Body Image Workshop

For my final project, I started compiling interviews, to eventually develop a curriculum for intermediate, middle, and high school aged students about body image. Additionally, I investigated the effects of body image on women from varying classes, races, cultures and socioeconomic backgrounds to discover universal truths, as well as differences, about the female body in American Culture. I used a group of women from my theater company and asked them to put them selves on tape with the following questions as guild line. I created questions based on reads to provoke answers based in experience:

1. At what age did you realize that, culturally, you are viewed as a "women"?
2. What does it mean to be a women?
3. What does it mean to be a women in American Culture?
4. What is your definition of body image?
5. At what age did you come to understand body image and what did that mean for you?
6. How does your race play into your understanding of your body?
7. How does your sexual orientation play into your understanding your body?
8. How does your socioeconomic class play into your understanding your body?
9. How does your education play into understanding you body?
10. Do you see body image as an issue? If so, do you see body image as a universal issue or one bound to an environment?
11. What is your definition of an eating disorder?
12. Who do you think is affected by eating disorders? Why?
13. Do you feel physically represented in the media? If so, where in the media (TV, Film, Advertising, music videos, etc.) do you see your self most represented?
14. Do you think the media plays a part in how we define our bodies?
15. How has your relationship with your body changed over time?
16. If you could tell your younger self one thing about everything you just discussed, what would it be?

I then began to compile the responses in a video. Additionally, I created a video about this project beyond these immediate videos and reflected on it all through creative writing. As I continue to explore these truths, I plan to develop a curriculum for younger girls. 

For materials and more information check out my website.

Bell Hooks, Understanding Patriarchy 2004
Bell Hooks, The Oppositional Gaze 1992
Laura Mulvey, Visual Pleasure 1975
Jean Killbourne, The More You Subtract
Laurie Penny, Unspeakable Things 2014