A more practical example showed itself to me here in London: Black pointy-toed heeled boots. They're everywhere...so many women wear them it's crazy. And when my friend from New Mexico who has more hippie style than anything else started wearing them, it became clear. The constant signal is that to be a woman in London, it calls for the black pointy-toed heeled boots. So she was performative with that aspect of "doing" a woman in London.
So I was wondering, what performative aspects do we deal with in body image? What roles am I "doing" as a larger sized woman? Here are some performative qualities I think I may be reflecting from the input of society:
- Relying more on my personality than my looks
- Automatically discounting myself as a sexual creature
- Deflecting attention from myself as far as appearance is concerned
- Choosing clothes that hide the shape of my body or cover parts of my body that I don't want seen
- Not being a dancer
I'm still really trying to wrap my head around this whole concept of performativity. But I do think there are some truths to how we fill perceived roles rather than exists just as ourselves.
Just some food for thought....
2 comments:
You are writing such great posts. I really love this one. One of the things I know for a fact (if I may be so presumptuous!) is that the cliche about loving yourself is true. And you know what - it's not so bad. I used to think that if I liked myself too much that everyone would disagree with me, and people would tear me down. It never happened. I started to love myself and no one could "prove" me otherwise. I know you and know you are a physically beautiful person. I know you think you are this enormous person, but there are plenty of women who are your size and much larger who have sweeties.
It's interesting how stuff like this can be internalized. I'm hoping that by recognizing the actions I take that help internalize these feelings, I can reprogram them somehow.
But yeah, I suspect you're right.
Post a Comment