The Managed Body by Chris Bobel

Author:Chris Bobel
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783319894140
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Time to Ask Why

I join Joseph in her critique, though from a different social location. In the pages that follow, I will unpack this analysis through an explanation of the ideologies that shape the MHM problem frame explored in the previous chapter as well as the consequences of that spectacularized formulation. As I demonstrated in the preceding pages, MHM, overall, is a social movement that intervenes first and asks questions later. That is, its claims rest on a weak evidentiary basis, but, nonetheless, awareness campaigns, fundraising, and program development and implementation—especially the provision of menstrual care materials—continue at near-breakneck speed. So, it is time to ask questions. Why this is happening? What are the potential consequences of this discourse? A preview of my answer to these conjoined questions is this: The rhetorics of campaigns are intended to unite people of the Global North and Global South in common purpose, but they actually and ironically further the distance between them. This discourse—a “feminist fable” following Cornwall et al. (2008)—resonates with Western assumptions about life in the Global South, a depiction that promulgates geopolitical hierarchies and creates a justification for a narrow set of interventions. While MHM discourse attempts to capture attention and build connection, its reliance on spectacularized representations of girls in the Global South works to authorize “rescue” by well-meaning “saviors.” This, in short, is the problem with the problem.

I use the word “spectacularized” quite deliberately; it refers to a concept foundational to the work of Debord (1968), the critical Marxist theorist. He situates the spectacle as central to the alienating features of capitalist society. He writes, “The spectacle is not a collection of images; rather it is a social relationship between people that is mediated by image” (5). Per Debord , this collection of images enables the media’s power over consumers. The spectacle serves to consolidate and unify bits and pieces, to flatten complexity to make it more discernible, and thus, digestible. The spectacle is the enemy of heterogeneity. Colloquially, we might call it a stereotype on steroids. Writing later, Baudrillard (2007) cynically asserts that the masses consume the spectacle over more complex and often inconsistent material; they are driven by their hunger for spectacle, a craving that transcends a quest for reason. To him, “The masses scandalously resist this imperative of rational communication. They are given meaning: they want spectacle” (40). Bringing us back to MHM, the spectacle emerges in depictions of girls suffering in the Global South: a vast region spanning nations—indeed, continents—and encompassing diversity of every imaginable kind pertaining to language, history, culture, lifestyle, gender norms, religion, governance, wealth-to-poverty ratios, and, of course, experiences of the menstrual cycle. Yet, girls and their lived experiences are rendered monolithically.

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