Workshop_dated 12 March 2016_blooging _case Study 1

8/16/2019 Workshop_dated 12 March 2016_blooging _case Study 1

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Learn to survive in ever changing & turbulent digital marketing -BLOGGING

TECHNI!E"

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© 2016. Workshop Designed & Conducted by: Gobburu Venkata (


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TECHNI!E"

What Can a Discussion About Fashion Tell Us About

America’s Culture of Violence? A Lot.

Like so many others, I’ve been thinking a lot about gun control in the wake of the mass shootingin Newtown, Connecticut. Although the discourse around gun control can be sometimes

mystifying, if not downright mind-numbing teach kids to rush at shooters rather than hide! enlist

a male "anitor to heave a bucket at the shooter’s knees##$, I’ve a%%reciated the many thoughtful

discussions that link unthinkable violence such as that which took %lace at &andy 'ook

(lementary &chool to the many acts of violence that many Americans "ust don’t think about, like

the ).&. drone strikes in *akistan and +emen that have killed scores of civilians including

children$ and the street shooting deaths and in"uries of %redominantly black and brown young

%eo%le in cities like Chicago, akland, and acksonville, lorida. /ut what does fashion and style

have to do with America’s culture of violence# A better 0uestion might be, what can a discussion

about fashion and style illuminate for us about this culture of violence# A lot, it seems.

1ecent re%orts tell us there are clear links between the 2aggrieved entitlement3 of white, middle-

class men and mass shootings of the 45 mass shootings in the %ast 67 years, 87 %ercent were

carried out by white men$. /ut America’s culture of violence is not limited to masculinity and as

9i"ay *rashad reminds, it doesn’t always take s%ectacular form. :hough fashion media is re%lete

with s%ectacles of violence. &ee ; trigger warning< ; here and here, for a start.$

:here’s another, also gendered, dimension of America’s culture of violence in which women and

girls are %redominantly the %er%etrators and victims. :he 2slow violence3 of body dysmor%hia and

eating disorders are a significant, if often invisible, %art of America’s culture of violence that

im%licates women across generational, racial, class, and se=uality differences in uneven ways.

1ob Ni=on defines 2slow violence3 as

violence that occurs gradually and out of sight, a violence of delayed destruction that is dis%ersed

across time and s%ace, an attritional violence that is ty%ically not viewed as violence at all.

Although Ni=on’s discussion of slow violence focuses on environmental catastro%hes like

industrial %ollution and the aftermath of chemical warfare, his conce%t can be e=tended to the

%articular relation of gender and violence that women and girls e=%erience every day. /ecause

girls from a very young age are conditioned to believe their identity and self-worth is tied to their

a%%earance, to %lease others, and to seek out the a%%roval of others, they are es%ecially vulnerable

to the countless verbal and nonverbal messages they receive about their never %erfect bodies from

family, friends, co-workers, and a wide array of media including women’s maga>ines, men’s

maga>ines, fashion blogs, %ro-ana websites, diet and e=ercise books, :9 shows, and websites. :he

failure to fulfill all the re0uisites of ideal femininity triggers for many women and girls the slow

violence of low self-esteem, an=iety, and de%ression and for some others, drug and alcohol abuse,

cutting, and disordered eating behavior.

© 2016. Workshop Designed & Conducted by: Gobburu Venkata )

https://iheartthreadbared.wordpress.com/2013/01/07/ashion-and-americas-culture-of-violence/https://iheartthreadbared.wordpress.com/2013/01/07/ashion-and-americas-culture-of-violence/http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/12/17/there-s-little-we-can-do-to-prevent-another-massacre.htmlhttp://www.nationalreview.com/articles/335996/newtown-answers-nro-symposiumhttp://www.nationalreview.com/articles/335996/newtown-answers-nro-symposiumhttp://www.policymic.com/articles/20884/is-america-like-adam-lanza-u-s-drone-strikes-have-killed-176-children-in-pakistan-alonehttp://www.gazettenet.com/home/3407669-95/killed-deaths-beings-chicagohttp://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/29/us/florida-shooting-stirs-echoes-of-trayvon-martin-case.html?_r=0http://wearerespectablenegroes.blogspot.com/2012/12/white-men-and-mass-murder-did-sense-of.htmlhttp://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/mass-shootings-map?page=2http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/mass-shootings-map?page=2http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/mass-shootings-map?page=2http://www.gazettenet.com/home/3407669-95/killed-deaths-beings-chicagohttp://12mag.net/en/beauty-en/victim-beauty/http://ecosalon.com/youll-want-to-read-this-an-excerpt-from-the-diary-of-glees-heather-morris-191/http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674049307http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674049307http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro-anahttps://iheartthreadbared.wordpress.com/2013/01/07/ashion-and-americas-culture-of-violence/https://iheartthreadbared.wordpress.com/2013/01/07/ashion-and-americas-culture-of-violence/http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/12/17/there-s-little-we-can-do-to-prevent-another-massacre.htmlhttp://www.nationalreview.com/articles/335996/newtown-answers-nro-symposiumhttp://www.nationalreview.com/articles/335996/newtown-answers-nro-symposiumhttp://www.policymic.com/articles/20884/is-america-like-adam-lanza-u-s-drone-strikes-have-killed-176-children-in-pakistan-alonehttp://www.gazettenet.com/home/3407669-95/killed-deaths-beings-chicagohttp://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/29/us/florida-shooting-stirs-echoes-of-trayvon-martin-case.html?_r=0http://wearerespectablenegroes.blogspot.com/2012/12/white-men-and-mass-murder-did-sense-of.htmlhttp://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/mass-shootings-map?page=2http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/mass-shootings-map?page=2http://www.gazettenet.com/home/3407669-95/killed-deaths-beings-chicagohttp://12mag.net/en/beauty-en/victim-beauty/http://ecosalon.com/youll-want-to-read-this-an-excerpt-from-the-diary-of-glees-heather-morris-191/http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674049307http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro-ana


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A 577? study conducted by &(L maga>ine and the )niversity of North Carolina at Cha%el 'ill

found that 65 percent of American women between the ages of 25 and 45 have disordered

eating behaviors which includes ski%%ing meals, %er%etual dieting, incessant self-weighing,

smoking to lose weight, and maintaining a diet of @777 calories %er day or less. An estimated eight

million Americans have been diagnosed with an eating disorder such as anore=ia and bulimia.

Among them, 8 million are women and girls. :he slow violence of body shame begins at analarmingly early age. Consider these statistics from the National Association of Anore=ia Nervosa

and Associated isorders ANA$B

• ;) 9ercent o1 girls bet/een (st and 7rd grade have e39ressed the desire to bethinner

• ;< 9ercent o1 girls bet/een 6th and ()th grade re9orted /anting to lose /eightbecause o1 maga=ine 9ictures

• ,4 9ercent o1 girls in the same age bracket re9orted that maga=ine 9icturesin>uenced their idea o1 a 9er1ect bod? sha9e

• 5( 9ercent o1 (+ ?ear-olds are a1raid o1 being 1at

ormal studies like these don’t take into account the slow violence of 2body-checking3the

everyday %inching, tugging, and monitoring of body fatthat so many women and girls casually

%erform on themselves and others everyday. or nonwhite women and girls, gender violence is

often bound u% with racial violence. *recious few studies include the im%act of racial hierarchies

and norms of beauty on women of color’s everyday body-checking. :he whitewashing of eating

disorders anore=ia as a white girl’s %roblem$ also conceals the role race %lays in the diffusion and

develo%ment of negative body %erce%tions. Additionally, the slow violence of %ro-ana ideologies

that view rigorous dieting, e=ercising, and starvation not as %roblems but %ositive lifestyle choices

are too infre0uently discussed.

© 2016. Workshop Designed & Conducted by: Gobburu Venkata 7

http://www.med.unc.edu/www/newsarchive/2008/april/survey-finds-disordered-eating-behaviors-among-three-out-of-four-american-womenhttp://www.med.unc.edu/www/newsarchive/2008/april/survey-finds-disordered-eating-behaviors-among-three-out-of-four-american-womenhttp://www.med.unc.edu/www/newsarchive/2008/april/survey-finds-disordered-eating-behaviors-among-three-out-of-four-american-womenhttp://www.anad.org/get-information/about-eating-disorders/eating-disorders-statistics/http://www.anad.org/get-information/about-eating-disorders/eating-disorders-statistics/https://iheartthreadbared.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/eating-disorder.jpghttp://www.med.unc.edu/www/newsarchive/2008/april/survey-finds-disordered-eating-behaviors-among-three-out-of-four-american-womenhttp://www.med.unc.edu/www/newsarchive/2008/april/survey-finds-disordered-eating-behaviors-among-three-out-of-four-american-womenhttp://www.anad.org/get-information/about-eating-disorders/eating-disorders-statistics/http://www.anad.org/get-information/about-eating-disorders/eating-disorders-statistics/


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:he sco%e and scale of body shaming clearly indicate that the fashion industry is not solely to

blame for this gendered s%here of America’s culture of violence. /ut the fashion industry isn’t

entirely off the hook either. As a %urveyor of millions of globally-circulating images and words

that reinforce and celebrate a body ideal that DE %ercent of ).&. women cannot attain naturally, it

has enormous %ower to im%act the culture of slow violence that leads to the %hysical,

%sychological, and s%iritual deaths of so many women and girls. Fore often, though, it normali>esim%ossible thinness underweight models like Coco 1ochaa E’@73 model weighing @7? %ounds

are told to lose weight and already-thin models are regularly *hotosho%%ed to a%%ear even more

slender. Although the Council of ashion esigners of America has come out against unhealthy

modeling %ractices and the culture of fat shame, its %olicies have been weak and unenforced. :he

CA 'ealth Initiative is a set of guidelines rather than mandates. /ans against using models

under the age of si=teen have been re%eatedly broken without any real conse0uences. As a result,

adult women are tacitly told to strive for a %re-%uberty body, a goal that engenders a myriad of

interlinked slow violences. :he fashion industry’s normali>ation of com%ulsory thinness is a huge

reason why we only have estimates of eating disorders and disordered eating behavior. &hame and

guilt about not meeting the standards of beauty and thinness as well as the shame from trying to

attain these standards when we 2should know better3 has made invisible this culture of femininityand violence.

It’s not my intention to detract from the national conversation about the e%idemic of school and

street shootings. Instead, my ho%e is to e=%and these discussions to include other relations of

gender and violence that are no less a %art of America’s culture of violence.

© 2016. Workshop Designed & Conducted by: Gobburu Venkata ;
http://www.anad.org/get-information/about-eating-disorders/eating-disorders-statistics/http://www.anad.org/get-information/about-eating-disorders/eating-disorders-statistics/http://nymag.com/thecut/2010/02/gemma_ward.htmlhttp://nymag.com/thecut/2010/02/gemma_ward.htmlhttp://cfda.com/the-latest/cfda-health-initiativehttp://www.anad.org/get-information/about-eating-disorders/eating-disorders-statistics/http://nymag.com/thecut/2010/02/gemma_ward.htmlhttp://nymag.com/thecut/2010/02/gemma_ward.htmlhttp://cfda.com/the-latest/cfda-health-initiative

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Workshop_dated 12 March 2016_blooging _case Study 1