Throwing Like a Girl: Femininity, Body Comportment and Self-Objectification

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In Iris Young’s piece, Throwing Like a Girl, she rejects the idea that differences in body comportment and spatiality between the sexes are the result of inherent biological characteristics or a “feminine essence” with which women are born. While men and women have differences when it comes to movement and use of the body, she brings up that we cannot examine such differences in a void. The situation must be examined and the social, cultural, historical and economic forces that act upon men and women must be considered when seeking to explain why someone may “throw like a girl”.

            As Young describes it, drawing from previous works such as that of De Beauvoir, women feel limited in the use of their bodies and the space around them. They feel timid and tend to trust their bodies less than their male counterparts do. This comes as the result of situational forces rather than biology, as women are not given the same opportunities and encouragement to use their bodies as men are, and they are also conditioned by society to carry themselves in a particular “feminine” manner. As Young puts it, “the more a girl assumes her status as feminine, the more she takes herself to be fragile and immobile, and the more she enacts her own body inhibition” (153). This idea of the fragility of the female body and the inhibition of that body comes from the fact that women are taught that they are defined by their bodies. They are given the message that their bodies are ornaments to be gazed upon, rather than subject that may act as they please. 

One point that Young briefly touches upon, which I found to be immensely interesting, is that women themselves may pick up the idea of the female body as a mere object. While others may be the source of the attitude, the woman herself may help perpetuate it. I did further research into this idea, and found an interesting article concerning how this “self-objectification” exists in and can affect the lives of women.  

It has been found that self-objectification can lead to increased opportunities for negative emotions such as shame, disgust and anxiety (Gettman, 2004). These increased negative emotions could likely feed back into increased femininity, as someone who is anxious about and ashamed of their body and is more easily disgusted by dirt and the production of sweat is not likely to engage with more stereotypically masculine activities, such as sports. All of these emotions encourage women to see their bodies as enemies, or as an unruly thing that needs to be policed and brought into line with cultural expectations. This viewpoint is unlikely to lead to feelings of trust in the body’s abilities and feed the idea of women as fragile and pristine.     

Self-objectification has also been found to be extremely easy to activate and reinforce. Everyday things, such as exposure to media images of thin women, can lead to increases in self-objectification and the associated negative feelings (Gettman, 2004). Even the most subtle priming, such as hearing or reading words like “elegant”, “figure” or “posing” was enough to cause activation of self-objectification (Gettman, 2004). Basically, any reminder of the body or physical attractiveness was enough to cause women to be concerned about and judge their own bodies. Women have come to associate themselves with physical attractiveness, and are extremely concerned with how they as objects may be viewed by other people. Women see their bodies as things to be evaluated by other people, rather than as part of themselves as subjects, the source of abilities, skills, and strength.             

The fact that women do not connect their bodies with physical attractiveness rather than physical competence or abilities was also shown in the Gettman study. While women responded to words like “weight” and “appearance” with anxiety, connecting those ideas with their bodies, they did not respond to words like “strong”, “vitality” or “energetic” (Gettman, 2004). These results, that women did not respond to terms linked with body competence, shows that women either do not connect those ideas with their bodies at all or they are not concerned that their bodies are not perceived in those terms. The fact that women worry about the perception of their bodies as physically attractive but do not respond with similar concerns about their bodies as physically competent shows just how engrained cultural messages about women’s bodies truly are. Women are taught that their bodies, particularly the appearance of their bodies, are what define them, to the point that the mere suggestion of attractiveness provokes anxiety about living up to cultural standards. There is no such reaction for being reminded of physical skill or athleticism.             

 The culture that surrounds women is one that teaches them to consider their bodies as objects. These objects are to be groomed, polished and ornamented so as to be beautiful and desirable. This objectification distances women not only from other people, but from their own bodies. When the body is regarded as simply a thing and objectified, it is hard to feel a connection to it. As Young describes it, a woman “cannot be in unity with herself, but must take a distance from and exist in discontinuity with her body” (154). This distancing keeps women from moving openly, and contributes to the differences in body comportment between men and women. If women were taught that their bodies were powerful, were capable, and that physical exertion was a possible and positive activity for them, I think we would see a much stronger connection between women and their bodies. I would even say that that the phenomenon of “throwing like a girl” would likely no longer exist.

References

Gettman, J.Y., & Roberts, T. (2004). Mere exposure: Gender differences in the negative effects of priming a state of self-objectification. Sex Roles, 51(1-2), 17-27
Young, I.M. (1980). Throwing like a girl: A phenomenology of feminine body comportment motility and spatiality. Human Studies, 3(1), 137-156