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Today women are lifting weights to build muscle, wrapping their bodies in seaweed to reduce unwanted water retention, attending weigh-ins at diet centers, and devoting themselves to many other types of "body work." Filled with the voices of real women, this book unravels the complicated emotional and intellectual motivations that drive them as they confront American culture's unreachable beauty ideals. This powerful feminist study lucidly and compellingly argues against the idea that the popularity of body work means that women are enslaved to a male-fashioned "beauty myth." Essential reading for understanding current debates on beauty, Body Work demonstrates that women actually use body work to escape that beauty myth. Debra Gimlin focuses on four sites where she conducted in-depth research--a beauty salon, aerobics classes, a plastic surgery clinic, and a social and political organization for overweight women. The honest and provocative interviews included in this book uncover these women's feelings about their bodies, their reasons for attempting to change or come to terms with them, and the reactions of others in their lives. These interviews show that women are redefining their identities through their participation in body work, that they are working on their self-images as much as on their bodies. Plastic surgery, for example, ultimately is an empowering life experience for many women who choose it, while hairstyling becomes an arena for laying claim to professional and social class identities. This book develops a convincing picture of how women use body work to negotiate the relationship between body and self, a process that inevitably involves coming to terms with our bodies' deviation from cultural ideals. One of the few studies that includes empirical evidence of women's own interpretations of body work, this important project is also based firmly in cultural studies, symbolic interactionism, and feminism. With this book, Debra Gimlin adds her voice to those of scholars who are now looking beyond the surface of the beauty myth to the complex reality of women's lives.
Beauty, Personal --- Beauty culture --- Cosmetology --- Beauty shops --- Cosmetics --- Beauty --- Complexion --- Grooming, Personal --- Grooming for women --- Personal beauty --- Personal grooming --- Toilet (Grooming) --- Hygiene --- Social aspects --- Beauty, Personal - Social aspects - United States --- Beauty culture - Social aspects - United States --- alternative healing. --- american beauty standards. --- american beauty. --- american culture. --- beauty standards. --- biographical. --- body building. --- body work. --- cultural studies. --- female beauty. --- female body builder. --- feminism. --- feminist. --- male gaze. --- muscles. --- mythology. --- patriarchy. --- plastic surgery. --- politics. --- strong women. --- true story. --- weight lifting. --- weight. --- womens beauty standards. --- womens beauty.
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Two women, virtual strangers, sit hand-in-hand across a narrow table, both intent on the same thing-achieving the perfect manicure. Encounters like this occur thousands of times across the United States in nail salons increasingly owned and operated by Asian immigrants. This study looks closely for the first time at these intimate encounters, focusing on New York City, where such nail salons have become ubiquitous. Drawing from rich and compelling interviews, Miliann Kang takes us inside the nail industry, asking such questions as: Why have nail salons become so popular? Why do so many Asian women, and Korean women in particular, provide these services? Kang discovers multiple motivations for the manicure-from the pampering of white middle class women to the artistic self-expression of working class African American women to the mass consumption of body-related services. Contrary to notions of beauty service establishments as spaces for building community among women, The Managed Hand finds that while tentative and fragile solidarities can emerge across the manicure table, they generally give way to even more powerful divisions of race, class, and immigration.
Asian Americans - Social conditions. --- Asian Americans -- Social conditions. --- Beauty culture - Social aspects - United States. --- Beauty culture -- Social aspects -- United States. --- Beauty shops - Social aspects - United States. --- Beauty, Personal - Social aspects - United States. --- Korean American women - Employment - United States. --- Korean American women -- Employment -- United States. --- Manicuring - Social aspects - United States. --- United States - Race relations. --- United States -- Race relations. --- Women immigrants - Employment - United States. --- Women immigrants -- Employment -- United States. --- Beauty culture --- Korean American women --- Women immigrants --- Asian Americans --- Art, Architecture & Applied Arts --- Arts & Crafts --- Social aspects --- Employment --- Social conditions --- Immigrant women --- Immigrants --- Women, Korean American --- Women --- Cosmetology --- Beauty, Personal --- Beauty shops --- Cosmetics --- Nail art (Manicuring) --- Manicuring --- Body art --- Nail designs (Manicuring) --- Nails (Anatomy) --- Care and hygiene --- african american women. --- art. --- asian american. --- asian immigrants. --- asian women. --- beauty service work. --- body services. --- body. --- class differences. --- consumption. --- divisions of race. --- ethnography. --- gender issues. --- gender. --- immigrant workers. --- interviews. --- korean women. --- manicures. --- nail industry. --- nail salons. --- new york city. --- nonfiction. --- pampering. --- race issues. --- self care. --- self expression. --- service careers. --- social science. --- united states. --- white middle class women. --- women. --- working class.
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