Corpos dóceis: as mulheres na academia de ginástica

Abstract

The possibility of women participating in physical activity practices represents one of the many achievements made by the struggles for their rights that they are facing. However, the context and characteristics of these physical activity practices related to the female body can generate questions, since the presence of a female ideal body image that has been persecuted and consumed obstinately is recognized. In this scenario, the gym represents one of the main spaces for the construction of this corporal model. Considering that the appropriation of the physical practice for the production of an ideal body, within the parameters of the myth of beauty, frames the women in standards of a social normatization that reaffirm the control over their bodies, this research seeks to establish relations between the theory of the Michel Foucault’s docile bodies and the search for women for an ideal body in classes at a gymnasium in Curitiba (PR). To reach this goal this research was developed with qualitative methodology of descriptive character and inspired by ethnography. A field experiment was carried out in classes at a gymnasium and a semistructured questionnaire was applied with 26 questions and a questionnaire composed of a set of silhouettes proposed to evaluate the level of dissatisfaction with body image. Based on the collected data, it was possible to establish relationships between the behavior of women and their search for an ideal body with the docile body theory, since we verified that the physical activities observed in the academy have a disciplinary character and the women who practice have as main motivation the search for an ideal body. In this sense, we consider it extremely important to evaluate the pathways and choices of the field of physical education in formation and professional performance, since we have identified that the practice of physical activity may be responsible in this context for inserting the discipline oppressively in the bodies of women stimulating and guaranteeing the survival of the myth of beauty, responsible for reducing their own love to the detriment of a control of their bodies by a male power system.