Pedagogies of perfection in the postfeminist digital age

Young Women's Negotiations of Health and Fitness on Social Media

Datos Bibliográficos

ID3606899
AutoresM J Camacho-Miñano (0000-0001-6910-3006, Universidad Complutense de Madrid), María José Camacho Miñano (Universidad Complutense de Madrid, autor de correspondencia), Shirley Gray (0000-0002-7742-2629, Institute for Sport, Physical Education and Health Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK)
Año2021
Volumen30
Número6
Páginas725-736
Fecha de publicación2021-08-18
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of Gender Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0958-9236 • E-ISSN: 1465-3869
EditorialInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/09589236.2021.1937083
OpenAlexW3173172450
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas10
Referencias citadas34

In this paper, we explore how pedagogies of perfection in fitness content on social media work as a postfeminist technology of the self, exhorting young women to act upon themselves to become ‘perfect’ but hiding the extent to which exercise as aesthetic labour is normatively demanded. We draw on focus group and individual interviews with 37 young women who follow fitness content on Instagram and a discourse analysis of the social media presence of Patry Jordán, a famous Spanish fitness influencer. Through the concept of pedagogies of perfection, we explain how fitspiration is a gendered public pedagogy of digital health through which neoliberalism and postfeminism are disseminated, providing techniques to develop individualized projects of the self. The perfect is the horizon of expectation for continued self-optimization, where young women engage in a never-ending project of the body that also demands the improvement of psychological attitudes. Through the careful articulation of 'positive' pedagogies, the idea of imperfection or failure becomes embedded within the perfect. This production of the self both as a problem and with possibilities represents the horizon of expectation, a powerful force that leads to the belief that all women can achieve ‘successful’ feminine subjectivities while reproducing gender inequality

Aesthetics · Art · Epistemology · Negotiation · Perfection · Political science · Politics · Social media · Social science · Sociology · Gender Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Impact of Technology on Adolescents · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · Sexuality, Behavior, and Technology · Social Psychology