In her article “Whose Body is This?”, author Katherine Haines argues against portrayals of the idealized body, and, in particular, the female body, within American society. For Haines, this trend presents a dangerous message to women, in so far as it teaches them, in the author’s words, to “continually hearing from other people that their bodies are not acceptable” (189). In other words, this is a type of demeaning discourse which can either cause women physical and psychological harm through disorders such as anorexia, as it strips women of their self-esteem. Haines accordingly argues for an opposition to this type of discourse. Nevertheless, what is arguably missing in Haines’ article is an account of why such particular idealized forms of the female body exist. Without properly diagnosing the reasons for this phenomenon, it becomes impossible to properly oppose it.
Certainly, when from the perspective of rhetorical analysis we look at Haines’ article, it could be said that the focus on reasons for idealized representations in the media is outside of the essay’s immediate scope. Namely, Haines wrote the piece for her first year students, and therefore, the text does not have an emphasis on scholarly erudition, but instead on communicating her dissatisfaction to a particular audience. In other words, Haines wants to establish a relationship with her particular audience. She does this by relating her own personal feelings of not living up to this idealized body image. This is an effective rhetorical technique in her analysis, since it establishes a common concern with her audience, since some readers may have experienced the same anxieties Haines herself experiences. By arguing that these anxieties are completely unfounded, Haines therefore performs an almost therapeutic role in this article, helping others overcome their potential problems with body image. Her text thus takes on a critical form of such representations largely through the technique of personal anecdote.
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"Rhetorical Analysis of Katherine Haines’ “Whose Body is this?”".
However, Haines’s text is not just about recounting on an individual level the problems that some may have with idealized body images. She also provides a broader systematic view of the problem, with a focus on the lack of organized opposition to such images in the media. In this regard, Haines writes that “it is strange that women do not come out and object to society’s pressure to become thin.” (191) In this phrase, Haines isolates the cause for such body images: it is a common ideology of contemporary Western society to glorify the thin body image for women. Hence, Haines posits that a lack of a resistance to this phenomenon is essentially that women themselves, to paraphrase Haines, eventually believe that this is not society’s demand on them, but rather their innermost desire. (191) Accordingly, when society tells women that they should be, for example, thin, this message is not interpreted as society forcing a particular message upon the individual, but rather expressing how individuals interpret greater social messages as their own desires. In this passage, therefore, Haines provides the reader with an effective example of how society produces these messages and why they are so effective: we are told to believe something, but in the process, we believe that what we are being told to believe is really our own belief.
While this is a truly compelling diagnosis of how media messages and social ideologies are spread, it does not inform the reader a key point, which seems to be crucial to the argument. Why does the society value promote this particular idealized vision of the female body, or, from a greater perspective, why does society promote any type of idealized female body image at all? This is where Haines’ argument appears to be lacking: by identifying these questions, she would give a more robust rhetorical force to the point she is making. Haines, however, does allude to the possible answers to these questions with the following comment, when she talks about “mixed messages” (191) that the media give, for example, on the one hand, women’s fashion magazines will emphasize idealized thin women and, on the other hand, they will give tips to be confident and possess self-esteem. Arguably, these very mixed messages are a symptom of the greater problem. Namely, in a capitalist society everyone is attempting to market a particular product. There are just as many fast food advertisements on television, if not more, as advertisements for weight loss clinics. The consumerist nature of society emphasizes an endless line of products which some times will seem to be in direct contradiction to what they are offering, precisely because each capitalist entity is trying to maintain their own interest.
In other words, what would have made Haines’ argument stronger is if she tied in her argument to a greater critique of how a capitalist and consumerist society functions. The female body image, from this perspective, is just one product that is being sold, alongside fast food products. The problem is that the generation of profit becomes the ultimate goal: there is no sense of values on a social level which could see the dangers of some of the messages or ideas being sold to the public.
From another perspective, as mentioned, such a greater social critique would perhaps go beyond the audience Haines’ wants to write for. In this sense, the lack of such a greater critique is understandable. She wants to identify with younger readers and arguably provide an introductory view of this topic by recounting experiences and asking questions which this audience can relate to. Her rhetorical decisions in this regard are correct. However, to provide a more robust criticism of the issues discussed, Haines needs to more effectively clarify the possible cause and effect sequence that makes up this phenomenon of idealized body images, so as to offer a better argument of why such images should be opposed.
