Normalization Of Fat Bodies By Michael Foucault

‘Fat’ bodies are routinely marked. They are the abnormal and abject because they pose direct conflict to the norm. But the discourses that determine the norm are subject to the complex social process of normalization. Initially proposed by Michael Foucault in his 1975 text ‘Discipline and Punish’ normalization is the influence of disciplinary power on determining a norm of societal conduct. According to Foucault, sovereign power, power attributed to a specific authority was superseded by disciplinary power. This power cannot be attributed to a specific individual and although invisible, renders the individual ‘hyper-visible’ (Heyes, 2007 pg 19). Being subject to constant surveillance means an individual maintains the acceptable standard of
This makes perception a learned process in which seeing and knowing are intermingled with historical and cultural practices and influence as opposed to being a result of human sight. (Alcoff, 2001). Perception creates a universal truth or knowledge that assists an individuals understanding of the world around them as well as their place in it. This unspoken knowledge is so habitual it often bypasses any conscious interpretation and is deployed without realisation. This knowledge allows individuals to form a truth, in the case of fatness, about certain appearances and body types. This visceral reading of fat bodies is informed by several narratives, most recently the medical narrative surrounding the obesity epidemic but also through moral narratives and identity narratives (such as the fat acceptance movement These narratives often don’t exist separately in the discourse of fatness. In fact they all intermix and draw on each other to give validity and authority to an opinion. In theory, if the cultural knowledge about a fat body is justified by medical fact it affirms that cultural perception for not only the viewed, but also the
The purpose of these movements is to reshape the knowingness surrounding the fat body and to encourage people to reclaim the word “fat” with pride (Murray, 2005). On its most basic semiotic level, the aim is to change the relationship between the sign (the fat individual) and the signified (that fatness means lazy, unclean, untelligent and a somehow lesser person). By detaching their fatness from societal codes, it gives the freedom to challenge and hopefully alter discources about fatness. However, the movement is not without its problems. This movement takes on a relatively humanist perspective, where in if an individual can change their perspective on their body in their own mind, they can change the public perspective on their own body. (Murray, 2005) Whilst this ideal may make fat individuals feel better about their own bodies and self esteem, it does not change the core issue. Altering a few perspectives is not going to break down dominant discourses on human bodies. Women, especially, often employ methods to deflect negative opinions on their fat bodies by attempting to appear thin or ‘normal’. By using control undergarments, dressing in slimming block colours or monitoring what they eat in public, they are in fact reinforcing the dominant discourses on the body they are attempting to evade. (Murray