So all this while, when Medusa had been asked
whether she is concerned about women’s body images for her research, she had
noncommittally nodded her head, thinking body image to be some sort of a
subjective category of how people think of their bodies.
But she was wrong, oh so wrong. Did she know that
it is not subjective at all, it is good and true science, calculable and
quantifiable at the same time? No she did not.
There are several other things that she found
out, in trying to understand this nebulous ‘body image’:
1. Body image, an important concern in
experimental psychology, assumes that a person (and since all the experiments
in this context are always carried out on women, here, a woman) should be able
to perceive her body objectively and more or less accurately as she would some
inanimate object.
(Because bodies are just that-
inanimate objects)
2.
Accurate perception means perception
in terms of metres, centimetres, inches etc. So basically, if one can look at a
book and say that this is six inches long, one should be able to say that her
calf is twenty inches wide.
(So, those people who can not
objectively perceive lengths etc., can not have a body image?)
3.
‘Body image’ is usually suffixed with
disturbance or problem- it is diagnosable and therefore treatable by a change
in individual attitude.
(Yes of course.)
4.
There are complex experiments carried
out to diagnose body image disturbance and build generalisations around them.
These experiments include: having a woman measure the approximate width of her
thigh/ shin/ stomach along with the lengths of a slant of light gradually
reducing. Looking at distorted mirrors, or feeling up oneself in front an
observer, constitute this very scientific and highly complicated experiment.
(Not something one can easily
understand.)
And there’s more, researchers have concluded that
there are certain indices of body image dissatisfaction that can tell the
experimented-on subject exactly how unhappy she is with her body.
They are:
∞Body image perception index: perceived size (multiplied by) 100 / real
size.
(So, if one thinks one’s waist is 36 inches while
in reality it is only 34 inches, then one should be able to calculate exactly
how dissatisfied she is.)
∞Body parts satisfaction scale,
∞Body image avoidance questionnaire, etc.
Hence, one could potentially have a negative or a
positive body image perception rating, but in this case, both negative and
positive would be negative, right? PLUS, these highly sophisticated researchers have
also concluded that almost all women suffer from body image disturbance- in
terms of overestimation (i.e. they think they are bigger than they are). Some
overestimate the size of certain sections of their bodies, some do so as a
whole.
And this is where Medusa was confused. Because to
her, the limits of her body are not necessarily limited, bounded by definite
boundaries. It varies from day to day, week to week, mostly unnoticed by her.
What she does know, however, is this:
If there is a stool or a chair with legs on the
floor that she has to pass by, she WILL stub her toe in it.
If there is a door that she has to go through,
she WILL graze her arm or her elbow on its side. And kindly note, not on both
the sides, this is not about her thinking herself to be thinner than she is,
instead, this is about not knowing where she ends and “inanimate” objects
start. The liminal state of her hair is another case in point- its ends get
caught in her bag, other bodies on her bed find themselves entangled with it,
she herself pulls it on occasions, not knowing it to be her hair. She therefore
walks about in the world, in an often painful haze of stubs, pricks, pulls,
grazes and shoves- trying to navigate between bodies and beings.
If the body image scientists were right, then,
Medusa would have thought herself to be bigger than she is, and would have
always managed an area of space between the limits of her body and that of
another- the spatial version of her body image perception rating: surely
something the scientists could scientifically come up with?
The absence of which, coupled with the fact that
Medusa DOES NOT THINK SHE IS ANY THINNER, ever (!!!!!), one must conclude, the
scientists, despite their scientific experiments, must have been wrong after
all.
