The Effects Power has upon One’s Body

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There is a similarity between Bartky’s and Foucault’s notion of power and how it has an effect on one’s body. Whether it is from a disciplinary stand point or the views one has about the physical body itself. The connections between both philosophers provide insight to the concept of power being problematic. I will argue that when power is pushed to the extreme the participation of aggressive practices will occur. Starting with ones mental thoughts about their body, to the next of allowing themselves to alter and perform drastic measures being subjected to and from the discipline by conforming to the considered norm. allowing standards of patriarchy continue.
Power is through domination and having discipline sets one up to obtain power. It is the way individuals are suppressed to the construction of social norms. I agree with Foucault’s perception of the docile body. “The body as object and target of power…A body is docile that may be subjected, used, transformed and improved” (Foucault, 136). Society has the power have come to term with a type of ‘norm’ of a human beings body and how it is supposed to appear and if one does not fit the alternative it to simply alter ones appearance that’s considered normal. Having the body seen has an object allows it to be easily transformed or tested with to get as close as possible toward the considered conformity. With power comes control, a type of control can be discipline and the amount one obeys the rules. Having a disciplinary power is not a type of punishment but is a way of shaping and structuring oneself. Foucault argues “The human body was entering a machinery of power that explores it, breaks it down and rearranges it. A ‘political anatomy’, which was also a ‘mechanics of power’,...

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... have lead people to drastic measures to a human being to change, allowing them to abide by the considered norm at that period of time, if one is not to conform to the norm there is the possibility of shame and fear of missing out. The disciplinary power that both Bartky and Foucault discuss the aspects that a person is conformed into the moment they are born. This power has allowed us to stick to the norms and self enforce the gender constructions of one’s appearance regardless of the violent practices that take place on and through a person’s body.

Works Cited

Bartky, Sandra Lee. "Foucault, Femininity, and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power."Femininity and Domination: Studies in the Phenomenology of Oppression, 1988. 63-82.Print.
Foucault, Michel. "Docile Bodies." Discipline and Punish: The Birth If the Prison. Trans. Alan Sheridan, 1996. 135-38. Print.

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