Shameful bodies : religion and the culture of physical improvement

What happens when your body doesn’t look how it’s supposed to look, or feel how it’s supposed to feel, or do what it’s supposed to do? Who or what defines the ideals behind these expectations? How can we challenge them and live more peacefully in our bodies? Shameful Bodies: Religion and the Culture of Physical Improvement explores these questions by examining how traditional religious narratives and modern philosophical assumptions come together in the construction and pursuit of a better body in contemporary western societies. Drawing on examples from popular culture such as self-help books, magazines, and advertisements, Michelle Mary Lelwica shows how these narratives and assumptions encourage us to go to war against our bodies—to fight fat, triumph over disability, conquer chronic pain and illness, and defy aging. Through an ethic of conquest and conformity, the culture of physical improvement trains us not only to believe that all bodily processes are under our control, but to feel ashamed about those parts of our flesh that refuse to comply with the cultural ideal. Lelwica argues that such shame is not a natural response to being fat, physically impaired, chronically sick, or old. Rather, body shame is a religiously and culturally conditioned reaction to a commercially-fabricated fantasy of physical perfection. While Shameful Bodies critiques the religious and cultural norms and narratives that perpetuate external and internalized judgment and aggression toward “shameful” bodies, it also engages the resources of religions, especially feminist theologies and Buddhist thought/practice, to construct a more affirming approach to health and healing—an approach that affirms the diversity, fragility, interdependence, and impermanence of embodied life. Cover Half Title Series Title Copyright Contents Figures Preface Acknowledgments Introduction Intersecting fields of study Nuancing criticism of the culture of physical improvement 1 Deconstructing the “better body” story The story of a “better body” Commercial fantasies of physical perfection The symbolic hierarchy of bodies and the “normalizing gaze” Shameful bodies and body shame 2 Christianity’s hidden contributions to the culture of physical improvement What is “religion?” A fluid, functional definition A changing religious landscape Commercial underpinnings of our devotion to physical improvement Classic Christian narratives and the salvation myth of physical improvement The body as the “pivot of salvation” Women and the body: The patriarchal legacy Heavenly (eschatological) perfection 3 Religious-like features: of the culture of physical improvement Religious-like features of the culture of physical improvement Beliefs The iconography of the culture of physical improvement Better body rituals Moral codes 4 An alternative approach to embodied life Beneath the quest for physical improvement An alternative approach to health and healing Why Buddhism? Insights from the field of feminist studies in religion Imago Dei and (re)imagining the divine The story of the incarnation Prophetic critique and critical thinking “What is a body?” 5 Disability shame Discovering disability studies Becoming disabled in an able-bodied society The relevance of disability for every body Connected by the better body story A continuum model A legacy of shame: Some biblical views on physical impairment The shaming narrative: Disability as a sign of sin The eschatological narrative: Healing/overcoming disability Spiritualizing narratives: Disability as an opportunity for virtue (De)constructing normalcy and disability The spectacle of “otherness” and the production of the ideal “self” Refusing to be an object of pity or fascinating spectacle Medicalization, normalization, and invisiblization The dream of normalcy and the myth of overcoming Negotiating normalizing gender narratives Embracing/.reforming normalizing visions of femininity Unresolved dilemmas in an ableist culture What are we avoiding? What the world needs: An atypical vantage point Deconstructing idealized views of “body” and “self” Refusing to be conformed/converted Resisting eschatological perfection Embracing the “corruption” of interconnection 6 Fat shame Disdain for fat bodies Introducing fat studies The power of words and numbers The burden of weight discrimination The relevance of fat studies for every body Meanings assigned to fat and thin bodies Historical perspectives on eating and fat shame Food, appetite, and divine abundance The moral dangers of idolatrous eating Taming the flesh and exalting the spirit in historical Christianity A turning point: The modern emergence of fat shame Contemporary devotion to thinness Religious dimensions of the pursuit of slenderness Repurposing patriarchal religion Neocolonial aspects of compulsory thinness Losing your way to salvation The war on obesity In the name of health Unintended consequences Hidden and not-so-hidden supports The war’s faulty premise and financial interests More harmful than healthful Introducing HAES (Health at Every Size) The practical wisdom of a nonviolent approach to health Feminist theology and the fat Jesus “Revolting bodies” The saving path of self-love Communal/revolutionary dimensions of self-love 7 The shame of chronic pain and illness What choice do we have? Chronic illness and pain: Diagnoses and distinctions Chronic disease/discomfort and disability Associations between sickness/sin, pain/punishment Physical affliction as spiritual opportunity Echoes and assumptions of a theology of curing Going to war with chronic pain and illness The problem with a fight-or-flight approach Pain-free/disease-free visions of the “healthy” body Scientific approaches to health and disease Disease-proofing your body: Health as personal duty and achievement When the “plane” colludes and collides with gender norms Moralizing assumptions about chronic pain and illness Psychologizing theories of illness and complicating blame Rethinking salvation, health, redemption, and healing Embracing chronic pain and disease The fragility of salvation, health, redemption, and healing Refusing shame Trading the fight for the struggle Challenging our culturally induced illusions The illusion of perfection and the “grace that Is” The illusion of “individual omnipotence” Deciding/discovering what really matters 8 The shame of getting old Getting old can be hard and scary Ambiguities of aging bodies Stereotypical meanings assigned to old and young flesh Cross-cultural, historical, and biblical perspectives on old age Defining “old” and “aging” Biological and chronological aging Losing independence Demographic changes and challenges Biomedical approaches to aging The quest for medical immortality Problems with prolonging life indefinitely The Tithonus dilemma Manifestations and roots of denial Christian narratives on immortality and aging Mortality as the “enemy” and salvation as “victory” over death “Imperishable bodies”: Excluding old flesh from heaven Echoes of immortality and everlasting youth Commercial culture’s veneration of youthful bodies Insufficient femininity The cost of radiance: Class dimensions of (anti)aging “Why is Hillary using a walker?” Gender, aging, and (in)visibility Deliberations and complicity questions Self-help strategies for denying aging When body/mind disintegrates Reimagining aging The diversity and complexity of aging Redemptive laughter The social justice dimensions of aging Aging and the truth of interdependence Intergenerational and ancestral connections Creating/discovering a sense of purpose in old age Redefining “productive members of society” “Remember that you are going to die” The paradox of aging Rethinking the resurrection A theology of transience A wabi-sabi perspective Practicing peace with aging Epilogue Notes Introduction 1 D econstructing the “better body” story 2 Christianity’s hidden contributions to theculture of physical improvement 3 Religious-like features of the culture ofphysical improvement 4 An alternative approach to embodied life 5 D isability shame 6 Fat shame 8 T he shame of getting old Epilogue Selected bibliography Index Subject: What happens when your body doesn't look how it's supposed to look, or feel how it's supposed to feel, or do what it's supposed to do? Who or what defines the ideals behind these expectations? How can we challenge them and live more peacefully in our bodies? Shameful Bodies: Religion and the Culture of Physical Improvement Eexplores these questions by examining how traditional religious norms and narratives are tacitly embedded in the construction and pursuit of physical improvement in contemporary western societies. Examples include self-help books, magazines, and advertising. Such norms and narratives support commercial and self-help discourses that promote a pain-free, flab-free, wrinkle-free, socially privileged, unencumbered body as normative for every body. Religious and commercial ideologies that incite conformity and control call us to go to war against those parts of our flesh that refuse to comply with the cultural ideal and encourage us to feel ashamed of our physical particularities. This shame is not a natural response to bodily girth, illness, chronic pain, physical impairment, and/or signs of aging. Rather, Michelle Lelwica shows it is a religiously and culturally conditioned reaction to the commercially-fabricated fantasy of physical perfection. The painful prevalence of body shame indicates the need for new ways of thinking about embodiment - ways that affirm the unique beauty, goodness, dignity, and wholeness of every body, without exceptions