Performing Beauty: Femininity Ideology, Neoliberalism and Aesthetic Labor Among Young Women in Mexico

Abstract

This research is motivated by the norms and practices of femininity that individuals create through performances and bodily practices. It investigates the levels of women’s acceptance of the femininity ideology and neoliberalism in the upper middle class, their effects on aesthetic labor and the objectification of their bodies. It examines how the logic and techniques associated with neoliberalism shapes the construction of current femininities and shifts in the relationship between the self and the body. Through the use of quantitative analysis from data based on young middle class women in Monterrey, Mexico, this study aims to determine how women are making sense of their bodies through selfdiscipline and self-regulation, as well as the ways in which neoliberal and postfeminist constructions of the sexual self and body are made meaningful in women’s everyday lives.