Paper Details

Name: Surinder Kaur
Country: India

Year: 2016
Volume: Volume-3, Issue-2 (July-December)
Page Number: 36-41

Michel Foucault argues in The History of Sexuality that “our bodies are trained, shaped and impressed with the stamp of prevailing historical forms of selfhood, desire, masculinity and femininity” (166). Bodies are controlled, supervised, and continuously molded to fit within the constraints of heterosexuality. Gender is considered as the natural part of the body. A male body behaves differently from female body. The approved roles, behaviours, actions, and features that are considered right for male and female bodies are called gender roles: masculine for males and feminine for females. While the ideals of physical beauty and size keep on changing, the notions of masculinity and femininity are constant. Traditional gender roles cast men as rational, strong, protective, and decisive; whereas women are cast as emotional (irrational), weak, nurturing, and submissive (Tyson 85). Body adhering to the prevalent social and cultural norms of masculine and feminine is regarded as an ideal body. Hence, an ideal female is feminine i.e. when outer appearance (slim and curvy body for females; strong and muscled for males) matches the inner nature (emotionality, submissiveness, and dependency as female features; rationality, authority, and boldness as male). Feminist critics have challenged this natural link between sex and gender. Delphy, a French materialist feminist, quotes Ann Oakley’s following definition from Sex, Gender and Society published in 1972, to clear the differences: