THE POLITICS OF WOMEN'S BODY IMAGES AND PRACTICES: FOUCAULT, THE PANOPTICON, AND SHAPE MAGAZINE
- 1 February 1994
- journal article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Journal of Sport and Social Issues
- Vol. 18 (1), 48-65
- https://doi.org/10.1177/019372394018001004
Abstract
This study demonstrates how the metaphor of the panopticon, a particular prison structure that renders prisoners self-monitoring, offers a useful way of understanding the mechanisms that inculcate an unrealistic body ideal in women. Foucault's notion of panopticism and a critical approach are used to show how textual mechanisms in two issues of Shape magazine—a women's fitness glossy—invite a continual self-conscious body monitoring in women. An analysis of two panoptic mechanisms, “The Efficacy of Initiative” and “Feeling Good Means Looking Good,” is supplemented with a discussion of Foucault's notion of confession/shame, and specific features of Shape's discourse are analyzed for their panoptic content.Keywords
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