диссертация (1169135), страница 27
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Preserving her traditional gender domestic gender roles, Iranian womanimproved their social presence. Confronting the globalization, female body soughtto emancipate herself from regulatory forces of traditional Islamic discourse togive new meanings to her body. These new performances are directed to identifythe Iranian woman with Iranian version of modernization.355Kandiyoti D. Women, Islam, and the State.
Temple University Press, 1991. pp 54-57.115Current Iranian Women's Cultural Identity Represented in their BodiesThe following section discusses construction of current Iranian women'scultural identity in relation to their body. It reflects on the ways that currentwomen through different performances define and redefine their cultural identity.Underlining the discursive nature of body construction, here it is sought toilluminate the discourses that have influenced the materialization of Iranianwomen's bodies and qualified the viable identities. Iranian woman's body isregarded as a site where globalized western culture and traditional Islamic Iranianculture are challenging to regulate and form women's identity. This section aims tomanifest the transformation of their identities and the new meanings that theseperformances give to female body.Traditionally female body in Iranian culture signified maternity anddevotion to family. The country's Islamic structure has celebrated purity and pietyas female beauty norms, and devotion and scarification of her body and desires tothe service of family are regarded as features of a normal female cultural identity.The female body that performs these norms is materialized by the traditionaldiscourse.
Those who fail to be identified as normal female subjects are excludedfrom traditional structure as abjects356. For instance, infertile women were calledby scornful nicknames and were rejected by family.In fact, women's recitation of the artificial performance of limiting theirbodies inside the houses, were not natural results of their female sex. Rather, theirvery performances had produced the meaning of female and sustained theregulative discourse of traditional Iran.
As it is clarified by Judith Butler, "genderis a kind of imitation for which there is no original […] sex and gender achievetheir supposed naturalness through social performance"357.356Butler, J. Bodies that matter: On the discursive limits of "sex". New York: Routledge, 1993. pp. 2-3.Abelove H., Barale M.A., Halperin D.M. The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader. New York, London: Routledge,1993. p.307.357116Women seeking to be identified with globalized modernity are in attempt todefy the conventional norms.
They change their traditional genderedperformances. The stability of the traditional discourse that depended to theseperformances is traumatized.With entrance of women to society, their bodies are shaped as a femalegender not only by the discourse of family, but also by regulative forces of society.Although the society is controlled by traditional Islamic culture, it is inevitablyexposed to global ideals. Today, the country's traditional Islamic culture is not theonly determinative factor in the ways women manage their bodies. There areboundless available resources that one can invoke to define or redefine heridentity, among which there are resources that are unaccepted by domineeringauthoritative Islamic discourse of the country.
Globalization, which is "integrationof the political, economic, and cultural activities of geographically and/ornationally separated peoples"358, has transcended any boundaries to permeate theremotest points of the world. Obviously, Iran has not been an exception 359.Globalization in Iran is usually associated with western culture, that "despite beingofficially banned, is gradually seeping into bones of Iranian society"360.Globalization has influenced any sociocultural realms including beautystandards and practices, which are no longer bounded to historical andgeographicalborders.Indeed,thehomogenizationofcultureinvolveshomogenization of beauty standards.The concept of beauty has undergone various implications throughout thehistory.
For Plato physical beauty is a ladder that leads up the individual tospiritual beauty. Aristotle ignoring metaphysical beauty admired the beauty inproportionality in mathematics and science. For Aquinas beauty was God's358Wells G.J., Shuey R., Kiely R.
Globalization. New York: Novo Publishers, 2001. p.38.Gulieva N. Social Implications of Globalization in Iran. [Electronic resource]. — Mode of access:http://www.academia.edu/11104050/Social_Implications_of_Globalization_in_Iran360Sabet F., Safshekan R. Soft War: A new episode in the old conflict between Iran and the United States. Researchsupported by the Center for Global Communication Studies’ Iran Media Program. Philadelphia: University ofPennsylvania, 2013. pp. 4-26359117attribution. Secularization of beauty began in Renassance and enhanced inindustrial revolution, when beauty was no more transcendental, but physical.The traditional objective and absolute perception toward beauty turned to bea subjective and relative approach. Beauty, that once reflected the absolute beautyof God, now is "in the eyes of culture and beholder"361. David Hume proposedthat beauty "is no quality in things themselves; it exists merely in the mind thatcontemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty"362.The phenomenon of media industry's concentration on women's beauty andbody shape is not limited to western countries; rather it is global in nature 363."Globalization of beauty and appearance ideals is becoming more prevalent acrossAsian cultures as American media content permeates societies and cultures on aworldwide basis"364.
The standards of beauty are infused through globalizedmedia. The globally mediatized ideal appearance defines the norms and idealizeswhat it means as beauty.Against the Iranian Islamic culture's emphasis on cleanness and healthprotection, bodywork has not been a matter of beauty or a demonstrating factor ofone's identity. Following body standards to gain the desired body image is a recentissue in Iran and one of the certain consequences of globalization.
Islamicteachings strongly recommend body care. Nevertheless, from a religiousperspective the two-dimensional human being embodies body and soul. Thehuman soul as entity that sustains personal identity is eternal and entails more care.According to holy Quran, the Satan was rejected by God because he perceivedhuman being in a material sense as created from soil. It implies that regardinghuman beings only in their material body is a satanic deed. Exaggerated bodywork361Brown R.B., Brown P. Digging into Popular Culture: Theories and Methodologies in Archeology, Anthropologyand other Fields.
OhioBowling Green State University Popular Press, 1991. pp. 155-157362Hume D. Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects. Thoemmes Continuum, 2002. p. 245.363Yan Y., Bissell K. The Globalization of Beauty: How is Ideal Beauty Influenced by Globally Published Fashionand Beauty Magazines? Journal of Intercultural Communication Research, Vol. 43(3), 2014. pp.
194-214.364Bissell K.L., YoungChung J. Americanized beauty? Predictors of perceived attractiveness from US and SouthKorean participants based on media exposure, ethnicity, and socio-cultural attitudes toward ideal beauty. AsianJournal of Communication, Vol. 19(2), 2009. pp. 227-247.118that neglects promotion of soul to achieve spiritual goals is not valued in Islam.Iranian tradition culture has deemed spiritual considerations more than bodycares365. Body as a mortal entity enjoys less importance in defining the individual'sidentity.
However, giving meaning to material body, through spirituality andreligious beliefs, or social roles such as motherhood, diverts the centrality of bodyas the main force in determining our identification. It is demonstrated that peoplewith more religious commitment have less body managements.
Certainly, thepossibility of healthy lifestyle or bodywork in this group is not denied. ManyIranian researches have shown the relationship between watching satellite TVs,religious commitment, and body management. It is manifested that religiouspeople have less body management and are less exposed to Satellite channels.
Themore people watch these TVs, the more they care body management, while theirreligious ideas fade away366.Globalized culture values women's beauty and attractiveness. "Fashionmagazines hint that women everywhere in the world share a single commonconcern and are united by an inescapable bond of beauty" 367.
In a culturewhere physical appearance are valued, the individuals seek to meet the culturaldemands to be valued. In America, the growing number of cosmetic surgery showspeople's "rational response to prevailing cultural values that reward thoseconsidered more attractive"368. Therefore, Iranian women to be identified asmodernized invest on their bodyworks.Globalized media as one of dominant discourses defines the norm ofphysical appearance. Media communicates appearance norms throughout theworld, in western or Islamic culture. The reality constructed by media is (مطالعۀ کیفی دالیل و پیامدهای جراحی های زیبایی زنان ساکن شهر: مطالعۀ جامعه شناختی صنعت بدن،محمودی یسری؛ محدثی گیلوایی حسن365.527-519 صص.2933 ،2 شمااره، زن در توسعه و سیاست،)2935 تهرانMahmudi Y., Mohadethi H.
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