Socio-Cultural Norm

This quote takes a look at the body and how it’s been perceived/normalized throughout history. Due to the previous assumptions made, there is lot of social and cultural pressure for an individual to partake in certain mannerisms. Therefore, overtime these mannerisms and behaviours are reproduced, dramatized, and thought of as the social/cultural norm. “The body is a historical situation…” As we look through history we see that the body has been culturally constructed. Meaning, the traditional way in which the body’s viewed was based on the culture, or social normalizations of that time. As we pass our traditions and culture on to each generation, we also share our outlook on how we perceive the body. To my surprise, I find that we have not …show more content…
The reason we view the body in a specific light is because it’s taught to us in that way. Just as we are taught growing up that girl’s wear dresses and boys wear pants. Yet, whose to say that girls can’t wear pants? Who decided what the “norm” should be? It was most likely white, middle/high class, men who had an impact on this normalization. Now the body is, “a manner of doing, dramatizing, and reproducing a historical situation.” We seem to do, act, and repeat because it’s what the norm is. As we talked about it in lecture. “Gender is ritualized, public, and political.” The same is with the body. It’s become ritualized that historically a woman’s body is placed on this earth so that she can give birth to children and take care of her family. She is there for public show, and so is her gender as she is most likely sexualized by men. In terms of politics she has very little to no influence, because of her body/gender. Due to the body parts she was born with, she is unable to participate in several activities including politics (or has a harder time than her male counterparts.) However, there are times in which women over dramatize their femininity as they know they can use it to their advantage. This causes a great conflict in the battle between women and men. So doing, dramatizing, and reproducing these historic depictions of the body are …show more content…
Overtime these depictions/mannerisms have been reproduced, dramatized, and looked at to be the social/cultural norm. This quote was unique as it challenged myself to look at the perspective of how we got to the point that we are at today. Rather than looking at the present situation, and how we can immediately fix it short