Body Policing

This article, by the fabulous Feminist Fashion Blogger, Eleanor Snare, was originally published on her blog, The Magic Square Foundation. Please visit her for more!

By Eleanor Snare

external policing
Extreme images of feminity in the media, specifically those in advertising or consumption industries, present a perhaps idealised, perhaps violently distorted, image of the female body (including hair, lack of hair, face etc - general physical form). Digital editing and 'airbrushing' help to remove flaws and apparent problems with female bodies, often with bizarre effects: some images are immediately identifiable as being digitally 'enhanced', others more subtly and insidiously so. This is a form of body policing, the recognition of an ideal form - a 'law' of beauty - that should be adhered to either completely or as closely as possible. Those outside the 'law' are reformed through digital technologies and image manipulation.

But this is a very simple and possibly reductive example. The body policing is undertaken by a specific group - the manufacturers of products - in order to 'appeal' to another specific group - the consumers - by allying their product with the 'law' of beauty. But when we begin to think about policing that happens almost automatically, policing that does not need external forces to enact it but in fact comes from within, then things begin to grow in complexity.

Within this subject there is so much to talk about and this post can only really scratch the surface, and even then in a very loose and superficial way. Therefore, I want to concentrate on body policing specifically in fashion trends and individual clothing choices; the movement of body policing from an individual onto others; and the role of body policing in the constitution of 'a feminist'.

individual and trend body policing
To start, the use of body policing in fashion trends and individual clothing choices. Bearing in mind that external body policing - that which is proliferated by media forms and cultural sensibilities - is always hanging over our heads, body policing can also manifest itself as an internally generated mechanism. Maybe reacting to social anxieties, pressures, health concerns, idealisations, aspirations, and all the rest, women frequently police our own bodies by identifying our adherence with or transgression of a specific, individualistic form. We will pinpoint that which we dislike most about our bodies - our thighs, breasts, etc - and consistently police the way it appears to us in the mirror. Fashion trends, and the discourse surrounding fashion trends (like how to 'disguise' certain undesirable parts of one's body), continue this policing and effectively manipulate the beauty 'laws' to their own end. For example, summer fashion trends that locate themselves around full length, strapless dresses also locate themselves around a specific beauty 'law' to fulfill this trend most successfully: probably tall (in the legs), fairly slim and with small breasts in order for the dress to fall and fit 'properly'. When we take part in this trend, not only do we police our own bodies in accordance with specific, individual sets of 'laws', but also in their adherence to the external trend 'law' of how slim we are, how long our legs are, how small our breasts are. And if it doesn't work, we rip it up and start again.

Fashion trends constantly produce new 'laws' around which policing strategies form, new ideals around which we can manipulate our internal body policing. Bandage and harness dresses, aside from their dubious connotations of repression, slavery and bondage, police the body very effectively by allowing only a specific form to fit into their very specific and very restricted form. Tight elastic, spandex and little-stretch jersey physically limit who can wear what by their very material nature. This is not to say that the fashion industry only produces items in one size, but the style and trend of the garment does have a huge effect on types of body policing that take place within a certain social time frame. So, if we desire to be fashionable, we begin to police our bodies according to rapidly changing and mutating fashion trend 'laws'; and then we simultaneously police our bodies according to individual, most likely socially encouraged and constructed, specific 'laws' of our own making.

transmission of body policing
It would seem only natural, then, that the body policing we encounter internally and through individual choices seems to transmit, despite choices not to allow it, onto others. Judging others by clothing and by outside appearance is superficial and yet is inherently human: we privilege vision above all senses, modern capitalist societies cater to this privilege, and we conduct huge swathes of our existence through visual stimulus in whatever sense. So body policing of others does enter into day to day human relationships, whether we wish it to or not, whether we try and actively deter it - as many of us do - or not. The body policing tactics we enforce upon our own bodies will often manifest themselves in our policing of others. If we are modest and generally wear clothes that conceal our flesh and specifically apparent 'erogenous' zones, we will police and pass judgement on those other individuals that prefer to do the opposite. This policing is compounded in certain cultural situations, posited on things as diverse as geography, sexuality, music taste, or eating habits, and again in group instances where there is a significant difference in the body policing 'laws' of different groups. When we say 'I wouldn't go out dressed like that', we are bringing into play, consciously or unconsciously, a vast range of complex physical, ethical, sexual, geographical, political and social forms of body policing tactics.

You can see that the policing of other women's bodies is not only incredibly complex, but in many ways almost inherent in the social system we live in. As we ourselves are policed by external forces - like media discourses and consumption industries, fashion trends or magazines - and then internalise that policing into specific and individual 'problems' we find with our own body, so this whole mechanism is externalised yet again as we draw judgement over others. We are both the policewoman and the victim of the law, re-enacting these roles over and over again.

body policing and feminism
So if we're at this point, where does the difficult understanding of the relation between feminism and body policing come in? Valuable points in the forum discussions were made about trying to avoid body policing, avoiding dictatorial understandings of the constitution of 'a feminist'. A friend of mine pointed out recently that one of the reasons she was so averse to labelling herself as a feminist was because of the implications of body policing in the feminist tradition. In her experience, being a feminist meant wearing trousers and no makeup, short hair and no heels. I would happily put forward that while the feminist movement has released itself from these bonds, the populist conception of feminism still centres on this imagery, especially the 'anti-feminist' polemics. Releasing itself from these bonds - 'this is what a feminist looks like' - means the movement takes on a wider and more diverse range of individuals. But it does play merry havoc with understandings of relations between feminism, power, sexuality, the body and clothing. Difficult and sometimes unanswerable questions arise.

If I wear short skirts, am I a feminist? If I wear makeup, am I a feminist? If I wear restricting but 'sexy' underwear for the mutual benefit of myself and my partner, am I a feminist? If I worry about young women wearing see through tops or hot pants, am I a feminist? If I enjoy bondage, am I a feminist? If I like wearing heels, am I a feminist? If I am male, and like looking at women with their hair done and makeup on, am I a feminist? If I dress for the gaze of others as well as myself, am I a feminist? And if I am, how do I know?

Feminism can, and should, avoid body policing, but not because it is inherently wrong. Visual reaction and consideration will occur, male or female, in many different forms of culture and society. Feminism should avoid body policing because in policing the bodies of other women, we are only replaying the act of violence that has already been done to ourselves. However, the actions of avoiding it are much more difficult than that neat little statement would have you believe: if body policing occurs internally, individually, how are we to stop it transmitting outside ourselves, onto others and into the understandings of what constitutes a feminist? A good answer would be to change the system; change the social and cultural impetuses that encourage the base level policing and therefore change the entire process. But that's quite hard to do (as we know). It has to come from an individual level, a theoretical level, a material level, a level of both intellect and feeling. The questioning of particular fashion or beauty 'ideals', the understanding of the greater complexities of power and sexuality plays that occur within fashion and surrounding 'the body', the development of individual strength in resisting playing the role of policewoman and victim, the increasing of diversity - and acceptance of diversity - in the feminist movement: these are all things that will aid in resisting the perpetuation of externally-manufactured, internally-reconstituted body policing.