Throwing Like A Girl Analysis

Iris Marlon Young was a feminist and a philosopher that wrote an essay titled “throwing like a girl” which was published in 1980, “We often experience our bodies as a fragile encumbrance, rather than the media for the enactment of our aims. We feel as though we must have our attention directed upon our bodies to make sure they are doing what we wish them to do, rather than paying attention to what we want to do through our bodies” (146-7).
She is making a generalisation about western women as a whole, she’s makes it clear that there are exceptions to her claim but in her words I could see myself. So often growing up I mistrusted the ability of my body to do things. “Oh, I can’t lift that, I’m not strong enough”, or “I won’t be able to get the ball in the net”, or “I might get hurt”, or “What if I look stupid doing that?”. A self-imposed “I cannot”, is how Young describes it. These are information that society teaches women about their bodies she gives example
The source of this is that patriarchal society defines woman as object, as a mere body, and that in sexist society women are in fact frequently regarded by others as objects and mere bodies. An essential part of the situation of being a woman is that of living the ever-present possibility that one will be gazed upon as a mere body, as shape and flesh that presents itself as the potential object of another subject’s intentions and manipulations, rather than as a living manifestation of action and intention. The source of this objectified bodily existence is in the attitude of others regarding her, but the woman herself often actively takes up her body as a mere thing. She gazes at it in the mirror, worries about how it looks to others, prunes it, shapes it, moulds and decorates it. This objectified bodily existence accounts for the self-consciousness of the feminine relation to her body and resulting distance she takes from her body”