Avoiding ‘Trouble’ via ‘Progress Narratives’

I found during the process of identifying patterns emerging from the data, that the pattern I had labelled ‘progress narrative’ and the pattern labelled ‘distancing

from/orienting to the body’ very often overlapped. In the following extract, Participant 8 is talking about going to the gym regularly. Previously in the interview she had talked about having had problems when she was younger with restricting food too much and becoming too thin:

Extract 14

Interview participant 8, 1.st interview, campus:

Participant 8: Yeah (... ) being short’s kind of my thing (… ) I guess when I was 1

younger I did want to be slimmer and obviously now (.) I like looking after myself now 2

in a healthy way and I like staying fit and healthy and feeling good so there’s always 3

that pressure () It’s quite hard to maintain a slim figure (…) or I find it quite difficult 4

anyway 5

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The participant may be seen to be using a progress narrative in a way that constructs her current engagement with her body as better than when she was younger, even as she talks about the desirability of maintaining a slim figure. Given the recurring overlaps between the two patterns, it seems that employing a progress narrative is a way of negotiating the complicated dance of simultaneously distancing from and orienting to the body and any body-related issues. Given that participants so often did this, it seems that women cannot simply talk about experiencing difficulties with body image and their own bodies, without also narrating versions of this engagement that positions them as having progressed from previous, arguably weaker, positions.

Consider again the last part of extract 2:

Interviewer: Is there any part of your body that you would change in any way if you could (.) like with say a magic wand or something

Participant 9: No because I did that with hard work I didn’t like my weight so I lost a bit

This response indicates not only that she progressed (via hard work), that she has obtained happiness with her own body, but also that her body is now slim enough.

6.3 Conclusion

It is possible to discern a demand on young women to speak as if they were impervious to appearance related pressures, while also recognising that such pressures exist, and be able to talk about their own bodies in ways that meet current beauty standards, often in terms of slimness. As these seemingly contradictory positions may be a source of trouble in participants’ talk about appearance, the progress narrative from susceptible to strong character is one way of navigating potential trouble involved in distancing from, while orienting to, appearance and body pressures, even if this is not a perfect or stable solution.

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For some, it makes speaking of unhappiness with their own body and speaking of being susceptible to externally imposed pressures very difficult. For others, such as Participant 8 who did speak of difficulties with maintaining a slim body, it arguably entails a risk of being heard as not quite having progressed in the manner claimed.

One way around such a dilemma can be to talk about desires to maintain a slim body as a health issue rather than an appearance issue. Alternatively, as discussed, many

participants situated concerns with weight as a younger girls’ issue. While the related progress narrative enables the subject position of a ‘strong character’, it is interesting that it also often involves the speaker in a claim to have obtained an acceptable body.

The progress narrative may furthermore be seen as a narrative of increasing maturity, which itself becomes of interest in the light of suggestions, discussed in Chapter2, that the current young generations are stuck in prolonged adolescence, because they do not have access to more traditional markers of adulthood. While the young women in this study may thus not have careers, mortgages or husbands and children, they do talk of themselves as more mature than they were when younger. It is possible that ‘maturity’, when told in relation to perceived external pressures in relation to their bodies, becomes a marker of progress towards adulthood which young women can use to distinguish themselves from younger girls, or those who may be seen as not having reached this sense of self, in the absence of other, more traditional markers of ‘maturity’.

Young women orient to their own bodies in highly complicated ways, that often include both distancing themselves from vulnerability to externally imposed expectations or beauty ideals, and positioning themselves as strong characters in doing so, while

meeting at least some of these beauty ideals. That claiming not to be affected by societal beauty standards was so frequently used as an indicator of personal strength, suggests further complications in women’s’ engagements with beauty practices, beyond debates over their agency. Beyond any actual engagements in beauty practices, the concept of

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body image in relation to externally imposed beauty standards is also something women use as a discursive resource in their identity work, and they largely talk about it in terms of beauty standards causing women unhappiness with their own bodies, which in turn is linked with lack of confidence. This is also talked about as a weakness, and something the speakers themselves have overcome.

Women’s engagements with beauty practices, both in actual appearance-related

practices and in their talk, cannot be sufficiently analysed by focussing on whether they are best seen as cultural dupes, engaging in objectifying practices uncritically, or knowing choosers who engage in selected practices for their own enjoyment (Gill and Donaghue, 2013; Evans et al. 2010). While they may engage in such practices on occasion, and carefully construct claims that they are doing so for their own enjoyment, they also critically distance themselves from external pressures, both by claiming to not personally be affected, and by highlighting the negative impacts such beauty ideals have on other, usually younger, women. Young women are quite clearly drawing on

discourses of beauty ideals as negative, but as vulnerability to external pressures is framed as lack of maturity or weakness, rather than being unequivocally liberating for women to be able to critique such pressures, it may add a layer of complication for young women to navigate both distancing from and engaging with appearance related matters.

While most women in this study repudiated the idea that appearance matters, many talked about themselves in terms of having made efforts to achieve elements of ‘emphasized femininity’ in the meaning of ‘culturally sanctioned and understood desirable femininity’. While some did this by talking about having achieved a slim body, others echoed Dilley et. al.’s findings of doing occasioned ‘flash’ femininity (i.e. displaying traditional markers of emphasised femininity such as make-up or frilly underwear), which suggests that, as Dilley et al. found in their research, some young

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women assure their femininity by engaging in appearance-related emphasized

femininity. However, in light of the further findings of this study, that performances of femininity in talk, and performances in appearance may not always cohere, it appears that one known version of intelligible femininity which involves distancing oneself from engagement with conventional beauty practices can be troubled by one’s appearance. This highlights that there are several ways of doing femininity, but some performances, such as wearing make-up, may be construed as negating other

performances, such as positioning oneself as a critically thinking woman.

As there appears to be a risk of failure if one does not do femininity ‘correctly’,

performing emphasized femininity through appearance while critiquing it in words may be one way of simultaneously performing both desirable femininity in terms of

appearance and critically thinking womanhood. However, there is a risk that such performances may appear inconsistent and thus need explaining or defending.

The achievement of assured femininity is evidently temporary and situated. As the 'right' kind of femininity involves disparate criteria (e.g. critically thinking, sexy, slim or cute), it seems that both talk and appearance and actions are used to perform various aspects of femininity, but again this risks being seen as incoherent or inauthentic.

These findings suggest that successful femininity is not a constant. It is not something that would be achievable if only a woman could find the exactly right appearance. To perform femininity successfully, in a way that is ‘not troubled’ depends on balancing the various aspects of the performances. Performing conflicting versions of femininity simultaneously can be an alternative way for young women to meet demands that seem incompatible or contradictory.

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