La magia de lo efímero: Representaciones de la mujer en el arte y literatura actuales

Literary approaches to the theory of thinness aesthetics

“…15 In addition to all this, this author also understands that the exaltation of a young look and the imperative of youth that is currently imposed "contributes in its own way to the granting of equal conditions between the sexes" (my translation). 25 Thus, in contrast to the authors we referred to in the previous section, such as Vidal, 10 Ventura, 14 Wolf, 16 Valcárcel, 17 etc., Lipovetsky 15 considers the contemporary aesthetics of thinness a symbol of selfcontrol, success and self-management. Apparently, this statement is due to the fact that women now use contraceptives and are involved in working life, which has led to a change in attitude towards physical appearance: in other words, they deny that their bodies are identified solely and exclusively with fecundity and motherhood and therefore with voluptuousness, their most obvious physical characteristic, as it used to be: "In the societies that preceded us, female corpulence was valued because it was associated with fecundity, the supreme destiny of the traditional female condition.…”

“…For this reason, for the purpose of this research we consider "the body as a place of social pressures, of wills to power, of docility, of transformations" (my translation). 10 However, the different visions, images and interpretations are nothing more than particular and fictitious representations, 11 despite the fact that representation is indispensable for reality to exist: 6 "the importance given to body image nowadays and to fashion as a consequence makes us think that they are symptoms of causes external to them (sexism, patriarchy, racism, imperialism) and that they are loaded with significance. And it is that [...] without representations there is no reality" (my translation).…”

“…And it is that [...] without representations there is no reality" (my translation). 10 As we said, writing about the (female) body is an exercise of power and representation that has been analyzed by a large number of philosophers-Luce Irigaray, Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, Maurice Merleu-Ponty, Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari , Roland Barthes, Umberto Eco, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Gillo Dorfles, Pierre Bourdieu, Yuri Lotman and Jean Baudrillard-although taking as a starting point no longer the female body, but a neutral body. For this reason, feminism took on the task of adapting some of their theories to the question of gender.…”

“…In any case, far from being neutral, it is a semiotic system where economic, political, intellectual and sexual tensions occur. 10 The female body, homogeneous and determined, can be considered a matter of power exercised through the media and advertising, 9 among other ways. In addition, it can be considered a true semiotic system that serves to disseminate the canons of beauty to which women must submit in order to achieve success: "Ironically, we are aware that the beauties who are proposed to us as a paradigm of beauty are the result of multiple cosmetic-surgical manipulations; but, even so, the appearance market sensitizes women so that they feel guilty and humiliated for not reaching the proposed models" (my translation).…”

“…By virtue of all this, and despite the fact that women have evolved more in half a century than in all previous millennia, 15 Western society seems contradictory: on the one hand, women have the feeling that they have achieved legal and reproductive rights, and that they own their bodies; on the other hand, unreal beauty is shown as the only way to achieve love, happiness and social success. 10,14,16 In fact, " [d] uring the last decades, parallel to the normalization of the presence of women in the workplace and in power structures, the costs of cosmetic consumption in the female environment have multiplied, plastic surgery is advancing by leaps and bounds and the widespread obsession for weight control in the West is manifested in a multitude of offers related to gyms, diets and slimming pharmacopoeias. We are, therefore, facing a phenomenon that has a direct relationship with industrial and commercial policies (my translation).…”