construct socially acceptable-and similar-looking- bodies. Although you may think the natural physiology and anatomy of female and male bodies dictate the ways women's and men's bodies look and are used, feminist theory argues that the "ideal types" of bodies that all are encouraged to emulate are the product of society's gender ideology; practices, and stratification system. Western societies expect men to be aggressive initiators of action and protectors of women and children; therefore, their bodies should be muscular and physically strong. Women are expected to be nurturant and emotionally giving, willing to subordinate their own desires to please men and their own interests to take care of children. Therefore, women's bodies should be yielding and sexually appealing to men when they are young and plumply maternal when they are older. F

Of course, many perfectly acceptable variations of women's and men's bodies exist, including well-muscled women bodybuilders and graceful men ballet dancers. The underlying norms seep through, however. Men ballet dancers, such as Nijinsky; Nureyey; and Baryshmkov, awed audiences with their phenomenal leaps and turns, the specialty of men dancers. Competitive women bodybuilders downplay their size, use makeup, wear their hair long and blond, and emphasize femininity in posing by using "dance, grace and creativity." Otherwise, they do not win competitions or are called butch or lesbian and treated as an oddity or embarrassment to the other contestants, women and men alike.

Gender is one of the most significant factors in the transformation, via social construction dynamics, of physical bodies into social bodies. In Western culture, dieting, breast enhancement, and face-lifts are ways that women have changed their appearance to fit ideals of feminine beauty, whereas men lift weights, get hair transplants, and undergo cosmetic surgery to mold their bodies and faces to a masculine ideal.6 These practices may lead to illnesses, such as eating disorders, infections, and systemic damage from leaking silicone implants, but by themselves they are not considered abnormal because they are responses to culturally idealized views of how women's and men's bodies should look.

We may say that beauty is only skin deep and that what is inside matters more, but beautiful people are given more physical space on the sidewalk, and good-looking men as well as women move up the career ladder faster. Only a few presidents of the United States have been shorter than 6 feet tall, and research on corporations has shown that approximately 10% of a man's earnings can be accounted for by his height.7

When one of the authors was doing interviews recently in the headquarters of a large, multinational corporation, she noticed that the men she was interviewing were very tall. As one interview with a man who was more than 61/2 feet tall was about to begin, she asked, as a joke: 'Are all the men at [the company] tall?" He smiled and said, "Well, a lot of us are," and proceeded to explain that he has a bias toward tall people-men and women. He stated, "The last two women I've hired have been over 6 feet tall." He described his department's "winning" volleyball team and its "need [for] tall people to win." His comments may indeed reflect a preference for tall volleyball players by his department, but they may also reflect society's general preference for tall men. He may see tall men as superior, given society's valorization of height in men. Then, his concern to avoid "gender bias" leads him to favor tall women as well. I When it comes to filling positions of authority, the male sports hero, astronaut, and combat soldier-symbols of the "right stuff "-are often the first choices. Their physical strength, coolness under fire, motivation to succeed, and combination of self-promotion and team support are thought to make them the exemplars of leadership. Their exemplary characteristics are displayed, we feel, on their faces and bodies.

A very large oil portrait, 50 feet wide by 30 feet high, of World War I British military officers, on display in the National Portrait Gallery in London, shows approximately 50 men in their military uniform finery. With the exception of two somewhat short and rotund men, all are tall and thin in physique. Furthermore, all have square jaws, strong chins, similar hair styles (short cropped and no beards), and conventional "good" looks. The idea may seem fantastical that military officers are chosen on the basis of height, weight, race, or "jaw shape," given ideological claims in Western societies that ability, knowledge, and a track record of competence form the basis for such decisions. Recent research, however, shows that the shape of a man's jaw-for example, whether he has a receding or perpendicular chin-is a determinative factor in being chosen for high-ranking military office.8 "Weak-faced" men are rarely advanced to the highest ranks.

West Point's curriculum is devised to produce military leaders, and physical competence is used as a significant measure of leadership ability~ When women were accepted as cadets, it became clear that the tests of physical competence, such as the ability to scale an 8-foot wall rapidly, had been constructed for male physiques-pulling oneself up and over and using upper-body strength. Rather than devise tests of physical competence for women, West Point provided boosters that mostly women used but that lost them test points (in the case of the wall, West Point added a platform). Finally, the women themselves figured out how to use their bodies successfully. Janice Yoder describes this situation as follows: I was observing this obstacle one day, when a woman approached the wall in the old prescribed way, got her fingertips grip, and did an unusual thing: She walked her dangling legs up the wall until she was in a position where both her hands and feet were atop the wall. She then simply pulled up her sagging bottom and went over. She solved the problem by capitalizing on one of women's physical assets: lower-body strength.9 Thus, if West Point is going to measure leadership capability by physical strength, women's pelvises will do just as well as men's shoulders. j E Gender and Bodies: Feminist Theorizing This chapter analyzes the body relative to gender using feminist theorizing that has developed in the social sciences and the humanities during the past 20 years. What do we mean by feminist theorizing? Feminism is a social movement that seeks to raise the status and value of girls and women in society. With that goal in mind, feminists have developed theories about what produces gender inequality and devised research to test those theories. Feminist theory has increased awareness of the social construction of "gendered bodies" by making visible cultural and social dynamics that generally are invisible to members of a society. Feminists have called into question many accepted "truths" about gender and bodies and have challenged the evidence on which dubious claims are based. Additionally, feminism has a political agenda that seeks to improve the status and treatment of women and girls. According to feminist theory, claims about gender, which include bodies, fit into the social arrangements and cultural beliefs that constitute gender as a social institution.10 As a social institution, gender produces two categories of people, men and "women," with different characteristics, skills, personalities, and body types. These gendered attributes, which we call "manliness or masculinity" and "womanliness" or "femininity," are designed to fit people into adult social roles such as "mother," "father," "nurse," or "construction worker." The institution of gender has many facets, from the societal patterns that put men into most of the positions of power in government and corporations to intimate relationships in which men have more power over women than women have over men. There are racial, ethnic, and class differences among women and among men, but gender similarities still exist. These similarities are socially produced, but their pervasiveness makes it seem as if they are biologically linked. Thus, women 5 learned emotional sensitiveness will be considered as evidence that they are naturally maternal, and men's learned coolness and objectivity will be considered as evidence that they are naturally logical and scientific. Such personality characteristics, feminists have shown, are the result of family structure and gendered relations and upbringing and are not genetic." Another common pattern is that men's characteristics are, for the most part, considered superior to women's, thus justifying men's social dominance. Here, racial, ethnic, and class differences create a stratification pattern that puts men of the dominant group at the top (in the United States, white and middle or upper class) and women of the most oppressed groups at the bottom (black or Hispanic and poor), with other groups of men and women ranged in between. In the past 10 years, women and men who are feminists have studied areas in which bodies are crucial and found the same social construction of masculine and feminine characteristics as had previously been found in personality attributes and work and family roles. We detail four of these areas-sports, risk behavior, weight and eating problems, and able-bodiness. In each of these areas, we explore ideas about how men and women should look and behave, and we explore how these ideas produce social practices that result in gendered bodies. These ideas and practices, and their bodily outcomes, do not just produce visible differences between women and men; they also reproduce a hierarchy, or gender stratification system, so that men's bodies ultimately are viewed as superior to women's bodies. Feminists argue that domination requires difference, thus claims that women and men are different become fodder for the development and perpetuation of a gender hierarchy or a dominance system favoring men over women.

On Telling Men From Women

Imagery, ideology, and practice are the social processes by which supposedly natural bodies are socially constructed. One of the most crucial aspects of the social construction of gendered bodies is that women and men should be easy to tell apart. You may say that anyone can tell a female from a male. Physical differences between male and female bodies certainly exist-a roomful of naked people or a walk on the beach would tell us at least that. Paradoxically, however, when dressed in unisex clothing, their differences are not as obvious as you may think. When four women students were admitted to the formerly all-male military academy, The Citadel, they were warned that they would have to have "nob" haircuts (shaved heads). Soon thereafter, however, they were told that they would have only very short haircuts-in a "feminine" style. Unhappy with this distinction, three of the four women cadets shaved each other's heads-and were disciplined for it.'2 Although the commander insisted it was so that the women would not be humiliated, a picture of a woman Citadel cadet with her regulation hat showed how difficult it would be to tell the boys from the girls-unless they had a visible gender marker such as longer hair.

If the differences between women and men begin to blur, society's sameness taboo" goes into action. 13 At a rock and roll dance at West Point in 1976, the year that women were admitted to the prestigious military academy for the first time, the school's administrators "were reportedly perturbed by the sight of mirror-image couples dancing in short hair and dress gray trousers," and a rule was established that women cadets could dance at these events only if they wore skirts. 14

Women recruits in the U.S. Marine Corps are required on formal occasions to wear skirts (rather than trousers), pumps with heels, and makeup~at a minimum, lipstick and eye shadow-and they must take classes on makeup, hair care, poise, and etiquette. This feminization requirement is a deliberate policy for distinguishing women from men Marines. Christine Williams quoted a 25-year-old woman drill instructor as saying the following: A lot of the recruits who come here don't wear makeup; they're tomboyish or athletic. A lot of them have the preconceived idea that going into the military means they can still be a tomboy. They don't realize that you are a Woman Marine.15

In most situations involving bodies, women and men are physically marked and physically separated, and overlaps between female and male bodies are ignored. An anomaly common enough to be found in several feminine-looking women at every major international sports competition is the existence of XY chromosomes that have not produced male anatomy or physiology because of other genetic input. Now that chromosomes have proved unreliable, sports authorities nonetheless continue to find ways of separating women from men.1~ Sports competitions are almost always gendered, and different kinds of sports construct different kinds of women's and men's bodies. In the process, they also construct masculinity and femininity. '7 Many gendered body characteristics we think of as inborn are instead the result of social practices. The phenomenon of boys' boisterousness or girls' physical awkwardness in Western societies are examples. When little boys run around noisily, we say, "Boys will be boys," meaning that their physical assertiveness has to be in the Y chromosome because it is manifest so early and so commonly in boys. Boys the world over, however, are not boldly physical-just those who are encouraged to use their bodies freely, to cover space, take risks, and play outdoors at all kinds of games and sports. Conversely, what do we mean when we say, "She throws like a girl"? We usually mean that she throws like a female child, a carrier of XX chromosomes. After all, she's only 4 or 5 years old, so how could she have learned to be so awkward? In fact, as Young notes, she throws like a person who has already been taught to restrict her movements, to protect her body, and to use her body in ways that are approved of as feminine. Not only is there a typical style of throwing like a girl, but there is a more or less typical style of running like a girl, climbing like a girl, swinging like a girl, hitting like a girl. They have in common first that the whole body is not put into fluid and directed motion, but rather... the motion is concentrated in one body part; and . . . tends not to reach, extend, lean, stretch, and follow through in the direction of her intention. 18 The girl who experiences her body in such a limited way at an early age is a product of her culture and time. As she learns to restrict her moves, she simultaneously closes out opportunities to develop the fluid, whole-bodied, unconstrained moves that are associated with outstanding achievement in sports. Actual comparisons of boys' and girls' physical prowess are rarely made. One student noted that he and the other boys were glad that they did not have to play against the best athlete in their elementary school-a girl. Sex segregation of sports by school officials kept her from playing with the boys and probably showing them up. Another young man, who had played Little League baseball with girls, felt that most girls were "no good"-even though three or four girls were very good. The girls who played well were ignored by the boys. He said, About this time I participated in Little League baseball. This was a boy-domi- nated organization where a team was unlucky" to have a girl teammate. Approximately 1 out of every 12 kids in Little League at that time were girls. I remember them quite well. Most were really not that good at baseball. They would usually play at the end of the game and bat last in the line-up. Then there were the three or four girls who stuck out in the league. They competed with the best of us. They could outhit just about any boy and played aggres- sively. Although they were good, they were also outcasts. Everyone considered them "tomboys" because they would dive for a fly ball or slide headfirst into home plate. Their teammates loved them on the field but once the game was over, so was the friendship. Girls just didn't fit into the norms of Little League. I have always wondered what it was like for those girls to play a boy-dominated sport. The girls' willingness and ability to "play like boys" was valued and celebrated on the field, but the same boys who praised them on the field viewed these girls as "freaks" off the field. If gender ideology about girls' and boys' bodies says girls are not athletically skilled, at least in sports defined as appropriate for boys, girls who do well in these sports are viewed as deviant. If teachers and principals forbid gender-mixed teams in schools, and if boys will not recognize girls' abilities when they play on teams outside of school, there is little opportunity to challenge the stereotypes of girls' versus boys' physical prowess.19

When girls and boys are given tennis rackets at the age of 3 and encouraged to become champions, they use their bodies in similar ways. Mter puberty, boys will have more shoulder and arm strength and concentrated bursts of energy; girls will have more stamina, flexibility, and lower- body strength. Training, sports, and physical exercise enhance, compensate for, or override these different physical capabilities as well as individual differences in musculature and athletic ability. Whether the outcome is a body trained for a particular sport or occupation or a body "normally" attractive, however, is the result of gendered social practices.

Gender and Sports

On June 23, 1996, the New York Times devoted its Sunday Magazine to the

forthcoming Olympics. What was startling was that the athletes featured in the special issue were all women. These women athletes, who were from all over the world, were champions in basketball, running, jumping, swimming, diving, sculling, kayaking, judo, gymnastics, heptathalon, shotput, mountain biking, and softball. They competed in Atlanta in 95 women-only sports as well as in 11 mixed teams sports, including badminton doubles, yachting, and equestrian. There were 3,800 women competitors in Atlanta, two-fifths of the total number of competitors. The featured final event, followed by the closing ceremony on television, was women's basketball. One hundred years ago, however, the first modern Olympics was all- male-female bodies were supposedly not made for serious athletics. Have female bodies changed in 100 years? Yes, they have. Women did not run in marathons until approximately 20 years ago. In 20 years of marathon competition, women have reduced their finish times by more than an 11/1 hours. They are expected to run as fast as men in the 26-mile marathon by 1998 and might catch up with men's running times in races of other lengths within the next 50 years because they are increasing their speeds more rapidly than are men.20 Athletes are better trained than they were in the past, and many record scores in competitions have been broken over and over. What Olympic athletes did 60 years ago can easily be done by high school students today. What has particularly changed women's bodies are the norms and expecta- tions of what they are capable of. For example, before Fanny Blankers-Koen, two-time mother, won four gold medals in sprinting in the 1948 Olympics, it was thought that childbirth ruined the female athlete's body. In 1952, June Irwin won a bronze medal in diving while she was 31/2 months pregnant.21 When the opportunities for competition are available, training begins when athletes are young and it is more serious than has been in the past. The result is more developed musculature, greater lung capacity, and increased strength, speed, and stamina-for women and for men.

The rules governing women's competitions, however, have not always recognized their strength-for example, in the tennis Grand Slam contests, men must win three of five sets, whereas women must win two of three. In response to Martina Navratilova's call for the same rules for women as men (and the same prize money), Bud Collins stated in a letter to the New York Times that almost 100 years ago, women played three-out-of-five matches (and in much more clothing). Their ability to match men's endurance "alarmed" the U.S. Tennis Association officials (all of whom were men), and they downgraded women's abilities by reducing the number of games they had to play to win a match.22

An important part of the changed view of women athletes is that they are no longer seen as masculinized oddballs. 23 Muscles on women are now sexy Holly Brubach, in "The Athletic Esthetic," the "style" piece in the special issue of the New York T~imes, stated the following: Muscles bestow on a woman a grace in motion that is absent from fashion photographs and other images in which the impact resides in a carefully orchestrated, static pose. Muscles also impart a sense of self-possession, a quality that is unfailingly attractive.24

This new image of women was visually evident in the photos of the special issue. All but 2 of the 28 photos showed the women in action or in power poses, with muscles bulging and arms akimbo. In contrast, in 1 of the 2 feminized photos, a Belarussian gymnast was shown lolling on her bed in a black satin jumpsuit, like an odalisque in a painting. In the other, which was from 1926, a woman tennis player looked like a ballet dancer doing a leap, with skirt flying. Television broadcasts of the Olympics, news and magazine photos, product endorsements, and other popular media depictions make new images of women's bodies routine and everyday. No one would think of organizing an all-male Olympics any more.25 Not only would it be unthinkable but also it would be unprofitable. Women athletes are good business; they attract audiences, men as well as women, and they sell products.

More important, they produce heroes. Kern Strug, an 18-year-old gym- nast, took the final vault in the final team event on a badly sprained ankle and clinched the first U.S. women's team gold medal. George Vecsey of the New York Times compared her to the mythic wounded soldier in war movies who leads the platoon to victory.~ The tiny young gymnast was elevated to a man's highest status-that of hero who sacrifices self for the collective good. Strug also emulated the men's code of "playing hurt." Women and men athletes sustain many injuries and play through pain. Both undergo much orthopedic surgery. For women, it is the price of high-level competition. For men, it is a mark of manhood. If men football players fail to ignore injuries and pain and do not use their bodies aggressively on the field, their masculinity is impugned by coaches and fellow players.27

Sports are a path to upward mobility for poor and working-class boys, even though few become successful professional athletes. Those who break into professional teams have only a few years to make it, and they cannot afford to be sidelined by injuries. Alcoholism, drug abuse, obesity, and heart disease also take their toll. The life expectancy of professional football players in the United States is approximately 15 years below that of other men.28 Their payoff, and that of all the successful athletes in men's sports, is very high income and fame. Successful women athletes do not get the same amount of income, media coverage, or prestige.

Michael Messner and colleagues found that in 1989 in the United States, men's sports received 92% of the television coverage and women's sports 5%, with the remaining 3% mixed or gender neutral. In 1990, in four of the top-selling newspapers in the United States, stories on men's sports outnum- bered those on women's sports 23 to 1. There was also an implicit hierarchy in naming, with women athletes most likely to be called by first names, followed by black men athletes; only white men athletes were routinely referre4 to by their last names.29 Similarly, women's collegiate sports teams are named or marked in ways that symbolically feminize and trivialize them-for example, the men's team is called Tigers, whereas the women's team is called Kittens or Lady ~gers, with all the gendered meanings of the term lady.30

Given the association of sports with masculinity in the United States, many women athletes manage their contradictory status through a postgame ritual of dressing and fixing their hair. One study of women college basket- ball players found that although they "did athlete" on the court-"push- mg, shoving, fouling, hard running, fast breaks, defense, obscenities and sweat"-they '~id woman" off the court, using the locker room as their staging area: While it typically took 15 minutes to prepare for the game, it took approxi- mately 15 minutes after the game to shower and remove the sweat of an athlete, and it took another 30 minutes to dress, apply makeup and style hair. It did not seem to matter whether the players were going out into the public or getting on a van for a long ride home. Average dressing time and rituals did not change.31 Another way these status dilemmas are managed is by redefining the activity or its result as feminine or womanly. Thus, women bodybuilders claim that "flex appeal is sex appeal."32 Ironically, this gloss of sexuality on women 5 bodybuilding almost cost a woman Army officer her command when photographs of her in her "bikini posing suit" were printed in an Army newspaper.33 Such a redefinition of women's physicality as "feminine" affirms the ideological subtext in U.S. culture that says that physical strength, as demonstrated in sports, the military, and bodybuilding, is men's prerogative and justifies men's physical and sexual domination of women.34 When women demonstrate physical strength, they are labeled as unfeminine: It's threatening to one's takeabilit}; one's rapeability, one's femininity, to be strong and physically self-possessed. To be able to resist rape, not to commu- nicate rapeability with one's body, to hold one's body for uses and meanings other than that can transform what being a woman means.35 Resistance to that transformation was evident in the policies of American women physical education professionals throughout most of the 20th ~entury They minimized exertion, maximized a feminine appearance and manner, and left organized sports competition to men for a long time.36

Assumptions about women's and men's bodies and their capacities are crafted in ways that have made the unequal distribution of rewards in sports acceptable. Media images of modern men athletes glorify their strength and power, even their violence. Media images of modern women athletes tend to focus on their feminine beauty and grace (so they are not really athletes) or on their thin, small, wiry androgynous bodies (so they are not really women). Now that extraordinary feats by women athletes have been spread far and wide, sports organizers and promoters may have to rethink where they want to put their money. E Risk Behavior The masculine code of demonstrable physical strength valorized in men's sports is part of the body imagery of men in general. Men in the working class prove their masculinity by being tough, making fun of danger or hardship on the job, and lording it over women and weaker men.37 For the middle-class man, power over resources and people seems to be the primary route of proving oneself a man. To get that power, a man may have to push himself so hard on the job that he ends up with a heart attack. Because of multiple risk factors, young black men living in disadvantaged environments are the most likely to die before they reach adulthood. Young black men have been called an endangered species because of their early death rates, with homicides, suicides, and accidents the leading causes of death of those between 15 and 24 years of age.38 For black and white men between ages 15 and 19, the annual homicide rate rose 154% from 1985 to 1991, with almost all of the increase associated with the use of guns.39 Young men's "taste for risk" has been attributed to sociobiological factors, but more plausible explanations are the seductiveness of danger, displays of masculinity, and, for black men, despair about the future. If a man cannot honorably walk away from a fight, he may end up a homicide statistic. One research study analyzed 80 cases in which strangers killed each other and found that the homicide frequently occurred in encounters in which one insulted the other and the dares escalated.40 Other health-threatening behaviors, such as smoking, drinking, and illegal drug use, are also influenced by social norms expressed in peer~roup pressures on young men and women of all racial ethnic groups. Drinking in college is declining among men and women, but college men still drink more often and more heavily than college women and are much more likely to get into fights, hurt others, drive while drunk, and damage property. Women and men who drink heavily are likely to hurt themselves physically and others emotionally and to do poorly in school.41

Young women tend to adopt a somewhat healthier lifestyle than young men on such measures as using seat belts, getting adequate amounts of sleep and exercise, eating a healthy diet, taking care of their teeth, and managing stress. Young middle-class women, however, are vulnerable to eating disorders, such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia, especially in the college years.42 I Often, these eating disorders are direct reflections of gender norms. For example, if a young woman's boyfriend says of a photo of her in a majorette uniform, in which she had thought she looked both pretty and important, "You look like a whale," she may stop eating to control her weight and thus, in time, develop a medically recognized eating disorder. E Weight and Eating Disorders A student in a course in gender, when asked what she did "for fun," wrote, "I am so busy with classes and working out that I don't have much time for fun." Why does a young, bright college student work out if not for fun? Does she view her body as abnormal? Many students are surprised at how body norms change. The average weight of Miss America contestants has dropped by more than 20 pounds since the 1970s. The average adult in the United States, however, weighs 10 pounds more than he or she weighed a decade ago. Therefore, if women are fatter, but Miss Americas are thinner, there is going to be much dissatisfaction with bodies. When Rubens painted naked women in the 17th century, fleshy women with large stomachs, butts, and breasts were viewed as beautiful. Many cultures have considered the ideal for woman to be full-breasted and full-hipped; their weight shows that they are fertile and healthy and that their families are prosperous.

Anorexia (self-starvation) and bulimia (binge eating and induced vomit- ing) are extreme ways to lose weight to meet today's Western cultural standards of beauty and to maintain control over one's body.43 The importance of society's views of femininity in eating disorders is highlighted by research comparing heterosexual women, who are subject to pressure from the media and the significant men in their lives to stay thin to be sexually attractive, and lesbians, whose views of beauty are not influenced by men 5 opinions. Lesbians are heavier than comparable heterosexual women, more satisfied with their bodies, and less likely to have eating disorders.~ Men also have an idealized body image, which may encourage anorexia and bulimia, especially among those with sexual conflicts or who identify as homosexual.45

A different rationale for eating problems was found in intensive interviews with 18 women who were heterogenous on race, class, and sexual orientation. For these Mexican- American, Latina, and white women, binge eating and purging were ways of coping with the traumas of their lives-sexual abuse, poverty, racism, and prejudice against lesbians. Eating offered the same comfort as drinking but was cheaper and more controllable. Rather than a response to the culture of thinness, for these women anorexia and bulimia were "serious responses to injustices."46

College athletes are prone to anorexia and bulimia when they have to diet to stay in a weight class. A study of 695 athletes in 15 college sports found that 1.6% of the men and 4.2% of the women met the American Psychiatric Association's criteria for anorexia, and 14.2% of the men and 39.2% of the women met the criteria for bulimia. The researchers argue that the reasons for strict weight control are not standards of beauty but rather the pressures of competition, to meet weight category requirements, to increase speed and height, and to be able to be lifted and carried easily in performances.47 Eating disorders are an occupational risk taken not only by young athletes but also by dancers, models, jockeys, and fitness instructors, as well as professional gymnasts, figure skaters, runners, swimmers, and wrestlers.

These norms about weight or thinness as markers of beauty and strength are part of a larger issue in the social construction of gendered bodies: What is a "good body"? What is an "able body"? E What Is an Able Body? Able-bodiness is a relative concept, dependent on the physical environment and social supports. When the physical environment is adapted to a range of needs, and technological devices that enhance hearing, speech, sight, and dexterity are available on a widespread basis, people with all kinds of bodies and physical capabilities can work, travel, and socialize. John Hockenberry, a paraplegic due to an automobile accident, has gone around the world as a reporter in his wheelchair, admittedly flaunting his physical state and constructing an image of masculine strength. Bob Dole, who has little control over his right arm, always clutches a pen in his right hand to keep the fingers from splaying. When he campaigned for president in 1996, his right side was protected from crowds by his aids, who unobtrusively gave him a pad to lean on when he signed autographs.48

Women, too, can enhance their self-image by overcoming adversity. Nancy Mairs says she prefers to consider herself a cripple rather than disabled or handicapped: People~rippled or not-wince at the word "cripple," as they do not at "handicapped" or "disabled." Perhaps I want them to wince. I want them to see me as a tough customer, one to whom the fates/gods/viruses have not been kind, but who can face the brutal truth of her existence squarely. As a cripple, I swagger.49 Unlike Hockenberry, who wants to present a strong, masculine image, Mairs's presentation of self is "tough"-a stance for women or men who want to confront the world on their own terms.

Able-bodiness is an impermanent state because illness, traumas, pregnancy, and old age render all of us disabled sooner or later. At the 1996 Oscar award ceremonies in Hollywood, the appearance on stage of two men, one young and one old, dramatized the body's fragility. Kirk Douglas, receiving a lifetime career award, was clearly counteracting the effects of a stroke in his walk and his thank-you speech. Later, the curtain went up on Christopher Reeves, paralyzed from the effects of a fall from a horse. He was completely propped up and spoke with the aid of a breathing tube. When the mostly young audience members, gorgeous in body and face, rose to applaud these men, each must have had a sinking feeling in the pits of their stomachs and a whisper on their lips asking whatever higher being they believed in to spare them these fates, at least for a long while.

A few months later, the opening ceremony of the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta played out another drama of the body. The central moment of the ceremony is the lighting of the Olympic torch. At the 1996 Olympics, the torch was lit by Muhammad Ali, the famous heavyweight champion and 1960 gold medalist. Now he is weakened by Parkinson's disease-his left arm shook, his face was immobilized, and he could hardly walk. Why was he chosen to represent the spirit of athleticism when he seemed its very contradiction? As a man who was overcoming the limits of his body, he was celebrated once more as a hero.50

Gendered Social Bodies

Changing the social construction of gendered bodies is difficult because our identities are tied up with how our bodies look. Self-esteem is translated into bodily markers. Sometimes, self-pride is exaggerated-we talk of strutting, swaggering, preening, and flaunting it. The playing field is not level for women and men, however: "For men, as for women, the world formed by the body-reflexive practices of gender is a domain of politics-the struggle of interests in a context of inequality. Gender politics is an embodied-social politics. "5 Men have the advantage because all men's bodies are thought to be bigger, stronger, and physically more capable than any woman's body. Realistically, we know that a well-trained woman, a tall and muscular woman, a woman who has learned the arts of self-defense, a woman soldier, or a woman astronaut is a match for most men. If women and men of the same size and training are matched, men may not necessarily be physically superior because women have greater endurance, balance, and flexibility. The type of competition makes a difference; most sports are made for men-that is, they are organized around men's bodily capacities. Cockburn notes that men's supposed greater strength rationalizes the gendered division of labor, even when it is machinery that does the actual physical labor: Two qualities are combined in men's work: physical competence and technical competence. The men bind these two together and appropriate both qualities for masculinity. Each affords a little power. Not much, just a modicum of power that is enough to enable men to lever more pay, less supervision and more freedom out of management.52 Cockburn further notes that men's "greater strength" is socially constructed, and it builds into gender stratification at work and in society in general: Small biological differences are turned into bigger physical differences which themselves are turned into gambits of social, political, and ideological power play. Females are born a little smaller than males. This difference is exaggerated by upbringing, so that women grow into adults who are less physically strong and competent than they could be. They are then excluded from a range of manual occupations and, by extension, from the control of technology. The effect spills over into everyday life: Ultimately women have become dependent on men to change the wheel of a car; reglaze a broken window, or replace a smashed roof slate. Worse, women are physically harassed and violated by men: Women are first rendered relatively weak; the weakness is transformed to vulnerability; and vulnerability opens the way to intimidation and exploitation. It is difficult to exaggerate the scale and longevity of the oppression that has resulted.53

The playing field can be made level in many ways-for example, by teaching girls as well as boys to use their bodies to the fullest extent, by teaching boys as well as girls manual dexterity in sewing and lO-finger keyboard use, by teaching girls how to disassemble a car motor and boys how to diaper a baby, by opening all types of work to women and to men, by expanding women's involvement in space travel and in the military and men's involvement in nursing and child care, by alternating women's and men's finals in sports competitions, and by featuring women's as well as men's sports all the time in the sports sections of newspapers and not just during Olympics and Grand Slam tennis matches; well, maybe now we are getting too revolutionary!

Resistance and Rebellion

With tears in her eyes, an undergraduate woman said recently that her father calls regularly from Chile to see how she is doing, and he always asks her, 'Are you still fat?" She stated, It's not fair, and it's not the same for guys. If guys are heavy; people say, "What a teddy bear! Isn't he a love." But if you're a girl, everyone says, "It's such a pity. You're so pretty~ Why are you fat? Why does society tolerate "heavy" men more than heavy women? Feminist theory orients us to ask such questions and to look to the gender institution for answers. Although feminists have different views regarding how much and in what ways men's and women's bodies differ, all object to claims that bodily differences between the genders confirm men's superiority.54 Feminists who believe that women's and men's bodies are different tend to view women as superior in some ways and men as superior in others. They challenge assertions that differences between women and men require them to occupy different social positions or have different opportunities in society. They view claims about bodily differences between women and men as social rather than biological in character, meaning that, like the clothing individuals "put on" to cover their bodies, cultural beliefs about bodies are put on-or imposed-by society onto the bodies of women and men, through gendered beliefs and practices, as part of the society's gender institution. As Lorber notes, "believing is seeing."55 If members of society are told repeatedly that women's bodily limitations prevent them from playing basketball as well as men, they come to believe it, and the belief is reinforced by the media, which rarely feature even champion women's basketball teams. Feminists do not deny that bodily differences between women and men exist, but they do deny that many, if not most, claims about difference are ideological rather than factual. They oppose the use of such differences to benefit men and exclude or oppress women.

A second theme of feminist analysis of the body is dominance with regard to questions of power, gender hierarchy, privilege, and oppression. Who says men's or women's bodies are one way or another? How many women MTV producers and Hollywood film directors decide how bodies are depicted in videos and movies? Who benefits when the media depict women's bodies as sexy and fragile but strong enough to lift children, clean houses, and carry home the groceries (and work to pay for them, too)? Feminists assert that most of the naming, depicting, and promoting of the images of women are done by powerful, privileged men. Although only some men-white, eco- nomically privileged, powerful, middle-aged, and ostensibly heterosexual- create cultural images of women, all men benefit if the images influence most women to seek men's approval, cling to one man to receive protection from the rest, doubt their physical abilities because of their "feminine limitations," or quit trying for well-paid jobs in construction, mining, and transportation.

A third aspect of feminist analysis of the body concerns subversion and relates to feminism's political agenda. Subversion refers to resistance to and undermining of cultural ideals and practices. Women may be depicted as less "talented" sports figures than men; Dot Richardson, U.S. Olympic softball star and physician, and Lisa Leslie, U.S. Olympic basketball star, however, ignore the depiction. They are "girls" who "play like boys," developing their bodies and skills to the maximum. Some women refuse to shave their legs or wear makeup, much less submit to liposuction or breast implant surgery. Some men refuse to worry about balding, height, and body shape and support women who compete in athletic events and apply for combat roles in the military. People who dress as "punks" resist mainstream society's views about tattooing and body- piercing.5~ Resisting cultural pressures to adorn, shape, judge, or all three, their and others' bodies according to conventional standards, especially in relation to gender, is a subversive act.

Conclusion

To say the body is socially constructed is not to deny its material reality. Bodies are born and bodies die. Women's breasts are able to produce milk for nursing infants, whereas men's breasts cannot; men's penises can produce sperm, whereas women's ovaries cannot; women's bodies can gestate and give birth, whereas men's cannot; and men have less body fat and more muscle than women do. What is beautiful, admired, rejected, or unattractive about women's and men's bodies? What is normal? What are the body's capacities?

Feminists raise the previous questions in an attempt to unveil the social processes that produce and maintain the invisible gender-related assumptions and beliefs that undergird so many claims about women's and men's bodies. The most important process is the maintenance of power differences. When we ask, "Who says?," "Who decides?," "Who benefits?," and "Who is harmed?," we are asking who has the power. Currently, men's greater power in society allows them to represent women, including women's bodies, in ways that are often untrue and harmful to girls and women. In questioning power, feminist theory exposes the standpoint of the privileged in juxtaposition to the standpoint of the exploited and oppressed. In questioning power in gender relations, feminist theory asks questions about race and ethnicity, social class, sexual orientation, age, and able-bodiedness, in addition to gender. When the "woman question" exposes women's exclusion or representation as inferior, the awareness paves the way for questions about others who are excluded. By questioning the accepted norms and challenging the prerogatives of the powerful to set standards, feminists make room for differences-in bodies and in behavior.

NOTES

1. Some of the material in this chapter was adapted from Lorber, J. (1997). Gender and the social construction of illness. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage; and from Lorber, J. (1994). Paradoxes of gender. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. 2. Connell, R. W (1995). Masculinities (p. 64). Berkeley: University of California Press. 3. Klein, A. M. (1993). Little big men: Bodybuilding subculture and gender construction. Albany: State University of New York Press. 4. New York T~mes Magazine. (1997, January 5). p.56. 5. Mansfield, A., & McGinn, B. (1993). Pumping irony: The muscular and the feminine. In S. Scott & D. Morgan (Eds.), Body matters: Essays on the sociology of the body (pp. 143-167). London: Falmer. 6. Bordo, S. R. (1993). Unbearable weight: Feminism, Western culture, and the body. Berkeley: University of California Press; Davis, K. (1995). Reshaping the female body: The dilemma of cosmetic surgery. New York: Routledge; Farnham, A. (1996, September 8). You're so vain, I bet you think this story is about you. Fortune, 66-82; Gullette, M. M. (1993). All together now: The new sexual politics of midlife bodies. Michigan Quarterly Review, 32, 669-695; Hesse-Biber, 5. (1996). Am I thin enough yet? The cult of thinness and the commercialization of identity. New York: Oxford University Press. 7 Collins, M. A., & Zebrowitz, L. k (1995). The contributions of appearance to occupa- tional outcomes in civilian and military settings. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 25, 129-163; Dabbs, J. M., Jr., & Stokes, N. k, III. (1975). Beauty is power: The use of space on the sidewalk. Sociometry, 38, 551-557; Hensley, W E., & Cooper, R. (1987). Height and occupational success: A review and a critique. Psychological Reports, 60, 843-849; Webster, M., Jr., & Driskell, J. E., Jr. (1983). Beauty as status. American Journal of Sociology, 89, 140-165. 8. Mueller, U., & Mazur, k (1996). Facial dominance of West Point cadets as a predictor of later military rank. Social Forces, 74, 823-850. 9. Yoder, J. D. (1989). Women at West Point: Lessons for token women in male-dominated occupations. In J. Freeman (Ed.), Women: A feminist perspective (4th ed., p.530). Mountain View CA: Mayfield. 10. Lorber, J. (1994). Paradoxes ofgender. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. 11. Chodorow N. (1978). The reproduction of mothering. Berkeley: University of California Press. 12. Allen, M. (1996, November 9). Women at The Citadel get shorter hair, and in trouble. New York Times, Section 1, p.9. 13. Rubin, G. (1975). The traffic in women: Notes on the political economy of sex. In R. R. Reiter (Ed.), Toward an anthropology of women (p.178). New York: Monthly Review Press. 14. Barkalow C. (with Raab, k). (1990). In the men's house (p.153). New York: Poseidon. 15. Williams, C. L. (1989). Gender differences at work: Women and men in nontraditional occupations (pp.76-77). Berkeley: University of California Press. 16. Grady, D. (1992, June). Sex test of champions: Olympic officials struggle to define what should be obvious: Just who is a female athlete. Discover, 13, 78-82; Purcell, K. (1996). In a league of their own: Mental leveling and the creation of social comparability in sport. Sociological Forum, 11, 435456. 17. Hargreaves, J. k (1994). Sporting females: Critical issues in the history and sociology of women's sports. New York: Routledge; Messner, M. ~ (1992). Power at play: Sports and the problem of masculinity. Boston: Beacon; Messner, M. A., & Sabo, D. F. (1994). Sex, violence, and power in sports: Rethinking masculinity. Freedom, CA: Crossing. 18. Young, I. M. (1990). Throwing like a girl and other essays in feminist philosophy and social theory (p.146). Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 19. Fine, G. ~ (1987). With the boys: Little League baseball and preadolescent culture. Chicago: Chicago University Press. 20. Fausto-Sterling, k (1985). Myths ofgender: Biological theories about women and men (pp. 213-218). New York: Basic Books. 21. Wallechinsky, D. (1996, June 23). Vaults, leaps and dashes. New York Times Magazine, pp.4647. 22. Collins, B. (1996, September 2). Navratilova against history: Love-iS [Letter to the Editor]. New York Times, Section 1, p.27. 23. Cahn, S. K. (1993). From the "muscle moll" to the "butch" ballplayer: Mannishness, lesbianism, and homophobia in U.S. women's sport. Feminist Studies, 19, 343-368. 24. Brubach, H. (1996, June 23). The athletic esthetic. New York T~mes Magazine, p.51. 25. In ancient Greece, women ran races in their own Olympics, as depicted on the vase in the Vatican. Their athletic events were in honor of Hera for women spectators. See Pomeroy, S. B. (1975). Goddesses, whores, wives, and slaves: Women in classical antiquity (p.137). New York: Schocken. 26. Vecsey, G. (1996, July 24). Strug took her chances for the gold. New York T~mes, p. B7. 27. Messner (1992), Power at play: Sports and the problem of masculinity, pp.61-84. 28. Messner (1992), Power at play: Sports and the problem of masculinity, p.71. 29. Messner, M. ~, Duncan, M. C., & Jensen, K. (1993). Separating the men from the girls: The gendered language of televised sports. Gender & Society, 7, 121-137. 30. Eit::en, S. D., & Zinn, M. B. (1989). The de-athleticization of women: The naming and gender marking of collegiate sport teams. Sociology ofSportjournal, 6, 362-370. 31. Watson, T. (1987). Women athletes and athletic women: The dilemmas and contradictions of managing incongruent identities. Sociological Inquiry, 57, 441, 443. 32. Duff, R. W, & Hong, L. K. (1984). Self-images of women bodybuilders. Sociology ofS port Journal, 2, p.378. 33. Barkalow (with Raab) (1990), In the men's house, pp.203-209. 34. Hargreaves, J. ~ (1986). Where's the virtue? Where's the grace? A discussion of the social production of gender relations in and through sport. Theory, Culture, and Society, 3, 109-121; Israeli, D. (1997). Gendering military service in the Israeli Defense Forces. Israel Social Science Research, 12; Messner, M. ~ (1988). Sports and male domination: The female athlete as contested ideological terrain. Sociology of Sport Journal, 5, 197-211; Theberge, N. (1987). Sport and women's empowerment. Women's Studies International Forum, 10, 387-393. 35. MacKinnon, C. A. (1987). Feminism unmodified (p.122). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 36. Mangan, J. A., & Park, R. J. (1987). From fair sex to feminism: Sport and the socialization of women in the industrial and post-industrial eras. London: Cass. 37. Connell (1995), Masculinities. 38. Gibbs, J. T (Ed.). (1988). Young, black and male in America: An endangered species. Dover, MA: Auburn House; Staples, R. (1995). Health among Afro-American males. In D. Sabo & D. E Gordon (Eds.), Men'shealth and illness: Gender, power and the body (pp.121-138). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. 39. Butterfield, F. (1994, October 14). Teen-age homicide rate has soared. New York Tzmes, p. A22. 40. Polk, K. (1994). Masculinity honor, and confrontational homicide. In T Newburn & E. Stanko (Eds.), Just boys doing business: Men, masculinities, and crime. New York: Routledge. Also see Wilson, M., & Daly M. (1985). Competitiveness, risk taking, and violence: The young male syndrome. Ethology and Sociobiology, 6, 59-73; Staples (1995), in Men's health and illness: Gender, power and the body. 41. Coombs, R. H., Paulson, M. J., & Richardson, M. A. (1991). Peer vs. parental influence in substance use among Hispanic and Anglo children and adolescents. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 20, 73-88; Johnson, R. E., & Marcos, A. C. (1988). Correlates of adolescent drug use by gender and geographic location. American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, 14, 51-63; Johnson, V (1988). Adolescent alcohol and marijuana use: A longitudinal assessment of a social learning perspective. American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, 14, 419439; Perkins, H. W (1992). Gender patterns in consequences of collegiate alcohol abuse: A 10-year study of trends in an undergraduate population.Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 53, 458462; Van Roosmalen, E. H., & McDaniel, S. A (1992). Adolescent smoking intentions: Gender differences in peer context. Adolescence, 27, 87-105. 42. Donovan, J. E., Jessor, R., & Costa, E M. (1993). Structure of health-enhancing behavior in adolescence: A latent-variable approach. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 34, 346-362; Oleckno, W A., & Blacconiere, M. J. (1990). Wellness of college students and differences by gender, race, and class standing. College Student Journal, 24, 421429; Hesse-Biber, S. J. (1989). Eating patterns and disorders in a college population: Are college women's eating problems a new phenomenon? Sex Roles, 20, 71-89. 43. Bordo (1993), Unbearable weight: Feminism, Western culture, and the body; Brumberg, J. J. (1988). Fasting girls: The emergence of anorexia nervosa as a modern disease. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; Hesse-Biber (1996), Am Ithin enough yet? The cult of thinness and the commercialization of identity. 44. Herzog, D. B., Newman, K. L., Yeh, C. J., & Warshaw M. (1992). Body image satisfaction in homosexual and heterosexual women. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 11, 391-396. 45. Herzog, D. B., Bradburn, I., & Newman, K. (1990). Sexuality in males with eating disorders. In A E. Andersen (Ed.), Males with eating disorders (pp.40-53). New York: Brunner/Mazel; Henog, D. B., Norman, D. K., Gordon, C., & Pepose, M. (1984). Sexual conflict and eating disorders in 27 males. American Journal of Psychiatry, 141, 989-990; Kearney-Cooke, A, & Steichen-Asch, P (1990). Men, body image, and eating disorders. mA E.Andersen (Ed.),Maleswitheatingdisorders (pp. 54-74). NewYork: Brunner/Mazel. 46. Thompson, B. W (1992). "Away outa no way": Eating problems among African-American, Latina, and white women. Gender & Society, 6, 558. E 47. Burckes-Miller, M. E., & Black, D. R. (1991). College athletes and eating disorders: theoretical context. In D. R. Black (Ed.), Eating disorders among athletes (pp.11-26 Reston, VA: American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance. 48. Hockenberry, J. (1995). Moving violations: War zones, wheelchairs, and declarations independence. New York: Hyperion; Kelly, M. (1996, April 1). Accentuate the negativ~ New Yorke; pp. 44A8. 49. Mairs, N. (1986). Plaintext (p.9). Tucson: University of Arizona Press. 50. Vecsey, G. (1996, July 21). Choosing Ali elevated these games. New York Times, Spor section, p.1. 51. Connell, (1995), Masculinities, p.66. 52. Cockburn, C. (1985). Machinery of dominance: Women, men and technical know-h02 (p.100). London, Pluto Press. 53. Cockburn, C. (1983). Brothers: Male dominance and technological change (p.204 London: Pluto Press. 54. The following discussion is based on Davis, K. (1997). Embodying theory: Beyon modernist and postmodernist readings of the body. In K. Davis (Ed.), Embodied practice. London: Sage. 55. Lorber, J. (1993). Believing is seeing: Biology as ideology~ Gender &Society, 7, 568-58 56. Thomson, R. G. (Ed.). (1996). Freakery: Cultural spectacles of the extraordinary bod: New York: New York University Press.

Discussion Questions:

1. What does your culture or racial or ethnic group think is the ideal body for a man and a woman? Address such features as the ideal weight, height, musculature, and so on. What attributes about the person are those ideal body norms supposed to show to others?

2. List all the businesses and professions you can think of that profit from the social construction of idealized bodies in the United States.

3. How do men in feminized sports, such as figure skating, physically demonstrate masculinity? How do women in male- identified sports, such as basketball, physic~ly demonstrate femininity?

This article comes from Peter Kivisto (editor), Illuminating Social Life, Pine Forge Press, 1998.