Gender and Family Studies

Gender and Family Studies

Concreteness of Womanly Status and the Management of Body (Case of Study: the Women Referring to the Beauty Centers in Bandar Abbas City)

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
Yaser Rastegar 1
Ebrahim Ekhlasi 2
Leila Golshani Khojasteh 3
1 Faculty Member of Hormozgan University
2 Faculty Member of Allameh Tabataba’i University
3 M. A Student of Sociology, Islamic Azad University, Hormozgan Branch
Abstract
The body beyond its biologic dimension is considered as a cultural element with various meanings in view of social agents who manage the body based on the kind of interpretation out of it. The present article is to identify the reasons of the importance of managing the body in women relying on a qualitative approach based on an interpretive paradigm. The data has been collected via interviewing with 22 women referring to the beauty centers in Bandar Abbas city. The analysis of the data reveals that the reasons of the importance of managing the women’s body as contributors in the study can be illustrated based on the final theme of ‘concreteness of status’. The last theme is the result of the abstractness of general themes such as delaying of aging, achieving gaiety and peace, priority of appearance, discrimination seeking, social acceptance, and aestheticism of woman. It seems that managing the body for being viewed in public is the most accessible way of achieving status for the participant women. In this regard, following the concreteness of the signs of developing status, the change in the appearance gets along with the change in the status of women.
Keywords
Body
management of the body
sociology of body
concreteness of status
Women
consumption culture
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Gender and Family Studies
Volume 4, Issue 1
September 2016
Pages 93-116