Bodies in a Frame: Black British, Working Class, Teenage Femininity and the Role of the Dance Class
| Autor: | Camilla Stanger |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2013 |
| Předmět: |
Class (computer programming)
Sociology and Political Science Dance Body Teenage Femininity Black Working Class Glamour Hetero-Sexualisation Gaze Dance Agency media_common.quotation_subject common common.demographic_type Human sexuality Gender studies Consumption (sociology) Femininity Black British Object (philosophy) Working class Sociology media_common |
| Zdroj: | Sociological Research Online. 18:204-213 |
| ISSN: | 1360-7804 |
| Popis: | Historically the working class, black, female body has been defined by its sexuality and socially constructed as an object for heterosexual consumption; this article is concerned with how this manifests itself for young British women in educational settings today. I will argue that this historical bodily construction has been compounded for young women in this context by a contemporary popular culture which frames, glamorises and hetero-sexualises black female bodies. Drawing on the work of Judith Butler and Michel Foucault, I will suggest that girls who perform a Black British, working-class femininity play a central role in their own construction as hetero-sexualised and consequently passive bodies, through an internalisation of and performance for a heterosexual ‘gaze’ within various spaces of the urban, post-16 college. This article ultimately focuses, however, on the potential for resistance. Based on research conducted into the experiences of four dance students at an inner London post-16 college, I will explore the dance class as a potential space for resisting the debilitating heterosexual gaze enacted within the public spaces of the college. I will argue that the dance class can be a space where the student can reconstruct and reproduce her own body in a way that grants it agency, rather than objectifying it within a metaphorical frame. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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