I approached two psychologists who have researched the female body image.
I discussed the following questions with them. Some studies show that Some people suffer from body dysmorphic phobia. They firmly believe that certain parts of their body are unattractive and exaggerate these ‘flaws.’ But to others, they may not appear to be different from others. Experiments have shown that looking in the mirror can make people with body dysmorphic phobia feel anxious. However, it has since been revealed that healthy people who look in the mirror for more than 10 minutes also begin to experience symptoms of anxiety and stress. The relationship between the mirror and the person can be seen as the “gaze” and the “self” on the one hand, but what is the source of the anxiety that arises when confronted with their authentic self? What is the relationship between this and the authentic self?
On the other hand, the promotion of body positivity has led to anxiety among some people because they are unable to achieve the same level of confidence, which is the opposite of what I had in mind, especially in the current society where women’s rights and status have been improving, but because of some mainstream and traditional ideas that have subtly influenced many people. Even though we know that beauty is pluralistic, can we still not accept our imperfections?
Thirdly, women have been subjected to the dominant culture and the look of the outside world under the female gaze. Therefore, they tend to magnify their flaws and always ignore themselves. Therefore I am hoping to communicate through the language of images by allowing people to express their emotions and thoughts through mirror painting (e.g., drawing slogans, patterns, similar to virtual wearable decorations, etc.). Is this conducive to body image positivity, or do you have any other ideas to share?
lily
First of all, I would like to talk about anxiety; why do people, especially women, often see their shortcomings after looking in the mirror and then become anxious. First of all, it is a social factor. From ancient times to the present, traditional culture has often used women’s appearance as a criterion for evaluating women, objectifying them. Therefore, over time, under the influence of such a social environment, a woman’s thoughts are influenced by self-objectification.
When a woman is aware that her body and appearance are being judged, she will internalize these thoughts and external judgments into her perspective, attitudes, and ideas. Therefore, she also objectifies herself and sees herself as an object. The overall perspective nowadays. There is a ‘fixed’ standard of beauty for women and media campaigns that are very critical of women.
After a woman’s self-objectification, her view of herself in the mirror and her evaluation generate negative thoughts, which are different from the kind of beauty promoted in the media, generating anxiety. In addition, women’s fear is also influenced by the media and traditional culture and their standards of beauty and ugliness.
I think it is because people have formed a fixed mindset, a distorted way of thinking caused by a very long process from childhood to adulthood. As a result, it is difficult to say that this mindset can be changed entirely just because the status of women has been raised.
I also thought of a moment in psychology called projection. You project your thoughts and feelings onto the outside world, onto external people, onto external objects; for example, you see someone, and you find them particularly annoying or something like that.
That may be because of such a way of thinking; like a mirror, the appearance of that person that we see is projected over, just her appearance, and not the personality and all these other things. Having objectified that image of yourself in the mirror, that image that you see, you may project thoughts of yourself and develop a lot of dissatisfaction with him. That dissatisfaction comes from a lot of dissatisfaction that you have with yourself.
Lastly, I saw that you wanted to do a project on painting on mirrors to relieve anxiety, which felt good, but I don’t know how this painting is a way of possibly reducing stress; it might be a way of enabling people to shift their over-concerned emotions about their appearance, to shift their fixed, wrong, or distorted, fixed thinking. It’s about converting. There is also the possibility of breaking the denial of oneself. To face and accept these inadequacies in oneself, rather than being defensive and desperate to deny them or anything else, but I am happy to be part of this process.
LEE
The anxiety of looking in the mirror comes from the magnification of flaws and stress, everyone has a different understanding of their true self, and not everyone is anxious all the time. The expressions that people give to the outside world reflect their inner projections, such as the influence of their family of origin. What one sees in the mirror may not be one’s true self but a projection of one’s inner subconscious. According to Maslow’s theory of needs, people gradually become complete as they rise to a particular hierarchy level. They can realize themselves at a higher level, i.e., self-actualization at the top of the theory. The aim of self-actualization is self-satisfaction, which comes from self-preference and cannot be successful if perceptions do not match ability.
Women see their shortcomings first because they always want to see the better part of the self-actualization part. Still, the process of self-actualization requires one to perfect the ability, not the perfect self in the eyes of others. When people want to become a better version of themselves too much, motivation also affects action, which creates total acceptance of oneself and alleviates the problem of body image anxiety in women.
When the mirror becomes an icon in the process of individual self-representation, as an essential reflection of the psychology of the figure, it explores the propositions of “gaze” and “self.” It is also a reflection of reality and illusion. The traces of childbirth and aging for women are plentiful and beautiful, and the skin forms that everyone has in some form or another should not be a source of anxiety. When women face the mirror, it is a process of self-expression, reflection, and self-enlightenment, while the scene in the present becomes private space.
In previous research, I have found that when people look in the mirror, they first notice what they think is ‘unattractive’ about themselves and exaggerate these ‘flaws.’ Still, when they look at others, they prioritize what is beautiful. The desire to explore the desires and imaginations of the human heart from a different perspective by painting on mirrors. They communicate the body through a completely artificial shape, empowering women while making them the decision-makers.
So I prepared some mirrors and acrylic paints and sought out women who had ideas about body shame, hoping to connect with them in this way and share their stories.
Cici, 27 years old, model
She was trying to convey that when she was looking in the mirror, she saw the delicate makeup on her face, like a color palette, and that being bombarded by social media daily had almost caused her anxiety to rise. She almost didn’t recognize herself anymore—so many colors representing the influence of social media (outside influences). During the painting process, I asked her what color she wished she was, and she said white; she expected she could be thin and look better and pure like white.
Cheng, 25 years old, teacher
I have gone through plastic surgery, I have adjusted my nose and chin, the mirror part is what has been lost, the escape from the real world due to the lack of confidence and anxiety about my appearance, the pink part is what I see as my flaws that have been covered up, the white part represents the self I want to express, such as the inner body resistance and anxiety.
3、Tian, 23 years old, blogger
I paint colors on the mirror that look like outside eyes, reflecting on my face and examining me. When the water stain at the bottom appears, we don’t care at first, but then it changes color and stays on the piece, changing my face with it. My feedback has gradually calmed down, especially when I realize that I am the mirror, and I can no longer go with the flow because the mirrors are constantly feeding off the opinions of others, and these mirrors have already been tarnished.
Yu, 18 years old, student
I hate my double chin, which is particularly conspicuous when I see myself in the mirror, so I get more anxious. I can’t look at myself in the mirror; I cover my eyes in red and draw a lot of red roses around me; I want what I see to be beautiful. And when I faced the mirror again, my mirror self between deception and fantasy made me stop, and I started to rethink who I was.
5、Ming, 30, Photographer
I am a breast cancer patient, and when I look in the mirror, it is not my face that concerns me, but my breasts, which I know are different from others and cannot be changed, even if I always wear wide clothes to cover them up.
6、Kylee, 25 years old, journalist
I am a journalist, but my face never appears on the TV screen. When I see myself in the mirror, it creates a strong feeling of anxiety, so I draw people around me, why others can have long, thin necks and beautiful features, this strong contrast affects me, and I get more anxious.
7、Vicky, 25 years old, art editor
When I face the mirror, I want to draw a cute little ghost, which is the epitome of my inner self. The mainstream media’s confinement of my aesthetics, this oppression makes me breathless, but my heart is still longing for myself and the future. When I finished the painting, I made some changes because I wasn’t happy with some parts, and when I revisited it, I realized that it looked like a mother holding her child. It made me feel outstanding to think that my mother gave me my looks and gave me the unique thing in this world.
8、Huang, 18 years old, student
When I look in the mirror, I see me as I am, as I am imprisoned because one has to fit in with society and therefore shape up; as a qualified mother, as an eligible student, I cannot jump out of this shackle, my eyes represent me knowing all this, and under the influence of this emotion, it deepens my anxiety, in my painting, the tide of people drowning us like waves, the net formed by the gaze of the crowd I want to escape. Still, in front of this vast net, I seem to have nowhere to go, and in the end, even when I jump out, I am still in the net. When I finish painting this, do I get anxious, you ask? I would answer yes, but can I not be nervous? Will I be free and happy? I would.
In my intervention, I found that they experienced anxiety when looking in the mirror, even to the point where some could not continue because they could not look at their faces. Still, after experiencing body talk, both parties increased their satisfaction with the body image. One partner’s devaluation of the self is often accompanied by an overestimation by the other, forcing a rethinking of the “perfect body. Should women continue to examine themselves from the first perspective, given the socially inhibiting environment? Or can body shame be better alleviated by using a third perspective to explore the body, thus turning attention more accurately and objectively to the actual characteristics of their physical form, without being influenced by their previous negative beliefs about themselves?
New research has found that the more time teenagers spend on social media, the more likely they are to be unhappy with their bodies, said Ho Kim-bo, a researcher on mental health and body image at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Ke Han, a psychologist at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, said Chinese media tended to highlight “skinny girls,” and the public favored bony female celebrities. “There’s a popular saying that means a good girl [weighs] no more than 100kg.”
I conducted a questionnaire and invited 64 women aged 17-35 who were confused about body image anxiety to participate
I carried out a questionnaire and invited 63 women with body image anxiety to take part. 55.9% chose a score of more than 5, with the highest number of 6 and 7, 20% and 19.1% respectively; 67.4% chose a score of more than 5 for the impact of women’s body image on their confidence; 71% looked in the mirror regularly; 70% would look at their body in the mirror. 90% believe that social media influences people’s standards of the ‘perfect body’; 30% of people believe that people should advocate the idea of a sound body and 40% of people think that people should not accept it; 30% of people believe that they are neutral and do not care; 45% of people search for information on social media platforms such as body improvement; 56% of people are not interested in the idea of a sound body. 45% would search for information about shape improvement etc. on social media platforms; 56% would actively follow bloggers or netizens who have a great body, or who are of the weight loss and fitness type; 40% of negative comments are influential, while 30% are positive; 85% would be concerned about what others see when posting photos of themselves on social media platforms; 92% believe that Chinese women are more sensitive to the pursuit of white, thin and young bodies and body anxiety because of the social environment (mainstream The influence of the social environment (dominant culture) was cited as the reason for 92% of Chinese women’s greater sensitivity to the pursuit of being white, thin and young and body image anxiety; 40% thought looking in the mirror for too long would cause fear and 42% thought it was a way to re-examine themselves; 81.4% of those who drew Mask: You are your mirror to re-examine yourself and share your story chose more than 3 out of 5 including 3 out of 5.
In my previous research, I found that people look in the mirror and first notice what they think is ‘unattractive’ about themselves and exaggerate these ‘flaws.’ Still, when they look at others, they prioritize what is beautiful. Thus the desire to explore the desires and imaginations of the human heart from a different perspective by painting on mirrors. They communicate the body in a completely artificial form, empowering women while making them the decision-makers. I found that women are more interested in the idea of self-portraiture as a means of expression. On the one hand, because looking in the mirror makes many people feel anxious is a priority, and this anxiety is somehow a kind of gaze, a projection of self-consciousness; on the other hand, the promotion of body positivity leads to some people being anxious because they cannot achieve the same level of confidence, which is the exact opposite of what I had in mind, especially in the current Chinese social environment where women’s rights and status are constantly improving. But because of some mainstream and traditional ideas have subconsciously influenced many people. Even though we know that beauty is diverse, can’t people accept their imperfections?
ballet dancer
I contacted the ballet dancer for an interview; Lauren is a ballet dancer. It is a profession that is closely associated with body image. A dancer’s body lines and contours are strictly required to achieve a stretched and stretched body physique. During the epidemic, her career came to a halt, and she stopped to think about what constitutes a ballet body, does a good dancer means thinner and more defined. And why, instead, the quest for size made female dancers a source of pain rather than strength. Whereas before the 1950s, ballet women dancers had a rich and varied body, in the New York Ballet, the woman broke the freedom of the female dancer’s figure because of the choreographer’s aesthetic. Those ballet dancers with small heads and long bodies undoubtedly shaped the ideal balletic temperament, a thin, tall woman with pale skin and a slender bone structure. This fixed aesthetic standard perpetuated the female dancer’s need to be critical of her figure.
After retiring from the ballet, she began to rethink her career path, to choose a career that she focused on, rather than being limited to shaping her slim figure as a professional ballet dancer, “because that would be too costly.” Lauren is also considering becoming a choreographer to go for a different kind of ballet dancer. Whenever people dissuade her from who she should not be elected, she can firmly say, “No, I want her.”
Several implications for me in my subsequent intervention came from this interview.
body perfectionism started with technological developments. When we started buying standardized sizes, we diminished the uniqueness of our bodies, we were going to fit the clothes, and it was no longer the clothes that fit us.
I suspect that many people feel so badly about their bodies that no matter how hard we try, we can’t achieve “enough.”
You can block or unfollow anything that makes you feel negative, trusting that the feeling will pass and ensuring your peace of mind
I find that sitting down with your eyes closed and letting your brain take a break from processing images is enough.
try to make the screen not the first and last thing you see before you go to bed and when you wake up.
Blogger
I asked Helen, a fitness blogger, why she became a fitness blogger because she suffered from body shame.
Helen: I lived in both Korea and the UK, and when I was in my 20s, people used to say I was too skinny, and at that time people used to tell me you should eat more, it was a horrible experience for me, and I hated that people said that about me and when I started to eat more to gain weight my body couldn’t take that much food and I ended up having digestive problems and also feeling nauseous. I started eating more than I ever had before to gain weight, but at the worst time, I never actually thought there was anything wrong with my body; I started gaining weight because people were talking about me, this was before social media came along because I was surrounded by people who made me feel like I needed to change my body, in my mid-20s I came to England and met different people from many other countries. I met a girl who called me skinny. She called me thin and even used her pinky to describe my weight; I was shocked, and she was making fun of me. In Korea, people would comment on her weight or body out of concern, but over here, it was clear that she wasn’t. In a group of girls from different countries, I realized that I was petite compared to the other girls, and I would feel too weak like the girl described. Then I started to gain weight in a more extreme way than ever because tall, fit girls surrounded me, and it made me feel bad that my university friends and even my best friend even described me as small. Because I was just the most minor compared to my British friends, and although I didn’t want people to think I was skinny when I was in Korea, I resented it even more in the UK, I didn’t want people to think I was thin and frail, so I was going to go to the gym to change my skinny body and try to make myself look less lean. I was also particularly fond of some of the body goals on ins at the time, my ideal body was to have full hips, strong arms, and the same for my abs, because I hadn’t studied fitness and was watching YouTube videos, I didn’t know how much more or how little to gain or what kind of exercise I was suited to when I gained too much weight at that time and had knee pain, it wasn’t healthy It wasn’t a healthy exercise. Still, I liked the change in my body because I looked more muscular. After I graduated, I went back to Korea, and we were home because of the epidemic; I gained weight, and I couldn’t go to the gym; I didn’t like my body at the time, after provide-19 unblocked me, I signed up for personal training and a scientific diet, and I learned how to train scientifically and correctly. At first, I found it particularly difficult, but then I adapted, and I felt very comfortable with my whole body, and it also had a positive impact on my mental health. Going to the gym made me feel confident about my body again. After two months, I saw a change in myself, but it also affected my periods, which started to be delayed, and I realized I wasn’t taking in enough nutrients, so I gave up extreme dieting and exercise. I am now almost 30, and I finally know how to get physically and mentally healthy; I have recently started working out because I wish I were more beneficial; working out has not only given me physical benefits but mental ones too.
Through these experiences, I have learned to love and accept my body.
The first thing to realize is that there is no perfect body in the world. Through my experiences in two countries I have found that their body standards are entirely different and no matter how much I change to fit the aesthetic criteria of one country, it won’t work if I move to another country, because of these reasons I have decided to focus on my natural body and think about how I should improve rather than change.
The second thing was that my mindset changed from dieting or exercising to diet and exercise; when I felt I had to diet, I would want to eat more junk food because I wouldn’t let myself. Instead, I stopped forcing myself to diet; I ate healthier on my own and would want to exercise more.
The last thing I learned was to choose content or clothes that you are comfortable in, which has brought great benefits. I didn’t feel confident about my breasts when I started wearing them. Still, they were so pleased with the end of the day, and I found that people don’t care if you’re wearing lingerie or not or if you’re wearing non-coil underwear or gathered underwear; people don’t care. So whether I wear comfortable underwear or no underwear, I will be more pleased.These experiences have given me the courage and confidence to accept my body.
In my previous research, I found that when people look in the mirror, they first notice what they think is ‘unattractive’ about themselves and exaggerate these ‘flaws.’ Still, when they look at others, they prioritize what is beautiful. But when I promote body positivity, it leads to some people being anxious about not being able to achieve the same level of confidence, which is the exact opposite of what I intended, like this blogger who, in the traditional aesthetics of East Asian culture, actually fits the ‘standard body’ perfectly, but still suffers from body shame. Eventually, She started to look at her body and make decisions for herself, taking a serious look at herself and accepting herself again.
update
I launched a call for women who suffer from body shame/body image on social media platforms and did the following interviews
1、22 years old, student, body anxiety, lack of confidence and chronic dieting
She says she is a keen mirror user and if she has an anxious state, she can reduce her body anxiety by embellishing her photos, but the problem is that the pleasure is very short-lived.
2、25 years old, media professional, used to have body shame anxiety problems, now in the process of self-liberation
She believes that women’s body image anxiety is caused by their social environment, including their upbringing, education and cultural background. We are not brought up to appreciate women or men’s body image and therefore only see the bad side of ourselves.
3、25 year old, lawyer, severe anxiety symptoms when looking in the mirror
She expressed her anxiety about the mirror and her inability to accept her body image; when I tried to guide her and compliment her, the first thing she replied to me was to talk about her flaws, even if they were not visible to the outside world.
Through these conversations, I realised that it might be possible to help alleviate women’s body image anxiety while at the same time designing ways to guide women to a calmer state of mind. As a result of this research, I came up with new ideas and added them to my intervention.
I did a little experiment where I got some people, and when they were looking in the mirror, I told them how good they looked. They would be unsure of themselves and talk about their flaws I said, “Can I see a picture of your mum? Your mum looks just like you; she’s so beautiful” They will respond to me by saying, “Yes.” I say, “Then why do you think you are unattractive?” Most people say, “I don’t know.”
There is a classic case where it says, “A white woman looks in the mirror and says, “I see a woman, a black woman looks in the mirror and says I see a black woman, and a white man looks in the mirror and says I see a human being.”
The mirror, a mysterious and psychedelic image, was also once a symbol of patriarchal structures. The value of her looks could never match the social value of a woman. Male society only recognizes the importance of women’s looks, and women are susceptible to the marks of time and destiny in their changing appearance. Men act, women, perform. Men hold the mirror and construct a more complex discourse than the mirror, while women are illuminated by the mirror, disciplined and punished in a patriarchal discourse.
When a woman looks in the mirror, the “looked at” woman becomes the woman who “looks at” herself.
The mirror shatters, the process of looking is forced to end, and with it the emptiness of the subject, which returns to the woman herself when she no longer affirms her existence.
Growing up, we would prefer to be in an environment where we get more recognition, where recognition is like a mirror that allows us to find our true selves.”
I have made a tiny observation that many images of women are often shot from the bottom up, lingering a little more on the legs and chest. Could our approach to women be more diverse? Fair skin like porcelain is beautiful, but can we also appreciate the beauty of pimples and wrinkles?
Growing up, we would prefer to be in an environment where we get more recognition, and recognition is like a mirror that allows us to find our true selves.”
The aim is not to provide answers, but to generate discussion on the subject, just as ‘room’ is defined differently for different people, for me its meaning is twofold: firstly, women need an independent, self-contained, private space; secondly, ‘room’ is also a personal narrative A symbol of imagery.”
Every woman should have her room, a spiritual space for self-examination and identity. Each work here represents the creator’s room, a private brew of her own emotions and perspective on the world.
“Our body is our body, and what she has experienced, whether it is a physical experience or a spiritual one, what she has made, has shaped into your position.”
“I am therefore my body, at least to the full extent of my experience, and vice versa, and my body is like a natural subject, like a temporary prototype of my whole being.” (Merleau-Ponty, The Phenomenology of Perception
“Woman, like man, is her body, but her body is something different from her.”
I got three girls to measure different parts of their bodies with a tape measure and to be at their most comfortable and at their body parts.
When measuring, the girls were curious, but in the process of measuring, we judged ourselves by a so-called “standard,” and the girls responded that they were not happy, proving that this did not make them better. So we find that when we look at numbers, they are just numbers and do not bring us happiness. But when the girls are entirely loose and let go of their bodies, they are happy. That’s the answer I got. When standards or numbers are insight, they are not your body, much less you.
I saw some experts in different fields discuss my project, namely a teacher of clinical medicine (in the direction of eating disorders), a Ph.D. in sociology, a young artist, and a plus-size blogger.
Reazon A teacher of clinical medicine (in the direction of eating disorders)
Flora(yuxin)：Women’s awareness and body image anxiety is a global issue, but I would like to discuss it in the context of our national social and cultural environment. What is the cause of this aesthetic narrowness? Do you personally feel that your social background and education have influenced your perception of body image or appearance? What is it like? How do you think about it? Finally, regarding eating disorders, which are essentially mental illnesses, I would like to know if you have any information about the impact of our social environment and culture on these mental illnesses? Or do you have any data to share with me about what other disorders occur in the cases you have encountered?
Reason： The “Chinese aesthetic” is the result of the intrusion of Western civilization. Epidemiological surveys have shown that the prevalence of eating disorders is higher in developed countries and more prevalent in urban areas than in rural areas. This geographical difference reflects the difference in the level of economic development and the degree of penetration of the Western culture of “thinness as beauty.” Also, the predominance of women with eating disorders may be related to the cultural norm of “thinness as beauty,” primarily aimed at women. In traditional Chinese culture, women are “the head of the household,” and the standard for female body shape is “plump,” so there are few cases of eating disorders. With the development of social and economic development and the infiltration of western culture, the role of women in society has changed dramatically. The social expectation of women has changed to “being successful in career and family, but at the same time being slim.” I heard voices around me from a young age saying that it would be nice if you had thinner legs, especially my mother, who would often judge my figure. As a child, I thought it was shameful not to have boobs or thick legs. An incident at the gym not long ago also stuck out. The trainer said you’ve lost weight recently if only you could lose another ten pounds. I said I couldn’t lose any more weight. He said, “Why? You used to be so thin. I said I couldn’t go back. He said he had to be tougher on himself. I said I wanted to be kinder to myself. He then felt very shaken and didn’t say anything more. I still felt very uncomfortable afterward, extreme male gaze scenario… Now I have a complete sense of self; I know what I want, and like, so I can dislike him and disagree with him. But many girls who are forced into this male gaze develop negative emotions, and some even start unhealthy weight-loss behaviors. Ultimately, the girls suffer, and in complex cases, even create a disorder like an eating disorder. Eating disorders are mental illnesses, but they are psychosomatic/psychological and are not the same as what we generally think of as severe mental illnesses like schizophrenia.
Xin
Artist
“Feel my tummy.”
“Obesity is not the source of all evil.” She said.
Xin has designed a series of works about ‘fat meat.’ In addition to exhibiting her tummy sofa and short films at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, she has also planned a photographic anthology, which is still in production. She named the book “My Story with Meat.”
She contacted 122 fat people through social media and friends, but only six were willing to be interviewed and photographed by her. They appeared half-naked on camera, showing off their meat, just like her. Photographs and text were paired together in a unit for each of them, and she asked the fat men and women to do whatever they could to “gain confidence in their bodies” and then filmed them.
One-shot was a must-be one of the people facing the mirror.
“A lot of them were very resistant to looking in the mirror.” She says.
One girl told Xu Ruoxin that she never looked in a full-length mirror because she found it “hard to accept that this is not how I imagined myself to be.”
Almost all of her interviewees had an ideal version of themselves. One girl aspiring to a flat chest and long limbs, and another girl prefers a fuller, firmer bodybuilding style. Xin found that they shared a common trait: they suspected it was because they were fat when things went wrong.
“All people get sick, so why must we accuse the person of being sick because they are fat? It’s unhealthy to smoke, it’s unhealthy to stay up late, it’s unhealthy to play on your phone, all of it is unhealthy, so why must you use unhealthiness as a target, or a dagger, to stab the fat person? What has he done wrong? Is being fat the original sin? I don’t think so.”
Content：
Flora:
I’m pretty curious about the project you’re doing, especially about the research you’ve done. I want to ask you about your thoughts on some of the content because I’m personally studying our country’s social and cultural environment to explore this matter. on women? What do you think is the cause of this aesthetic narrow-mindedness? Because some people think that body image anxiety is a global issue. Still, some people say it’s a result of the introduction of Western civilization. Still, in traditional societies, the idea of the three-inch golden lotus also exists. Still, nowadays, it’s very casual in foreign countries to wear suspenders or not wear a bra. Still, if I wear very shorts one day in China, my parents will ask me to wear more than one. For example, I dress very self-consciously in Shanghai, and I don’t get that much attention around me, but this voice comes up from time to time in northern cities. It seems that this is cultural; could this be part of the reason for body anxiety or eating disorders, and is this part of this related to the traditional cultural influence ingrained in our blood? What do you think about that?
Raw： “First of all, regarding Chinese aesthetics, I think it isn’t easy to define what Chinese aesthetics is and what kind of influence it has had on Chinese girls because it is a very comprehensive and complex concept of aesthetics. Throughout history, apart from the physical adjectives and descriptors we use today, such as “white, thin and young,” there may also be things such as the quality of virtue and virtuousness that we demand from a girl, something that is still engraved in the hearts of Chinese people despite the changing times. For example, we would like to say that in Chinese aesthetics, a woman must be feminine, we would like to use abstract words to describe her, like water, or we would like to use words like flowers and plants, such as celandine orchid, to describe women. Under the whole oriental warning, women have a very inclusive, soft, soft, soft description.
I feel that I live in a society today where women are the object of the gaze; there is no doubt. When we talk about what Chinese women are, I think it would be more appropriate for men to talk about this: what Chinese women should look like in their eyes, or their descriptions, what Chinese women are like now.
Then I think that in this day and age, the aesthetics of women have become very tolerant, that is, our masses have allowed some women to become that way, those kinds of women who are in the arts, or the fashion industry, or fashion magazines, or on the internet, that is, things that are distant from them, they will, they don’t agree with them, but they can maintain basic respect, as long as it’s a female image like that.
And then I think distance is an essential thing. The proper distance will allow such a female image to exist. By a female appearance, I mean one that completely subverts the traditional female idea, deviant, rebellious, anti-bone, pioneering.
For example, if I wear a camisole, I would be very comfortable in Guangzhou and Shanghai, so that I might wear a camisole in Beijing in the same weather, in the same season, with only a difference of one or two days. Other people might find it very strange because, in their eyes, the climate here is entire. There’s no need to dress like that, and they’re not used to people dressing like that in their visual system, and they have this kind of rejection.
If you’re not in culture, or creative, fashion, art, or anything like that, then if you’re wearing strange clothes, people might think you’re weird, they might think you have a psychological problem. Still, if you’re put into a specific profession or industry, it seems to make sense for you to be like that. In my opinion, in traditional Chinese culture, the different parts of a woman’s body symbolize many different meanings, for example, our hands, our arms, our breasts, our feet, our legs, they all symbolize many other purposes throughout traditional Chinese culture. For example For example, the feet, in traditional society, a girl’s feet were not allowed to be shown to outsiders because they were considered a very private part of a woman, then later with sandals, they were very willing to offer their feet, just like the arms, like the hands. In Japanese culture, Japanese women would then consider the neck to be a very sexy part.
This particular meaning, I think, for women, it is for men, that is, all the information about the female body, the gravitational force must be relative to the opposite sex, close to the group that he wants to attract, and ask some men, ask them what the traditional Chinese aesthetic is. In their role as the “pleasured” party, they define, in a sense, what Chinese women are and what Chinese women’s aesthetics are.
The second thing is eating, about guilt, which has to do with our bodies. Usually, we associate obesity with things like eating, drinking, exercising, sleeping, all these things in our physiology that we bring together when we think about obesity itself.
I don’t think obesity is a bad experience for me because I can buy clothes and wear them from my position. I feel that I am at a level in society where I receive the appropriate respect, so what makes me unhappy? Apart from the fact that obesity is a regulated thing in society as a whole, we want to buy clothes more efficiently. But it’s that we often desire not to have desires, we repress our urges, our appetites, our sexual desires, our desire to consume things, and we often find it difficult to stop them and think that hiding them is a special thing to do. When we talk about the spirit and the flesh, we cannot deny that I think it is an equal state of affairs. Although we may believe that satisfying our appetites, satisfying our material desires, satisfying our sexual desires is something that we do by instinct, or is a nasty thing, or is a barbaric and primitive thing, we cannot deny that our body, as a material entity, can only carry all our so-called spiritual activities if it functions as it should. All our so-called spiritual activities. I think that’s why it’s essential to respect our bodies, respect our emotions, and not be too hard on ourselves when we realize we’re out of control, not to beat ourselves up too much.
I’ve thrown up before because I ate an extra bite of chicken in my dieting cycle, and then my whole guilt came rushing back, and I felt like all my efforts had been wasted, and I ran to the toilet to throw up and pick my throat with my hands. When I think this, there are two of me in my body fighting, the one that follows my desires and instincts and the other that has higher spiritual aspirations, and the two are arguing with each other.
So it is essential to find a balance between these two, that is, where is your measure, where is your limit, I can’t do complete indulgence, and the liberation of nature to release those desires that you have suppressed ordinarily, only we need to find the right size, that is, what is the right degree, actually, beyond that degree there is a little bit too much. So I think everyone is finding a balance and going through a phase like this, including me.
On top of following the choices that I have made in terms of this balance, in the future, I think everyone has to find a balance, whether you, you approve of your body, or you feel that your current state of health is so bad that it doesn’t fit a hypothesis of your ideal body at all. It’s essential to find that perfect body and then make a plan to implement it step by step, or whether you think that your current It’s critical to find that ideal body and then make a plan to implement it step by step, or if you believe you are pleased with your body now, what to do to keep your diet and life in such a state or to get to a better shape but to maintain the body as it is.
We will draw analogies between each other’s destructive emotions or happy emotions and our own emotions. Still, absolutely no one can say to empathize with each other’s feelings and experiences, just because our body is our body and everything that our body has experienced, everything that it has participated in the past, physically or mentally, has created for you, has shaped your position.
Keely
Big size blogger
She said she didn’t understand why things bothered me (such as large breasts), such as not being able to buy lingerie, shortness of breath, and physical fatigue, that others saw as a way to show off. In contrast, she would receive vicious abuse for wearing nice clothes and dressing, saying she was fat and not good-looking enough.
But she just wants to do what she loves, including being a blogger. It’s her hobby, and it’s what keeps her going.
Through my chat, I asked some guys which body type they prefer as a ‘desired’ object. In fact, many men nowadays don’t just like white and thin women, but also appreciate more powerful women. But because body parts have been given different meanings in traditional culture, there is some influence in people’s perceptions. But with the change of information, people of Generation Z are also open to new things.
I chose this theme because, when I looked at my journey from a self-perspective, I found that for a long time, I was in a state of self-imposed isolation, partly due to my environment and partly due to myself. When I was in China, I found that I wore suspenders and might have been advised by my parents to change into a more conservative dress. Whereas in London, women are entirely free to change into suspenders or go bra-less, dye their hair colored and make decisions about their bodies, whether to add tattoos or not. When I was in China, my relatives and friends would always ask me when I could dye my hair back to its original black color, rather than asking me what color I preferred, and this is not just the case with women; it’s just far more inclusive at men than women.
The role and position of women when it comes to the context of the family. I find that there is an inevitable weakening of female subjectivity and independence in the family context. In this context, the most important thing is unity, harmony, and a happy atmosphere. Still, in this harmony, women sacrifice a lot of their subjectivity and are more submissive and bound.
Today, the assumptions about women’s bodies are often unclean, for example, that women’s menstruation or the exposure of their bodies is considered sexualized and cheap. Usually, society requires women to be clean and therefore needs women’s bodies to be perfect; for example, they want women to have smooth skin, and they don’t want women to show their bodies; it’s all a form of control.
And this situation, and when I felt that I got relief from going to the hospital instead, because I also often had body anxiety, and when I got to the hospital and faced the doctors naked, I realized that they measured my body by a different standard. If your body is functioning well and helping you to do your daily life, it’s a sound body. It gives me a sense of confidence, and I want to pass on that confidence and my perception of my body.
For example, if I have cellulite on my body, I might have very low self-esteem, but if people see a jar with uneven texture, they might think it’s rich and beautiful.
The logic is different, but social conventions about the female body form this logic. So I just wanted to pass this on in a kind of play to make more people think if you put all these prejudices and original assumptions aside and re-examine your own body and others’ bodies, would you still feel the same as before?
After all, our society is male-dominated. This has many implications, such as women having menstrual shame and why everyone has to cover up when they change their sanitary napkins. But growing up, I realized that people would think that menstrual blood was filthy. But if you don’t start with how to say no or less exposure to social views or constructions of gender, the fact is that everyone will have their ideas. Still, the prevailing linguistic framework also broadly interfered with them, which comes from our social environment.
Engster did some research on matriarchal clans. Although I think he was a rather conservative person regarding gender, he put forward a hypothesis about what a male-dominated society is built on. When one day men discovered the relationship between sexual intercourse and procreation, and they discovered that the male was also an inevitable part of procreation, coupled with the so-called private ownership of property and inheritance relations, they began to realize the need to raise the next generation of children with the support of the bloodline as a way of securing the status of him being my child, no longer the mother’s child, but the father’s child. It’s just hypothetical, but I find it interesting. Because if you look at it this way, you see that the “purification” was done a long time ago. But when it comes to the beginning of alienation, when did this alienation or objectification of women begin?
The existence of matrilineal societies and matrilineal cultures is closely linked to labor’s biological and social division because reproduction was essential in primitive societies. When you have the right to reproduce, the life conceived in your womb can reflect that reproduction is a mysterious and sublime thing. In such a structure, because of the biological system of the woman, it was possible to ensure the copy of the clan and, therefore, to have a more stable social division of labor within the economic or social structure.
Our society politicizes art because it (culture) doesn’t want us to reintroduce the social relations behind the artwork, and it doesn’t want people to understand that artwork can also claim to express something and challenge the existing linguistic framework and social environment.
What do you think needs to change?
I have to mention the public arena, a male-centric arena, where women’s identities and voices are absent, extinguished, and muted.
For a long time in history, women have been trapped in domestic affairs and have found it difficult to enter the public sphere and participate in social affairs. Now we see that women have more freedom and rights to work, participate in politics, and so on. But in public affairs, much of it is still dominated and served by men by default. For example, in many professions, uniforms are often made to fit men, and female firefighters and policewomen often face ill-fitting, oversized uniforms. During an epidemic, all protective clothing is also cut to one standard size. And this standard was based on the male figure, with no consideration for the female figure. This resulted in many female health care workers, especially frontline staff, needing to use tape to tighten their garments for protection purposes. Sanitary towels for women are not necessary when preparing supplies for epidemic preparedness. In many cases, female health workers are in short supply of sanitary towels, an essential household item for women. This acquiescence to a male-dominated public arena and the neglect of women’s needs is also a symptom of a lack of equal treatment.
Why does this phenomenon occur in China?
From the ancient Confucian culture, there is an apparent division of gender hierarchy and moral constraints on women in the Chinese context. For example, women were expected to obey their sons, husbands, and fathers; young women should not show their faces and should stop at the boudoir; women should keep to the ways of women and teach their children at home; widows should not remarry when their husbands are widowed and live under the deterrent of “chastity pagodas.” This division of women into subservient positions within the family and the moral demand for ‘chaste and virtuous women’ is one of the historical sources of oppression of women in China.
In the modern Chinese context, since the New Culture Movement promoted equality between men and women and the revolutionary movement encouraged women to participate in social work and join the army, women’s rights were gradually enhanced. They slowly moved from the home into the social sphere. In practice, however, women did not gain control and autonomy over their own identity. He Yinzhen, one of China’s earliest feminists (his mother’s surname was He and his father’s Yin, and he changed his name to He Yinzhen himself), argued that the slogan of female emancipation was only used as part of a display of male intellectuals’ closeness to Western civilization in the context of the New Culture Movement’s aim to strengthen the country. Women’s participation in social affairs always served the larger goal of nation-strengthening, becoming a tool and vehicle for nation-building. During the revolutionary era, women were allowed to join the army and participate in extreme activities (revolutionary women). Still, they also served the larger goal of the revolution, not as women in the revolutionary ranks but generally as ‘genderless’ revolutionaries. Uniforms, discipline, comradeship, etc., were all ‘genderless’ during the revolution. Women were forced into a position of subordination or detached from their femininity, whether by Confucian morality or as instruments and vehicles for nation-building. She is the wife of her husband, the mother of her son, the exhibit of the cultural movement, and the comrade of the revolution, but never herself. She is subordinated to her husband, her father, her son, the state, and a particular ideology of the times, but never to herself. Women’s right to define their own identity, their right to express themselves vocally, their right to control their independent status are far from being returned to women themselves.
I recently made a pact with a friend and we both decided to spend a day walking around the city in our pyjamas and we took some photos. Throughout the process, I found that while we were in a very natural state, we were not surrounded by stress and influence, so I discovered that we might actually be able to influence our environment.
In a way, when pyjamas are simultaneously comfortable and good-looking, it is also a direction in which the feminine consciousness is developing.
To me, going out in pajamas is not a sign of slovenliness or bad manners, but more of a personal choice and a phenomenal expression of personal awareness. So I contacted a burn victim and had a text conversation with her.
Gender refers to sociocultural norms, identities, and relations that: 1) structure societies and organizations; and 2) shape behaviors, products, technologies, environments, and knowledges (Schiebinger, 1999). Gender attitudes and behaviors are complex and change across time and place. Importantly, gender is multidimensional (Hyde et al., 2018) and intersects with other social categories, such as sex, age, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation and ethnicity (see Intersectional Approaches). Gender is distinct from sex (Fausto-Sterling, 2012).
Three Related Dimensions of Gender: As social beings, humans function through learned behaviors. How we speak, our mannerisms, the things we use, and our behaviors all signal who we are and establish rules for interaction. Gender is one such set of organizing principles that structure behaviors, attitudes, physical appearance, and habits.
1. Gender Norms are produced through social institutions (such as families, schools, workplaces, laboratories, universities or boardrooms), social interactions (such as between romantic partners, work colleagues, or family members), and wider cultural products (such as textbooks, literature, film and video games).
● Gender norms refer to social and cultural attitudes and expectations about which behaviors, preferences, products, professions or knowledges are appropriate for women, men and gender-diverse individuals, and may influence the development of science and technology.
● Gender norms draw upon and reinforce gender stereotypes about women, men and gender-diverse individuals.
● Gender norms may be reinforced by unequal distribution of resources and discrimination in the workplace, families and other institutions.
● Gender norms are constantly in flux. They change by historical era, culture or location, such as the 1950s versus the 2020s, Korea versus Germany, or urban versus rural areas. Gender also differs by specific social contexts, such as work versus home.
2. Gender Identities refer to how individuals or groups perceive and present themselves in relation to gender norms. Gender identities may be context-specific and interact with other identities, such as ethnicity, class or cultural heritage.
3. Gender Relations refer to how we interact with people and institutions in the world around us, based on our sex and our gender identity. Gender relations encompass how gender shapes social interactions in families, schools, workplaces and public settings, for instance, the power relation between a man patient and woman physician.
●Social divisions of labor are another important aspect of gender relations, where women and men are concentrated in different types of (paid or unpaid) activities. One consequence of such gender segregation is that particular occupations or disciplines become marked symbolically with the (presumed) gender category of the larger group: for example, nursing is seen as a female profession, engineering as male.
Rerference
Aultman, B. (2014). Cisgender. Transgender Studies Quarterly, 1 (1-2), 61-62.
Fausto-Sterling, A. (2012). The Dynamic Development of Gender Variability. Journal of Homosexuality, 59, 398-421.
Fausto-Sterling, A. (2012). Sex/Gender: Biology in a Social World. New York: Routledge.
Hyde, J. S., Bigler, R. S., Joel, D., Tate, C. C., & van Anders, S. M. (2018). The future of sex and gender in psychology: Five challenges to the gender binary. American Psychologist, 74(2), 171-193.
Kessler, S. (1990). The Medical Construction of Gender: Case Management of Intersexed Infants. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society. 16 (1), 3-25.
Marshall, Z., Welch, V., Minichiello, A., Swab, M., Brunger, F., & Kaposy, C. (2019). Documenting Research with Transgender, Nonbinary, and Other Gender Diverse (Trans) Individuals and Communities: Introducing the Global Trans Research Evidence Map. Transgender health, 4(1), 68-80.
Nielsen, M.W., Peragine, D., Neilands, T. B., Stefanick, M.L., Ioannidis, J. P. A., Pilote, L., Prochaska, J. J., Cullen, M. R., Einstein, G., Klinge, I., LeBlanc, H., Paik, H. Y., Risvedt, S., & Schiebinger, L. (2020), Gender-Related Variables for Health Research, in press.
Ridgeway, Cecilia L., & Correll, Shelley J. (2004). Unpacking the gender system: a theoretical perspective on gender beliefs and social relations. Gender & Society, 18. 510-5.
Scandurra, C., Mezza, F., Maldonato, N. M., Bottone, M., Bochicchio, V., Valerio, P., & Vitelli, R. (2019). Health of non-binary and genderqueer people: A systematic review. Frontiers in psychology, 10.
Schiebinger, L. (1999). Has Feminism Changed Science? Cambridge: Harvard University Press
A person’s occupation and income status are social environment factors that can weigh heavily on an individual.
A person that has a low-income occupation may not be able to afford certain aspects that keep an individual healthy. This may include clean housing and nutritious foods that are typically more costly.
Unfortunately, many people have defined themselves around the type of job they have or how much money they make. For example, some may believe that the higher your salary, the higher your level of importance is.
On top of this, those that tend to have higher salaries only surround themselves with people that have a similar income. The same is true for the person that has a lower income. We tend to surround ourselves with others that are on the same playing field as us.
Therefore, our diversification is limited. This creates a culture that can be closed-minded and limits our social relationships to a certain type of people.
Our limited diversification and closed-mindedness then bleed into other aspects of our social environment. Eventually, this can lead to the development of a whole community that has a low-income status.
Education
Living in areas where the social climate is not healthy can lead to a decline in literacy. The school systems may not be structured well, or the classroom environment may not be conducive to learning. Government funding for the school may also be limited, which limits educational resources the school has to offer. This, ultimately, leads to a lack of education.
One of the problems with poor social environments is that the factors tend to be interconnected and related. For example, a poor school system that is not doing well at educating students results in a lack of ability to acquire a well-paying career. Students may not receive a quality life-skill, resulting in a low-income occupation.
Family & Friends
One’s family and friends are other factors that play into social environment and health.
The people that we are surrounded by often define the culture that we are raised in. Our culture often determines our mindset, and in turn, our futures. A poor home environment can have serious long-term effects on a child.
Social Environment and Weight Gain
Study’s have found that obesity is more prevalent among lower-income communities. There are a few reasons to back this claim up.
The first being that those in these lower-income neighborhoods cannot purchase nutritious foods. Healthier foods typically cost more than foods that have low quality. Therefore, fast food may be the only viable option for some families.
Fast foods are, generally, high in carbs, sodium, and unhealthy fats while not containing the proper amount of protein.
The second potential reason social environment factors affect health through weight gain is the access to parks and recreational facilities.
