Page 178 - Cultural Studies A Practical Introduction

162 Bodies and Things

especially one with dark skin, in the United States will in all likelihood feel

less confirmed in her identity by her surroundings, especially in the world
of business; fewer women of color inhabit the higher echelons of fi nancial
success for one thing. As a result, she will in all likelihood dress and move
differently, and the attention she attracts will also be different.
Our bodily demeanor can thus be an index of how the world makes us
feel about ourselves – whether we walk upright and proudly or bent over
and stooped, for example, and whether we look up and ahead or down and
away. And those feelings can register real attitudes that affect people ’ s lives
in substantial ways. Studies have shown that tall women get better jobs
than shorter women. And women students of color in the sciences have a

more difficult time establishing themselves as credible participants in the

performance of expertise in their academic scientific communities. They
have to work to achieve the same level of assurance in their voices that
come more easily and readily to their fellow white male and female
students. If they have large bodies – larger than normal breasts, for example
– they are treated and looked at differently. As a result, large - bodied women
of color in the sciences feel they have to work harder to achieve the respect
and acceptance that comes almost automatically to their equally smart
white, especially male, colleagues.
Physical cultural studies are concerned with bodily life – everything
from body shape and its significance to dance and the different meanings

it has in different cultural contexts. Bodies change meaning depending on
the context in which they are found. A strappingly muscular body in men
used to be a sign of moral health and heterosexual masculinity, but in
recent years, it has come often to signify gay male identity, since many
young gay men celebrate physical beauty and cultivate it. And even within
the muscle - building community, different bodies have different meanings.
The hyper - developed body of some champion builders appears strange and
even ugly to outsiders, but for those within the community who know the

codes and recognize the signs of achievement, the “ over ” - built body is a
token of success, a sign of hard work.
The cultural significance of bodies resides not only in what they mean

but also in how they are inhabited, used, and experienced. One ’ s experience
of one ’ s body can be affected by one ’ s cultural surroundings and by the
media. The meaning they have for us can change as a result. Consider the
female breast. It has a biological function in that it is used to feed infants.
But it is assigned a sexual or erotic meaning in certain cultures that it is not
assigned in others. When Janet Jackson allowed a breast to be exposed on a