Body Norms, Body Shame, and Social Power
It has been argued that the more marginalized and subordinated a social position we occupy, the more we are identified as bodies, and the more pressure we experience to modify those bodies to mitigate our deviance from the norm. In other words, one way to enact oppression against members of a particular social group is to characterize them as bodily objects rather than intelligent and sentient subjects, and to simultaneously depict those bodies as uncivilized, crude, ugly, or distasteful. As the multibillion dollar cosmetics, plastic surgeryand weight loss industriesreadily attest, women are prime subjects of such pressures to modify their bodies, but members of other socially disempowered and vulnerable groups are hardly exempt. The elderly are routinely encouraged to retain the appearance and functioning of their youth, as
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