Gracie Hall

This week we looked at chapter 3, “Size Matters” from Shari L. Dworkin and Faye Linda Wach’s Body Panic, as well as “Beyond Muscle and Fat” from Pope, Phillips, and Olivardia’s The Adonis Complex.  “Size Matters” by looking primarily at female bodies, and the images of these bodies in correlation to “gendered power relations and consumption”. The portrayal of women’s bodies as small and “lacking” contributed to the somewhat accepted view that men are over-determined as the powerful, privileges, and active subjects, and it is for this reason that male bodies are incapable of being objectified. However, what Dworkin and Whach’s chapter argues is that although men are still the possessors in the object/subject dichotomy, there is evidence that they’re bodies (within the subject sphere) have become objectified. This is because men are not unified and because of the “third wave crisis of masculinity” in which manhood and masculinity are being challenged, and therefore built, cut bodies are being rebutted.

            This chapter focuses on the beginning on explaining the term moral panic. It references the panic that erupted from the spreading of AIDS and how this panic questioned ideals of masculinity, sexuality, and gender. However, it states that this was only true of some men, and that other men in “dominant categories” were forgiven and successfully redeemed. Powerful, heterosexual men’s contraction of AIDS was explained because of their hyper-masculine behavior of “scoring”. This opening section also touched on notions of the “folk angel” and “folk devil”, the privilege/oppression relationship, the connection between individualized anxieties and the broader structure of postindustrial culture, and ultimately one of the current “body panics”: obesity.

            It is this final body panic that leads to the meat of the chapter. This new spread fear of body fat and it’s out of control; unproductive, morally inferior connotations have condemned the out of shape body. During this time of transition, men have for the most part become less and less satisfied with their bodies. This shift allows for the contemporary male body to become a profit-generating commodity through the determination to bulk up. On page 73 Dworkin and Whach state: “When one explores the construction of the ideal man today, certainly size matters.” The rest of the text expands on this concept of male muscle “size” and it’s implications.

            By examining fitness magazines Dworkin and Whach collected most of their data and formulated their themes: size, power and strength, natural elements, the links made between men’s fitness, the military, sports, fears od social feminization, and anti feminization.

            Size historically expects that men be large, and women small. Men should “firstly be big, and secondarily be cut” and that healthy and fit men are “defined by the image of musculature, muscle size, greater muscle density, and less body fat.” By looking through men’s fitness magazines Dworkin and Whach found that this focus comes across in the workouts, with 87.8% explicitly promoting an increase in muscle size and density whereas women’s workout where the majority of emphasis was placed on size reduction. On page 77 Dworkin and Whach state: “If we were to accept that men are naturally bigger and stronger than women, it seems surprising that gaining size wouldn’t be recommended for women” and yet, this is not the case. Instead women are expected to maintain their small size and remain compact.      Magazine article statistics show that while men are encouraged to work on increasing the size and strength of the upper body while women’s articles focus on the lower body and remaining “toned”. These articles restrict how much size women should gain by not encouraging intense upper body workouts and devaluation women’s strength. Culture and media, as we have seen before, plays a significant role in defining these idealized bodies.

            It is through our culture and media that the next theme of power and strength is conveyed. Men are encouraged to work for an elite athletes body and maintain a practically no-fat diet, otherwise they are “making excuses”, “not showing commitment”, “lacking self control”, and “lacking a moral fortitude”. Our society expects them to have “explosive” workouts, and “shredded abs”. We constantly relate their bodies to hard-man made or natural elements like “steel”, “iron”, “diamond”, “granite”, or “rock hard”. They should be essentially, invincible. This chapter states that because of the shifting gender relations, men are trying to redefine their manhood and this is coming across through the consumer culture’s imperative toward strength.

            Our new obsession with physical fitness at its core is about “redeeming manhood, re-energizing masculinity, and restoring force, dynamism and control to males in a culture full of doubts and contradictions about men’s futures.” Men are currently looking to hyper-masculine forms and institutions to promote and encourage this new fitness trend. The military, law enforcement, and firefighters not only inspire workouts but also inspire “a safety, security, and freedom”. By having a nation of bulky strong white, middle class men and athletes we as a nation exude a strong military presence and an essence of empire and power.

            Dworkin and Whach also state that another one of the motivators for increased size and power is the fear of social feminization and an effort to maintain their manhood. For this reason workouts in media connect men’s workouts to sport, power, and sex and women’s to fitness and maintaining a compact size; creating separate spheres. Ultimately, it is this “crisis of masculinity” that has lead to another “common historical trend: overt antifeminism.”

            Because of “the sport and fitness movement, the success of the second wave of feminism, an increase of women in male realms, an increasing role of fathers in family life, and broader emotional displays for the most privileged men” the gap between men and women has slowly started to close.” This has created a fear of the “crisis of masculinity” and an increase in men’s fitness regimens and an emphasis on size and power. This is clearly related to a hegemonic masculinity and a fear of social feminization. Currently fueling this trend is our consumer culture, economic growth, and individual anxieties.

            The other chapter “Beyond Muscle and Fat” from Pope, Phillips, and Olivardia’s The Adonis Complex contradicts Dworkin and Whach’s chapter in more ways than one. Although it also focuses on the increase in observance in male appearance it looks more closely at the individual instead of the entire male population, and observes bodily concerns of men other than just muscle size and strength.

            Readers begin by looking at Steve, a man who is never convinced he looks good, or even presentable. He is constantly focused on his hair and his love handles. He won’t even believe his girlfriend Alison when she tells him “he looks good”. Steve constantly wears a baseball hat, avoids certain restaurants, won’t let his girlfriend touch his hair, has spent upwards of three hundred dollars in the past three years and most of the time feels terrible. Steve is suffering from what Pope, Phillips, and Olivardia call the “Adonis Complex.”

            The Adonis Complex is found in men who constantly worry about parts of their bodies other than muscle and fat. A recent study showed that 43% of male respondents were dissatisfied with their overall appearance. This has lead to a penis-enlargement industry, as well as an increase in plastic surgery, beauty products, and beauty services for men. Pope, Phillips, and Olivardia even state that men instead of women are becoming more obsessed with their bodies: “It’s ironic that as women have become increasingly aware of—and a little more liberated from—society’s unreachable standards of beauty, men are increasingly and unknowingly falling prey to the very same forces.”

            Unlike “Size Matters”, “Beyond Muscle and Fat” looks at the individual and specific conditions. Readers are exposed to Body Dysmorphic Disorder and the silent suffering that goes along with it. Decrease in or nonexistent intimate relationships, suicide attempts, a poor quality of living, exuberant funds and time, neurotic behavior, body mutilation and plastic surgery have all been a result of this condition that effects 1 to 2% of the population.  Hair and penis size are two of the biggest concerns in addition to breasts, body hair and height, all of which are ultimately tied back to masculinity and “manliness”. Men are treated through psychotherapy, antidepressants, cognitive-behavioral therapy and response prevention, however it is a condition that is almost impossible to “cure”. Although BDD is an extreme state of the Adonis Complex, it is a prime example of the way certain men have become increasingly concerned with their bodies. Both chapters expanded on this awareness and highlighted the ways in which our consumer industry has fueled this shift. Like male beauty works in Japan accepted and encouraged ideals of masculinity have caused personal anxieties and new “norms”.