 The (Female) Body

 ‘To talk of the body is to talk of corporeality, action, and flesh. Or so it is said in science, psychology and the law.’  ‘To talk of the body is to talk of discourse, of signs and signifiers, of representations of fantasy and desire. So say poststructuralist, semiotic and psychoanalytic theorists.’  material-discursive divide  discursive: the social and linguistic domain— language, visual representation, ideology, culture and power

 “Taught from infancy that beauty is woman’s sceptre, the mind shapes itself to the body, and roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison.” Mary Wollstonecraft, “A Vindication of the Rights of Women” 1792  “Fat is a feminist issue.” Susie Orbach  “Sexual freedom, then, means the abolition of prostitution both in and out of marriage; means the emancipation of woman from sexual slavery and her coming into ownership and control of her own body; means the end of her pecuniary dependence upon man, so that she may never even seemingly have to procure whatever she may desire or need by sexual favours” Victoria Woodhull, 1874

 Models: weigh 25% less than the average woman of the same height ◦ BMI: well below 18  Trying to achieve the impossible  The Barbie problem

 Anorexia  Bulimia ◦ Both anorectics and bulimics:  laxative abuse: 100,000 in Hungary  Orthorexia  Exorexia  Body dysmorphic disorder (inverse anorexia // bigorexia)  Cosmetic surgeries

 Body shaming  The pornographic representation  Fragmentation  Public spaces  walk a mile in her shoes walk a mile in her shoes  Why walk? Why walk?  Violence against women  Traficking in women

 [...]  Abolition of gender-based violence and trafficking in women  Annihilation of stigmatising sexual stereotypes  [...]

 Thank you for your attention!