Table Of Content

frost/94884/crc 12/2/01 10:48 am Page 1 Young Women and the Body frost/94884/crc 12/2/01 10:48 am Page 2 frost/94884/crc 12/2/01 10:48 am Page 3 Young Women and the Body A Feminist Sociology Liz Frost Senior Lecturer Faculty of Health and Social Care University of the West of England Bristol Consultant Editor: Jo Campling frost/94884/crc 12/2/01 10:48 am Page 4 © Liz Frost 2001 All rights reserved.No reproduction,copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced,copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright,Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency,90 Tottenham Court Road,London W1P 0LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright,Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2001 by PALGRAVE Houndmills,Basingstoke,Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue,New York,N.Y.10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVEis the new global academic imprint of St.Martin’s Press LLC Scholarly and Reference Division and Palgrave Publishers Ltd (formerly Macmillan Press Ltd). ISBN 0–333–74089–0 hardback ISBN 0–333–74090–4 paperback This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Frost,Liz,1953– Young women and the body :a feminist sociology / Liz Frost. p.cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–333–74089–0 — ISBN 0–333–74090–4 (pbk.) 1.Teenage girls—Psychology.2.Teenage girls—social conditions.3.Body image in adolescence.4.Body image in women.5.Body image disturbance.I.Title. HQ798 .F76 2000 306.4—dc21 00–066573 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd,Chippenham,Wiltshire For Wes and Ro Contents Acknowledgements x Introduction: the Alien Body 1 The concept of body-hatred 1 Aims of the book 2 The body projects 4 The structure of the book 6 1 What is Body-Hatred? 10 Body-hatred and psychiatric medicine 10 Body dysmorphic disorder 12 Eating disorders 13 Self-harm 19 Psychological approaches to body-hatred 22 Feminist sociological approaches to body-hatred 25 Gender ambivalence: a liberal feminist perspective 27 Body debasement: a radical feminist perspective 28 The capitalist manufacture of bodily discontent: a socialist feminist perspective 29 ‘Woman’ as inferiorised category: a feminist social constructionist perspective 31 Summary 32 2 The Limits of Self-Reflexivity 34 Identity 35 The body 41 Theorising the female body 47 A note on female embodiment 52 Theorising youth 54 Young, female and self-hating? 57 Summary 58 3 Adolescence and Body-Hatred 60 Age difference and social difference 61 Historical constructions of adolescence 63 Present-day young people as adolescents 66 The problematisation of adolescence 67 Adolescent girls 69 vii viii Contents Girls and their bodies 71 Girls and physical changes: menstruation and breasts 72 The construction of womanly appearance 75 Vanity and self-appreciation 77 Summary 80 4 Teenage Consumers and Body-Hatred 82 A consuming society 83 Consumption and the visual 84 Teenagers, teen-culture and consumption 86 Young women and the process of consumption 89 Young women and the products of consumption 92 Gender and teenage leisure 93 Girls as viewers and readers 95 Teenagers and friendship groups 100 Close friends and ‘bedroom culture’ 102 Summary 106 5 Sexuality and Body-Hatred 108 Introduction 108 The sexualisation of girls 110 School and the sexualisation of girls 111 Going out with boys 116 Young women, sexuality and being ‘bad’ 122 Young women, sexuality and the family 126 Summary 130 6 Young Women’s Experience of Body-Hatred: Stigma and Shame 131 Stigma 132 Shame 136 Stigma and the female body 136 Shame and the female body 139 Conversations with teenagers 141 The interview and questionnaire material 143 Young women speak 143 Moving closer to girls: two case-studies 154 Summary 168 7 Young Men and Body-Hatred 170 Boys as consumers 171 Young men and images 174 Boys and the masculine body 176 Contents ix Class, labour and the masculine body 177 Sport and the masculine body 178 Black youth and the masculine body 180 Young men and homophobia 183 Gay guys and the ‘butch shift’ 183 Being ‘a girl’: the worst insult 186 Boys and relationships with girls 189 Different for boys? Some final thoughts 191 Summary 192 8 Young Women and the Body: Some Conclusions 194 Girls and the bodies they inhabit 194 The beauty imperative 195 The thin imperative 196 Issues of sexuality 197 Summary 198 Bibliography 199 Index 209