Philosopher, Iris Young, wrote an inspiring essay called “Throwing Like a Girl” that covers an explanation of a female bodies experience. There are various pieces with this text that I related to, specifically towards Young’s description on how women tend to become self conscious and cautious about their bodies. Through Young’s examples, she ties in a comparison of both male and female to show the negative or positive impact an action is on either sex. Young’s paper does an excellent explanation on how women truly live in their bodies as well as how women think psychologically. Because society has taught women how to use their bodies, women feel self conscious, cautious and doubtful with their bodies.
The objectification of females has evolved over the centuries for the good rather than the bad. Women used to be categorized as “the homemaker”, which is where the women stay at home to cook, clean and take care of the children, while the men would go to work and come home with high expectations on the meal that was for dinner and what the female looked like. Today, more women are seen as independent that have higher level jobs, while the men are seen enjoying to cook and the care givers in some households. The problem still occurs in this generation by the impact society has on someone’s well being, specifically females. To begin Young’s description about women’s thoughts about their body, Young relates to Beauvior, another feminist philosopher, about how women see their body’s experiences as a burden. Beauvior relates this “burden” towards the hormonal and physiological changes that take place throughout a women’s life. This could relate to every stage in a woman’s life from puberty to pregnancy. I can relate to the first stages of changes because I remember feeling my emotions changing and feeling self-conscious about the way I appeared as well as the changes that were taking place to body.
Society has created an impact during this stage by putting a certain image in women’s mind that females are “suppose” to view their selves in order to be attractive and accepted. I am supposed to have a certain hair color, body type and personality to be accepted by both society and the male race. These thoughts are caused from society teaching woman about how their bodies. This thought is supported when Beauvior explains that females are focused on what society wants females to act and look like instead of being who one wants to be. Beauvoir says, “she claims that these phenomena weigh down the woman’s existence by tying her to nature, immanence, and the requirements of the species at the expense of her own individuality,”(Young 29). Another impact that is taught by society is that women are weaker than men, which can be seen in situations such as the movies. Movies have shown females in various ways whether she is the clueless secretary to a male boss or the helpless victim that was saved by a strong, masculine man. By having movies that show this characterization intensifies the problem of objectifying women by teaching society that women are week and cannot be successful in a work place. Although there have been movies that reflect poorly on females, society has evolved in a way to where people will see a woman being the CEO of the company with a male secretary in the film as well as female super hero. Society has slowly began to understand that females are equally capable as males are and the effects that cause females to feel ashamed about their being.
Young continues to express her description of ways women can be self-conscious and cautious with their body by explaining how women have been taught that they are fragile. I can relate to this through the example of playing basketball with guy friends. The guys would obviously see me as a woman and would go “easy on me” because society has taught that basketball is a sport to rough females to play with males. By having the idea about women being fragile, it creates phrases like “you throw like a girl” an insult and causes women to become self-conscious about their bodies abilities. By society teaching that women are weak and fragile, women create a fear of getting hurt. Relating back to the basketball example, the fear of getting hurt will restrain a woman for reaching her full potential in the basketball game or in any situation that fear occurs. Young brings this thought up in the paper by saying, “women tend to have a latent and sometimes conscious fear of getting hurt, which we bring to a motion,”(Young 38). Because society has taught that women are naturally weak, women will carry the self-conscious feeling of being scared with every action that they will get hurt. Young continues the discussion with how women are cautious about their bodies is through the example of how women and males differ from throwing a baseball. She describes how women hold back and puts all the focus on one part of their body when throwing a ball, while the men use their whole body into one full motion. Young describes a woman’s throw as weak and a “feminine stride” compared to a males strong, long stride when throwing a ball.
Continuing the discussion on the different ways men and women use their bodies from understanding how they take up space and the female limitations of body usage, Young points out that women live with a threat of invasion of her body space and refers to the most extreme example of the threat of rape and other daily possibilities. The idea of objectification being a threat to woman was seen to be interesting when reading the statement, “To the extent that a woman lives her body as a thing,” (Young 39). This idea of women being fragile and seen as just an object shows that men can take advantage of women because they cannot defend their selves in this type of situation. Young argues, “for women to be touched in ways and under circumstances that it is not acceptable for men to be touched,” (45 Young). Referring to this quote, I refer to the idea on how the different genders greet one another. Society has shown men that they should always shake another males hand when greeting, in order to have the least amount of space, where as, females has been shown to invade space and normally hug when they meet or see each other again. It is interesting that growing up, females are taught that they must cross their legs and to shelter their body, while males are taught to use as much space as they can. This is relatable when looking at types of cars that men and women drive in today’s society. Women are seen driving smaller cars and men are seen driving big, loud trucks. Society has shown and distinguished which cars are female and male by the way the cars are advertised through media. As for the limitations on a female’s body, Young describes that women underuse one’s full body capacity because of the doubt of physical strength and abilities. Specifically, Young states, “Typically, the feminine body underuses its real capacity, both potentiality of its physical size and strength and as the real skills and coordination that are available to it,”(Young 36). I can relate to Young’s explanation through my internship experience this past summer. I had the opportunity to work in a tire and car maintenance shop called Firestone where I worked with all male technicians and associates. I sold services and sets of tires to customers that needed without any knowledge of cars at all. Young’s description was shown during my first week of working where I had to work aside a technician on completing basic car procedures. A specific job was to “torque the lug nuts” on a tire, which requires a lot of physical strength. Knowing the amount of strength that goes into the job when watching one of the males do it, when it came my turn, I mistrusted my bodies abilities and began to under-utilize what my body was capable of at first. Once getting the hang of the job after the first tire, I started to see that I did have the strength that the male had shown because I was completing the job that I had originally doubted myself with. I gained more confidence and truly appreciated my full body use. Society has placed in women’s head that we are not capable of doing things that men can do because of the lack of physical strength, so women live a life with doubt about their bodies abilities until a situation comes around that allows one to appreciate their full body use, which is what happened with me. Another example that I have come to experience when I have doubted my full body use that Young points out is the simple concept of not being able to open a jar of sauce. I would always give it a try, but once it wouldn’t open I’d immediately turn to the male figure close to me. Even though I know if I use the “real capacity” that Young describes, I could open it, but my natural reaction is to turn to a male because society has led me to that conclusion.
Young reflects on how women restrain themselves from awkward situation, so they will not have to face embarrassment. I feel that Young’s thought is true when relating to females, but it is also true regarding males as well during certain situations. It is interesting to see and come to the conclusion that society has formed an idea that in order for someone to have succeeded and a boost of self-confidence, a person must have a negative impact such as embarrassment and loss of self-confidence. During my experience with the internship that was previously discussed was working with male customers that came it. My presence of being a female talking about what needed to be done for the car seemed like a joke and was not taken seriously until a male figure stepped in. By this action taking place, it lead to me feeling embarrassed and lowered my self-conscious level. Society has set the standard of what is a female or male job and by having a male figure not take seriously of what I have to say just because I do not fit the part. By having the male figure step in, it negatively impacted my feeling but in return boosted the male confidence because the male solved the problem. Society has taught that if a female cannot do it, the males will always solve the problem. In a situation where the male is negatively affected and the woman has a boost of confidence is when I “torqued” the tires on a car for the first time. All the male figures surrounded me laughing and waiting for me to fail a “males job”, but when they all saw how I completed the task the males restrained from their laughter. The men were shocked that a female did a men’s job and one could see the men were negatively affected and less of a man by a female’s success. Another way men show their embarrassment by using negative words to bring down the females self-esteem. An example of this would be playing a game a putt-putt game against my boyfriend and winning. There would be an immediate reaction after the fact of winning and my cheerful attitude would be “I let you win” because there has to be an excuse to why a female beat a male. It is like my boyfriend lost some of his strength and masculinity by me winning. By hearing these phrases and knowing that the phrases are not meant in a positive way explains why women become self-conscious about their actions and think lesser of one self.
Women have grown from the stage of only being known as a care giver to an independent, successful women, but Young’s argument about women feeling self-conscious about their body is still visible in today’s society and most likely will never really go away. The idea of sexism has evolved through affecting both agencies negatively and positive, which is something I found interesting through Young’s paper. It shows that an agency that succeeds and has a positive effect will negatively affect the opposite in some way. Because Young presents an explanation on female’s embodiment, there needs to be a solution for undoing present behaviors and educating better for new generations to come, which will steer away from future ideas of sexism. Because society has taught women how to use their bodies, women feel self conscious, cautious and doubtful with their bodies.