Defining Beauty Labour

This thesis argues that ‘beauty labour’ is a vital component of femininity in contemporary Russia, as it is in Western countries. The term beauty labour is used in this thesis to refer to a means of achieving a higher level of aesthetic capital and femininity, but also as an everyday means of ‘doing’ or performing femininity (West & Zimmerman, 1987). It is not

explained here as a novel concept, but in terms of the literature contributing to the concept as it has been used in existing work, albeit in different vocabulary and sometimes with slightly different meanings. Because of this, in this subchapter I take the opportunity to explain my understanding of the term prior to its use in the thesis.

On its most basic level, ‘beauty labour’ is used to describe work on the body in the pursuit of a higher level of normative, feminine beauty. The processes that make up beauty labour are variable, and chiefly concern the decoration, modification or maintenance of the body. For example, any of the following activities may be said to fit with the aims of beauty labour as described above:

 using ‘beautifying’ products such as moisturiser or serum

 applying cosmetics to enhance or conceal features

 applying self-tanning products to change skin colour

 choosing clothes with the aim of enhancing or concealing features, or to more closely meet norms of femininity or of fashion

 physical exercise with the aim of weight loss or body sculpting

 cosmetic surgery such as liposuction, breast enlargement or a face lift

 treatments such as laser skin resurfacing or Botox injections.

Because these activities encompass a range of different activities, it is important to note that this research, unlike the work of other scholars such as Jeffreys (2005), does not attempt to equate them or grade them according to a continuum; for various reasons, surgery under anaesthetic is seen to be a more drastic action related to beauty labour than

using make up on a daily basis. What the thesis aims to highlight is the aim of these activities, which is to produce a more normatively feminine or beautiful body. Indeed, the activities women do in relation to their bodies is often with the aim of strengthening markers of femininity (Kosterina, 2008: 47).

A perceived need for women to ‘fix’ their bodies implies that a woman’s ‘natural body’ must be inherently unsatisfactory (Brush, 1998: 29). Women’s bodies have come to be seen as raw material (Cronin, 2000: 277) to be modified with the aim of either reflecting or concealing information about the woman herself. Culturally, the female body stands as an eternal ‘work in progress’ with no rational end point. My use of the specific term ‘beauty labour’ is predicated on this point, in addition to the lack of clarity around other terms which have been used in the literature around beauty. For example, a similar term drawing on the idea of aesthetic capital – ‘aesthetic labour’ – has most often been used with specific reference to workplace or employment practices linked to both appearance and physical behaviour aimed specifically at pleasing customers (Warhurst et al. 2000: 4). It has also referred to the greater emphasis given to aesthetic capital in certain types of work such as acting (see Dean, 2005). Although this research mentions the centrality of beauty labour to social outcomes in arenas such as in the workplace, I wished to use a term centred more on the gendered aspect of achieving beauty for most women.

Loïc Wacquant’s ‘body work’ or ‘bodily labour’ also have some theoretical resonance, in that he uses the terms with explicit reference to the achievement of bodily capital; they are, he argues, interdependent (1995: 67; 2004). Beauty labour and aesthetic capital are

similarly linked.13 Although some studies (e.g. Ratilainen, 2012) have used Wacquant’s notion of “bodily capital” to refer to women’s beauty practices, I prefer the term aesthetic capital (Anderson et al, 2010). This is because Wacquant’s use of the term bodily capital not only refers to the production of a specifically masculine body, but his exploration of this masculine body is focused on the male subject’s agency and action with reference to his body. In contrast, this thesis dwells on portrayals of the female body as passive and as an object in popular culture, arguably making aesthetic capital a more appropriate term.

Other work using similar terms is problematic in terms of the areas it addresses. For example, Kang (2003) uses the term ‘body labour’ with reference to working on the bodies of others, rather than on one’s own body. As such, it is more closely linked to Hochschild’s (1983) concept of emotional labour in its focus on a workplace setting, in that individuals are modifying their appearance and/or behaviours for the benefit of others. Again, Mears & Finlay (2005) also draw on both ‘body capital’ and ‘emotional labour’ as closely linked to employment and work practices.

The most comparable term to ‘beauty labour’ from the literature –‘beauty work’ – is mentioned by Kwan and Trautner (2009) in reference to practices similar to those I mention above. However, they also make a distinction between ‘beauty work’ and ‘beauty labour’, associating the latter with labour performed on others (Ibid: 50), presumably due to the associations of ‘labour’ with gaining economic capital. Because of the lack of precedence of this particular usage,14 I prefer to use the term ‘beauty labour’ as a more

13_{This has some theoretical and semantic links to Marx’s (1887/2008) work on labour, surplus value and the}

production of capital – beauty labour is a means of accruing aesthetic capital. However, there is not space to explore these links in more depth in this thesis.

14

Kwan and Trautner reference an unpublished working paper by Louise Roth which, upon contacting the author, I found was unavailable in the public domain.

faithful reflection of the value association of ‘labour’ as work on the body which is also associated with the production of a certain form of capital (in this case, aesthetic and cultural capital). I feel it is also more semantically faithful to the everyday striving of many women to achieve and sustain an attractive and feminine body –their ‘labour’ in the field of beauty.

Although she does not use the term ‘beauty labour’, Yulia Gradskova (2007b) explores very similar ideas in her thesis on femininity in the USSR, also referring to women’s magazines, beauty and fashion. In a post-Soviet context, Ratilainen (2012; 2013) also discusses the extent to which social capital in Bourdieusian terms may be linked to beauty labour in contemporary Russian culture, explicitly drawing links between such labour and maintaining certain class positions.15 Salmenniemi & Adamson (2014) use the term “the labour of femininity” to refer to similar practices in relation to contemporary self-help books in Russia, further highlighting the ways in which appearance is understood as a key reflection of normative femininity in the contemporary Russian context.

To summarise this theoretical perspective, ‘beauty labour’ encompasses work on the body to more closely resemble an idealised understanding of femininity and to thus achieve greater aesthetic capital; it is a term that is intended to broadly encompass many activities without equating or comparing them along any particular scale; and it is intended to reflect the ongoing nature of the activity from a feminist point of view.

15_{In terms of its use in Russian women’s magazines, beauty labour may encompass the term ukhod za soboi}

(lit. 'care for the self'), the verb krasit'sia (to put makeup on), amongst many other terms – this reflects the nuance of behaviours considered under the aegis of this term.