THE CULTURAL IDEOLOGY OF BODY IMAGE
AMONG FIJIAN WOMEN
by Erinn Gregg

Chapter 2
Literature Review of Body and Self

Chapter 2

Theories about Eating Disorders in the West

Culture and Self

...the human body does not exist and is not understandable apart from the 'social' construction of 'reality'. Our bodies and our perception of them constitutes an important part of our socio-cultural heritage. They are not simply objects we inherit at birth, but are socialized (encultured) throughout life and this process of collectively sanctioned bodily modification may serve as an important instrument for our socialization (enculturation) in a more general sense. That is, in learning to have a body, we also begin to learn about our 'social body' - our society. (MacSween 1993: 115)

Theories about Eating Disorders in the West

In American society, the focus on weight and body image has been growing at an increasing rate in the past years. From a young age, women are concerned with their food consumption, their exercise and the way their bodies look to other people in the society. While many theories have been suggested to explain eating disorders, the one most pertinent to this study is the one linking preoccupation with slimness to American conceptions of what it means to be a good person and, particularly, to American views of women.

One obvious source of American women's preoccupation with their bodies is a culture that emphasizes a woman's appearance as the source of her worth. In American society, women have been, and continue to be, thought of primarily as physical bodies. Women are evaluated more often than men in terms of whether they have a good body or not. The body is separate from the self but is considered to be a reflection of one's self. According to Susan Bordo, the longstanding assumption in Western culture that the body is negative leads to the negative attitude towards women. "[I]f the body is the negative term, and if woman is the body, then women are that negativity" (1993: 5). Therefore when women are thought of as bodies they are perceived as negative. A woman who perceives herself as negative through her body is encouraged to alter her body to improve herself.

The ideology of American culture encourages people to show that they are worthy people by working on their bodies. Presumably, since women's bodies are considered to be a large part of their person, women are particularly encouraged to show their worth by making their bodies conform to the ideal.

The self constructs a particular public image by choosing from a field of bodily symbols that may equate obesity with indulgence, laziness, or sheer ineptitude in managing self-presentation; thinness with embodied restraint; and toned musculature with disciplined work on the body. In short bodies exist not only to live with and think with but also to struggle against in forging a personal identity. (Becker 1995: 34)

Thus the body becomes the representation of one's self and people become identified through the size and shape of their bodies. The cultivation of the body is then permitted because through working the body individuals are showing themselves to be autonomous.

Similar to Becker's argument, Susan Bordo also suggests that the obsession with women and weight is based on the link between appearance and the reflection of one's self. "[T]he firm, developed body has become a symbol of correct attitude; it means that one 'cares' about oneself and how one appears to others, suggesting willpower, energy, control over infantile impulse, the ability to 'shape your life' " (1993: 195). A person's self is defined by the way they look which, as a result, has women focusing on their bodies to reflect positive qualities that are well-liked by others. For women in American culture the high positive evaluation of slimness is especially dominant in part because of the large influence of popular culture. The idea that women should be slim is encouraged by the portrayal of the female body within the culture.

[W]e see few women of real girth on television or in the movies who also have vigor, intelligence, or sex appeal. Young girls, fed on this ideological pablum, learn to be decorative, passive, powerless, and ambivalent about being female. (Brumberg 1988: 33)

Again the message that is sent to women is that if they want to have any form of power both within the culture and within themselves, they must maintain the slim figure which is valued in females in American society. Society has chosen to focus on the body of the female and thus females have turned to their bodies as a reflection of their selves. The importance of women's bodies has been constructed by American culture. The feminist writer Monique Wittig writes, "They are seen as women, therefore, they are women. But before being seen that way, they first had to be made that way" (1997: 266). Regarding the association of women with their bodies, the culture is what has made women bodies and as a result, they are seen as only bodies.

The result of the negative portrayal of women's bodies is that women experience their enemy not as a society that oppresses them but as their own body. The body is the negative.

[T]he body does not merely contain the bad object but is the bad object. The body is experienced as having all the features of the primary object as it was perceived in a situation of oral helplessness: all-powerful, indestructible, self-sufficient, growing and threatening. There is an unconscious feeling that the object is far too strong to be destroyed. (MacSween 1993: 46)

The body is perceived as the object that is negative but which is so strong that it cannot be destroyed. However, it is possible to control the body and in turn women focus on the control they exert over their bodies as a means to escaping the negativity which is associated with the body (MacSween 1993: 47). By controlling their weight, women attempt to recreate who they are as individuals and improve their position in society.

In controlling their weight and body image, women are striving for an independent role within society. According to one feminist explanation,

[W]omen want to control what happens in their lives, a control which women's relative social powerlessness problematizes. The reality of this powerlessness means it is very difficult for women to exert a controlling influence over their actual social position. (MacSween 1993: 66)

MacSween suggests that women turn to their bodies as a means of control because they do not have the power in society to change the way they are viewed or to control others. Therefore, as a result of their insubordinate position one of the few ways for a woman to exert control becomes her body. She can control her life only by controlling her own body.

Eating disorders are a symptom of the obsession with women's weight and body image. Brumberg states that women with eating disorders "are notoriously preoccupied with self" (1988: 37). Women who go to such extremes to control their weight and body image not only establish a sense of autonomy separate from others but in addition they disconnect from the care of others, taking the control of their selves out of the care of others and into the own hands.

Although many theorists have argued that the American preoccupation with body weight is the product of our sense of what it means to be a good person, some anthropologists like Anne Becker believe that such theorists do not go far enough in tracing eating disorders to cultural values. She argues that theories that focus on women's desire to control their lives already assume that individuals seek control. The desire for control and the desire to appear successful to others, Becker argues, are also products of our culture, which values an "individuated" self.

This individuated self is located in the context of the cultural variation of "independence, autonomy, and differentiation," whereas the "unindividuated" self includes a variety of others. (Becker 1995: 3)

Therefore because the self in American culture does not encompass a larger group of people who in essence define the self, each individual defines their personal self. Thus it would make sense according to the "individuated" self that the individual focus on self-cultivation through working on the body.

In the following section I will discuss the anthropological ideas about how people in different cultures have very basic differences in conceptions of the self and how it is particularly the individuated self typical of western cultures that leads to a preoccupation with diet and slimness.

Culture and Self

What exactly constitutes the self? According to the definition in the Webster dictionary, the self is "the complete and essential being of a person; personal interest, advantage and welfare" (220). However it still remains unclear what constitutes the "complete and essential being." In addition, how do factors such as culture affect the self? The following discussion will elaborate on the cultural construction of self and the notion that self varies according to culture.

The overall ideology of anthropologists and sociologists is that the self is a culturally constituted being. In America, society promotes the pursuit of individualistic success and happiness. Consequently, it is customary and even encouraged that people focus on the promotion of their own selves. However in other cultures such as in Fiji people are encouraged to always think of themselves as embedded in social groups. Thus the individual self is not so important as the group as the larger group of people. Whereas in the West society is comprised of many "selves" who occasionally express concern for the larger group, in Fiji, the "self" is a small component in the larger picture.

Edward Sampson (as discussed in Spiro 1993) elaborates on the cultural ideologies of self, stating,

[T]he contrast is between a Western self, characterized by "self-contained individualism," and a non-Western self, characterized by "ensembled individualism." Whereas the former exhibits a firm self-other boundary, "personal control," and an "excluding" conception of person and self, the latter exhibits a fluid self-other boundary, "field-control," and an "including," conception of person and self. In short, for the non-Western self the issue of "where the person ends and the world begins" is less clearly a central feature. (Sampson, cited in Spiro 1993: 116)

Sampson is suggesting that in non-Western societies there is less opportunity for the individual to control himself or herself because there is less of a differentiation between the person and the self. Thus the idea that each person has a self that is different from other selves is uncommon. Rather the self is embedded in a group of many people. In Western society, the individual makes a clear distinction between himself and the rest of society as a whole. There are distinct boundaries between the individual and the rest of society, whereas in more communal societies there is less of a clear boundary between the individual and the group.

For the people in Fiji, the individual is not considered separate from the social world. Rather, "bodily information transcends exclusively personal experience and awareness and infiltrates the collective by relocating in other bodies and in the cosmos" (Becker 1995: 85). There are no clear boundaries between self and other as Becker suggests. Hence the actions of the individual have an effect on the community as a whole as well as the individual. In addition the community experiences the pain of the individual in certain situations such as illness. Illness in Fiji is collective; the entire community of people can be affected by the sickness of one individual. For example, if a young man is sick and a doctor cannot determine the cause of his sickness, the assumption will be made that someone in the family has done something wrong which is causing the boy's illness. "The personal space of the body is exploited as a substrate within which to identify social disorder and as a forum to censure immoral behavior. The relocation of experience to social space also integrates the afflicted individual into the community by allowing articulation and sharing of personal suffering" (Becker 1995: 113). Thus, rather than secluding the individual, who is sick, the community is involved and even blamed for the sickness of the individual. When an individual becomes ill, the community is forced to consider the actions of the group as a whole rather than those of the individual to remedy the situation. According to Becker,

[W]hile the responsibility for misbehavior is distributed among the mataqwali (the collective group of relatives), its manifestation is concentrated within a particular body; yet the mataqwali retains its connection to the punishment by assuming the collective task of rectifying the wrong... [I]n turn, the personally experienced illness is reclaimed from the individual as a community forum for moral inquiry. What has originally been displaced from the social to the individual is ultimately relocated in social space. (1995:119)

The example of illness emphasizes the idea that there are no clear distinctions between the self and the community in Fiji. If one person gets sick, the community is considered to be morally at fault and therefore the group, not the individual, must come together to cure the illness. In essence the "illness" of the community is revealed through the sickness of one individual. Rather than secluding the individual because of the illness, the community accepts the illness as a reflection of the group and shares the illness with the individual.

In American culture, which is much more individuated, the illness of one individual is not attributed to the actions of the community. Instead, we usually think that the individual caused his or her own illnesses through careless behavior or that the illness is just bad luck. Becker states, "[I]llness more than alienates the self from the body, it alienates the self from its community by its capacity to stigmatize and isolate the self" (Becker 1995: 123). An individual who is struck with an illness in American culture is considered to be different from the group but in a way that is not accepted within the society. People are shunned for their illnesses, and rather than accept them and focus on the wellness of the individual within the community, the individual is often removed immediately from the community to be placed in a hospital for treatment. As a result, sickness becomes a personal tragedy that is feared by each individual.

The Ifaluk of Micronesia are another people who exhibit no clear boundaries between the self and the community. They think of emotion as a link to situations between people rather than with inner psychological processes. "It is considered natural that one person's thought should influence another's" (Lutz 1985: 42). The justification is that if emotions arise from inside an individual they should be followed by other people. "[W]hen we speak of 'emotion' in contrast to 'thought', [we speak of] a mental event that strongly motivates behavior as opposed to one that does not" (Lutz 1985: 50). Therefore the feelings of one individual arise from the interactions with other and finally the emotions of the individual affect the actions and feeling of others within the group. Here again, among the Ifaluk people, the boundaries between self and other are not as clearly defined as those of other more individualized cultures.

For Americans, the distinction is clear between the group and the individual. In general, the individual is most focused on the personal goals that he or she sets, and once set it is the pursuit for individual success in achieving these goals which becomes most important. In societies where individualism is the driving force behind actions, the general welfare of the society becomes secondary in importance. One example in the United States is driving. Millions of Americans get into their cars on a daily basis; a large number of them may justify their actions by saying they must drive long distances. However, many Americans will start their engines numerous times in one day to make a two to ten minute drive to a destination which they could have reached by foot. Yet our environment continues to be depleted by the rise of air pollution. These daily occurrences, where people can so easily disassociate themselves with the greater whole, are a reminder about the focus that the individual places on his or her own self. On the other hand, the non-Western self would most likely consider the consequences of his or her actions on the society as a whole before taking into account his or her own personal preferences. The ability to detach oneself from the society as a whole requires placing one's own interests above the rest of society. This is not to say that an individual has no duty to the society as a whole but more so that they place their individual concerns above those of the larger group.

[T]he moral duties of the person are greater than any of the duties that the individual possesses as a member of society. His moral responsibilities, both to himself and others, transcend the given social context, are conceived to be independent of the social ties which link him to his fellows. (Schweder and Bourne 1984: 168)

Again it is not that the individual does not recognize that he or she has duties to the society but rather that he or she places a larger importance on the duties to self than to the community.

In order to make the necessary separation between self and society a person has to clearly define the role which society plays in their life and then clearly define what role they would like it play in his or her life. The self can be cut off from every member of society if it so chooses. However as selves in an individualistic society, regardless of the role we play in the larger group of people, there must be a clearly defined role for the individual self. In turn, the role that men and women accept clearly separates them from society.

In cultures, like Fiji, where the individual is embedded into a community of individuals, the individual forms bonds with society which in turn tie one person so closely to the other that he or she cannot separate from the larger group. Among the Hawaiians, the separation between self and other is incomprehensible.

The most basic element in the image [of human beings] is the idea that they are inseparable units. [T]he inseparability of the individual and society is defined in terms of a mutually interdependent relationship, not a one-sided deterministic one. In the interactionist image human beings are defined as self-reflective beings. Human beings are organisms with selves, and behavior in society is often directed by the self. The behavior of men and women is "caused" not so much by forces within themselves (instincts, needs, etc.) or by external forces impinging upon them (social forces, etc.), but what lies in between, a reflective and socially derived interpretation of the internal and external stimuli that are present. (Ito 1985: 301)

The relationship between self and society is not forced by either the self or the society but rather the two mutually become dependent on one another for existence. The community depends on the individual as much as the individual depends on the community. As much as the self cannot survive without the community, likewise the community cannot sustain itself without the self.

It should be noted, however, that both Pacific and American ideas about the self are cultural constructions that divert people's attention away from some aspects of reality and towards others. In all cultures, "The individual possesses a self only in relation to the selves of the other members of his [or her] social group" (Spiro 1993: 138). The self could not exist without the whole because one can only come to a sense of self by comparing oneself to others. An individual reacts to others and in this way, he or she develops a self. Thus in American society even though the culture focuses on the cultivation of the individual, the self would not be alive without the reliance on others within the community. While individuals are concerned with promoting their individuality, they develop this individuality in relation to others. "Even within highly individualistic Western culture, most people are still less self-reliant, self-contained, or self-sufficient than the prevailing cultural ideology suggests that they should be" (Spiro 1993: 142). However our cultural ideology teaches us to think about our autonomy and to overlook the ways we depend on others. The ideology of the culture molds the self either to be preoccupied with the community or to express individuality.

The notions of individuated versus un-individuated selves which have been discusses above in the various cultural examples, affect the attitudes towards the body both in American and Fijian society. Americans turn to their bodies to express their autonomy and thus the cultivation of the body is encouraged within the culture. "[Americans] see the cultivation of self-presentation through manipulation and exploitation of bodily symbols, a concept in accord with capitalist-derived values encouraging competitive work on the self to promote it from other selves" (Becker 1995: 128). Americans therefore are preoccupied with the body as a representation of the autonomous self. The American conception of body as separate from self encourages the idea that the self should control the body just as the self should be on top of other forces. Emily Martin (as quoted in Becker 1995: 31) points out how the separation of self and body affect the views on the body saying, "'Your self is separate from your body,' 'Your body is something your self has to adjust to or cope with,' and 'Your body needs to be controlled by your self'" (Becker 1995: 31). The notion that the body and the self are separate promotes the idea that the self should control its environment, including the body. The body becomes a representation of the self and a measure for how well the self can control the forces that exist around it.

Fijians, on the other hand, see the body as an expression of their connection to the community. "The cultivation of the bodies represents the cumulative efforts of the collective. For this reason, there is a complacency with respect to the self-reflexive cultivation of the personal body, with a complementary motivated interest in nurturing and otherwise caring for others' bodies" (Becker 1995: 129). Hence the attitude towards the body is that the self does not cultivate the body but rather that the community should cultivate the body. Thus in cultures such as America where individualism is stressed, the effect is a more personal outlook on the body; the body is under the control of the individual. In cultures where individualism is not highly stressed, like that which exists in Fiji, the effect is a communal outlook on the body; the body is under the control of the community rather than the individual.

Becker found that in Fiji, the body is not used as a personal means of expression but rather as a connection to the community. She studied the attitude of Fijian women towards self and body shape and found that "...in contrast to the stronger Western drive to cultivate the body's shape to approximate a culturally constituted aesthetic ideal, Fijians display relative complacency to manipulate body shape" (Becker 1995: 45). Becker continued her research with interviews to determine why Fijian women, though interested in the weight gain and loss of others, were relatively complacent to do anything about changing their weight. She suggests that there exists in Fiji "...the emphasis on expressing community, but not personal, identity through the body" (Becker 1995: 52). The body in Fiji she argues does not reflect the individual self but rather the body is a reflection of the community. People look at a person's body to see how well the individual is being cared for by the community, not how well the individual is looking after himself or herself. The well being of the individual is the responsibility of the community and is reflected in the appearance of the individual's body.

The research I have carried out is centered on Becker's suggestion that in Fijian culture the younger generation of women has different views on the body stemming from the erosion of the sociocentric self. This paper will consider the influences that lead young women in Fiji to be more concerned with their weight and body image than older and married women.

On to Chapter 3...