Defining Females by Shirley Ardener

Author:Shirley Ardener [Ardener, Shirley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780367717889
Google: ayc2zgEACAAJ
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 1193100
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 1978-12-31T00:00:00+00:00

The Body: Subjugated and Unsexed

The concern with demeanour and carriage is one aspect of a total view of the body which reflects the extent of the institution’s invasion and the ambivalences of its intentions. Mauss (1936) has discussed the ways different societies, groups and forms of education make use of the body. These may change over time and there are individual variations. Mauss isolates three factors: social, psychological and biological.

In all the elements of the art of using the human body, the facts of education are dominant.... The child, the adult, imitates actions which have succeeded and which he has seen to succeed among persons in whom he has confidence and who have authority over him (1936, p. 369).

In the girls’ boarding-school, the pupils must acquire such movements. They may give the longed-for anonymity, as well as conspicuous selection as a team member. Within our school there could be no ‘natural’ movement which might contradict what the authorities considered correct. ‘Bad’ ways we had learnt elsewhere had to be changed. We did not merely unconsciously imitate movements and gestures, we were consciously made to sit, stand and move in uniform ways. We were drilled and schooled, not by those in whom we had confidence, but by those who had power over us. Our flesh was unscarred, yet our gestures bore their marks.25 Even when outside the classroom or off the games field, we were to sit, stand and walk erect, chin up, back straight, shoulders well back. At table when not eating, our hands were to rest in our laps. During the afternoon rest period matrons ordered us not to lie on our backs with knees bent. The games mistresses watched girls at meals, at roll-call and in chapel, and would award good and bad ‘deportment marks’, recorded on a chart, and with house cups. If you were consistently upright you won a red felt badge, embroidered with the word ‘Deportment’. This, sewn on your tunic, was a sign of both achievement and defeat. Our minds and understanding of the world were to reflect our custodians. With no private space, we could not even hide in our bodies, which also had to move in unison with their thoughts.

The authorities observed accurately the language of the body. However much a girl might say the right things, do and act within the rules, and however in order her uniform might be, her general carriage, her minutest gesture could betray a lack of conviction, a failure in conversion. I remember (after yet another term’s anxious waiting for promotion) being called to the headmistress who said that I needed to improve my ‘attitude’ before I could be made a sergeant. I was baffled because I thought I had successfully concealed my unorthodoxy. I had said and done what appeared to me to be in order. But they must have seen through me, just by the way my body spoke. It also had to be tempered. I eventually won my deportment badge, and then soared from sergeant, to sub-prefect, to prefect.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.