Control and Resistance; a Critical Examination of Gender Scripts in Relation to Women’s Bodies in Public Spaces
AN53024B Gender Theory in Practice
Control and Resistance; a critical examination of gender scripts in relation to women’s bodies in public spaces.
Student: 33010637
3,840 words
Contents
Introduction 3
The State 3
Moral Ground 4
Political Maternal Bodies 7
Conclusion 12
Bibliography 14
Introduction
Ideology can be said to be a compilation of beliefs, values, and ideas concerning the composition of the ways that society works, as well as, the way society ought to work. Antonio Gramsci’s (1971) notion of ideology brings us closer to the notion of culture in the anthropological sense; culture as an unconscious supremacy or hegemony. It is through the exploitation of communication tools that ultimately inject ideology with adjusting values and subsequently altering social culture. Through the emergence of the state and its related elements of control, this piece critically examines the exploitation and performance of women’s bodies in particular that contributes to the extrication of women’s bodies from the private into the public.
The State
Modern understandings of the state in controlling and developing people’s lives follow from the work of the enlightenment with Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Thomas Hobbes. Rousseau ([1762] 1998) described his idea of the state constituting from its foundation of a social contract. Hobbes ([1651] 1962) concentrated on the moral notions of the state discussing what the society of man was like before the emergence of the state, what was the ‘sate of nature’ and suggesting that it drove us to need a state for our own wellbeing, in effect that we need to be governed for our own good.
Much of the evolution of thought on the emergence of the state begins with Karl Marx ([1870] 1999) and Federick Engels ([1884] 1972) as they give a solid backdrop to all theories of control, the
Control and Resistance; a critical examination of gender scripts in relation to women’s bodies in public spaces.
Student: 33010637
3,840 words
Contents
Introduction 3
The State 3
Moral Ground 4
Political Maternal Bodies 7
Conclusion 12
Bibliography 14
Introduction
Ideology can be said to be a compilation of beliefs, values, and ideas concerning the composition of the ways that society works, as well as, the way society ought to work. Antonio Gramsci’s (1971) notion of ideology brings us closer to the notion of culture in the anthropological sense; culture as an unconscious supremacy or hegemony. It is through the exploitation of communication tools that ultimately inject ideology with adjusting values and subsequently altering social culture. Through the emergence of the state and its related elements of control, this piece critically examines the exploitation and performance of women’s bodies in particular that contributes to the extrication of women’s bodies from the private into the public.
The State
Modern understandings of the state in controlling and developing people’s lives follow from the work of the enlightenment with Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Thomas Hobbes. Rousseau ([1762] 1998) described his idea of the state constituting from its foundation of a social contract. Hobbes ([1651] 1962) concentrated on the moral notions of the state discussing what the society of man was like before the emergence of the state, what was the ‘sate of nature’ and suggesting that it drove us to need a state for our own wellbeing, in effect that we need to be governed for our own good.
Much of the evolution of thought on the emergence of the state begins with Karl Marx ([1870] 1999) and Federick Engels ([1884] 1972) as they give a solid backdrop to all theories of control, the
Bibliography: Anderson, Benedict. 1991. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Codrington, Stephen. 2005. Planet Geography. Sydney: Solid Star Press Durkheim, Emile Goddard, Victoria Ana. 2007. Demonstrating Resistance: Politics and participation in the marches of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo. In Focaal—European Journal of Anthropology, 50 (2007): 81–101. Gramsci, Antonio. 1971. Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci. London: Lawrence and Wishart Greenhalgh, Susan and Li, Jiali Ortner, Sherry B. 1974. Is female to male as nature is to culture?. In Woman, culture, and society. (Eds) Rosaldo, M. Z. and Lamphere, L. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, pp. 68-87. Pollack Petchesky, Rosalind. 1987. Foetal Images: the Power of Visual Culture in the Politics of Reproduction. In Reproductive Technologies: Gender, Motherhood and Medicine (Ed) Stanworth, Michelle. 1987. Cambridge: Polity Press Rousseau, Jean-Jacques Said, Edward. 1979. Orientalism. New York: Vintage; 1st Vintage Books Ed edition Sheper-Hughes, Nancy Tarlo, Emma. 2007. Hijab in London: Metamorphosis, Resonance and Effects. In Journal of Material Culture, Vol. 12(2): 131–156.