FITNESS VS BODY - ARMY PRACTICES OF FEMALE BODY FORMATION

Abstract

Modern mass culture is permeated with the theme of female body, the more the beauty industry develops, the more stringent requirements are imposed on the aesthetics of the body. Taking care of the physical appearance has become, along with career and family, one of the main tasks of women who want to be attractive and successful. Various strategies based on constraints and discipline are used to approach the desired ideal. The need for constant control over the body forms the alienation of the Ego from the physical body, perceived as an unreliable partner and even an enemy. To combat it, strict army-type practices are used, involving working at the limit of physical capabilities, neglecting bodily signals and pain, transferring control into the hands of another in order to achieve the desired goal in the shortest possible time. As a result, there was an increase in anxiety, self-distrust and food addiction, which gradually entered women’s culture as the norm. This gives us the opportunity to consider fitness not as a practice of self-care, but as a practice of self-resolution. In the article, the author puts forward the hypothesis of the occurrence of this contradiction. In her opinion, this phenomenon arose as a result of the lack of well-established models of female physical activity, beauty standards close to the physical appearance of real women and well-established models of social control, which is always stricter towards women than towards men.

For citation:
Batsanova, S. V. (2024). Fitness vs body - army practices of female body formation. Experience industries. Socio-Cultural Research Technologies (EISCRT), 1 (6), 19-65. (In Russian). https://doi.org/10.34680/EISCRT-2024-1(6)-19-65