Abstract
Slender and skinny body ideals have been associated with psychological disorders such as eating disorders. However, the tendency to promote a “healthier” and more athletic female body ideal has received minimal critical attention. This study aims at exploring the underlying conditions for such an athletic ideal through asking: How is the female athletic body constructed in the pseudonymous contemporary women’s fitness magazine, “Xrzise”? We investigated the object of inquiry through a modified version of Parker’s Foucauldian discourse analysis. We analyzed the interviews of four athletic role models in “Xrzise” and identified four discourses: “Neo-liberal discourse,” “Health expertise discourse,” “Discourse of surveillance and control” and “Discourse of emancipation.” The “Neoliberal discourse” constructs the female athletic body as something that the individual woman should strive for by appropriately managing her own resources, abilities and skills. The “Health expertise discourse” constructs the female athletic body through a homeostatic logic where the individual is responsible and healthcare experts have the mandate to intervene in order to maintain good health. The “Discourse of surveillance and control” constructs the female athletic body as an internalized panoptic stance, disciplining women to accept hegemonic beauty ideals. The “Discourse of emancipation” accentuates that the female athletic body is alleviated from a culturally rigid body image and instead improved physical performance and functionality are considered good ends. The results and discussion indicate that the female athletic body is a result of a complex nexus of different discourses associated with the powers of economy, sex differences, institutions, and ideological forces. We have advocated that magazines like “Xrzise” can have covert disciplinary effects hidden by seemingly well-intentioned motives, which can contribute to women’s objectification of their bodies.
Highlights
Women often turn to magazines for advice on how to achieve expected ideals within a society
How does an allegedly more healthy, realistic and attainable ideal for women fit into this puzzle, and how do fitness magazines deal with their own contradictory foundation? This paper aims at exploring discourses of the athletic female body, and its societal implications through a critical analysis of the Norwegian fitness magazine Xrsize
Since a neoliberal discourse appeals to the idea of actualizing something already existing within the individual, a project of self-realization depicts the process as a ‘personal struggle’ and can conceal the importance of subtle power structures within our society
Summary
Women often turn to magazines for advice on how to achieve expected ideals within a society. Body ideals are often addressed in fitness magazines by providing different strategies for bodily self-improvement. Markula (2001) has noted that women’s eating disorders have attracted increased attention by the fitness magazines themselves. Still, these magazines aim at inspiring women by portraying narrowly defined body ideals, which are related to women’s body related psychological disorders (Markula, 2001; Duncan and Klos, 2014). These magazines aim at inspiring women by portraying narrowly defined body ideals, which are related to women’s body related psychological disorders (Markula, 2001; Duncan and Klos, 2014) These ideals seem to be a part of a larger culture of perpetual self-development. Madsen has described this tendency as the eternal pursuit of the optimal self and questioned whether this is related to the concurrent increase in mental illness in the general population (Madsen, 2015)
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